Head movement in real F-16
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Just out of curiosity, how much head movement is there in the actual flight in F-16?
How far back can you lean your head on the seat with all that frame behind and around you? Also how much left/right head movement is there under 4G+ if any.Just curious, would love to hear from some RL viper pilots, because of the shape of the seat. Thanks!
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With the hardness unlock, you can hit the canopy with the helmet left/right and hit the HUD.
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It really depends on the combination of the space around you and just how much range of motion you have in your neck - I’m old with a big neck, so my range of motion is limited compared to a young slim guy. At 4 G (I’ve experienced somewhere around 5.8 G in a fighter, and 6 G in a sport biplane - and they in no way compare) you can look just about anywhere you can fit your head (HGU flight helmets are incredibly light), but as Dee-Jay says you can (and often will) hit your head on something that will limit you.
Looking over your shoulder generally requires grabbing a hand hold of some sort and twisting your way around the seat to the left or right - and then will also have the structure behind you not limiting motion but blocking view, as you point out. If you are looking off-axis (i.e.; in elevation and azimuth) you may also find your range of motion limited as compared to simply looking up/down or left/right.
One thing I do know - TIR and natural head movement are in no way representative of one another.
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Thanks to both of you. I will never fly any RL plane, let alone a jet fighter and was wondering about this. My closest experience to this is Top Gun :oops: and some other movies, where those helmets look like they’re 20 pounds heavy.
Totally agree on TIR and natural head movement - that’s why I can’t wait for (hopefully) BMS to implement at least VR. (And science to get us technology for total immersion maybe. 3-4 weeks definitely)
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Personally, I’ve had a LOT of time in RL Training sims with actual switches and I can’t stand VR…because you lose that dimension of actually putting your hands on things, in addition to being able to move your head naturally.
I had an Intern Trainer student a couple years ago that had been working on a VR sim as a senior college project. As soon as we rotated and she put the gear up the first thing I heard over the ICS was - “this SOOOOO beats VR!”.
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Personally, I’ve had a LOT of time in RL Training sims with actual switches and I can’t stand VR…because you lose that dimension of actually putting your hands on things, in addition to being able to move your head naturally.
I had an Intern Trainer student a couple years ago that had been working on a VR sim as a senior college project. As soon as we rotated and she put the gear up the first thing I heard over the ICS was - “this SOOOOO beats VR!”.
I’ve been doing a mostly online flying with our small training focused virtual squadron and have gone back to TIR and a 55" 4k TV at pretty much normal monitor distance after getting BMS to mostly work in VR and about a year of DCS VR before that. #1 thing I miss is the natural 1:1 headtracking of VR. TIR just isn’t the same, even with this large of screen.
For VR, I have the important larger, physical switches still that I would need to use a lot without going head down like gear, master arm, etc. in a button box and switch panel. But forget using the physical smaller buttons of the MFDs/ICP quickly under the headset. The thing that bridged the gap in the DCS VR cockpit for me was PointCtrl, which is very much like TIR for your index fingers for mouse cursor control. The clicky buttons have enough tactile feedback to feel switch/button like and allows for even some realistic knob gestures. So MFD/ICP and other switches/buttons I would look at I would hit with the PointCtrl, if for example, I was on the overhead I would just reach for my physical gear handle. Not being able to get PointCtrl to work because of how BMS/PointCtrl handles mouse cursor screen size and not being able to see the peripheral vison areas that have radio menus makes it hard to use in an MP environment is what has stopped me from going back into BMS VR.
I would also add one thing I hate about DCS VR is how you can lean your head through the canopy.
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It really depends on the combination of the space around you and just how much range of motion you have in your neck - I’m old with a big neck, so my range of motion is limited compared to a young slim guy. At 4 G (I’ve experienced somewhere around 5.8 G in a fighter, and 6 G in a sport biplane - and they in no way compare) you can look just about anywhere you can fit your head (HGU flight helmets are incredibly light), but as Dee-Jay says you can (and often will) hit your head on something that will limit you.
Looking over your shoulder generally requires grabbing a hand hold of some sort and twisting your way around the seat to the left or right - and then will also have the structure behind you not limiting motion but blocking view, as you point out. If you are looking off-axis (i.e.; in elevation and azimuth) you may also find your range of motion limited as compared to simply looking up/down or left/right.
One thing I do know - TIR and natural head movement are in no way representative of one another.
One thing I quickly noticed flying in my cockpit is while wearing a helmet and mask it REALLY limits your view, specially while looking in the cockpit. For reaching those switches behind you like the Test panel etc, you pretty much have to go by muscle memory and feel as you really can’t see them. Wearing all that gear is just a pain in the ass in my opinion for sim flying so I never do it but I was quite shocked on the limited viewing with it on.
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Yeap, one of the first evaluation tests specially for a night strike specialized squadron pilot (like 340, 347 ) is to know each switch by memory in pure darkness.
Additional gear like anti-g vest and jhmcs helmet, and maybe weapon/ammo for operational sorties makes moving difficult.
HAF crews also wear the cold months special suite replacing the classical nomex green flight suite, which is fully water resistant and keeps body warm if the pilot ejects above water. This suite is more like a diver suite rather than airborn gadget…
Add nvg goggles and there,… you can only move your fingers lol
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One thing I quickly noticed flying in my cockpit is while wearing a helmet and mask it REALLY limits your view, specially while looking in the cockpit. For reaching those switches behind you like the Test panel etc, you pretty much have to go by muscle memory and feel as you really can’t see them. Wearing all that gear is just a pain in the ass in my opinion for sim flying so I never do it but I was quite shocked on the limited viewing with it on.
This is something I have to continually point out to my Trainer students - and they aren’t even wearing helmets! And that the more time you’re looking in the cockpit, the less time you are actually in the fight. Totally correct on just how much you end up relying on muscle memory, and also a big part of why I prefer real switches to VR.
And I can agree with you about using flight gear in a sim too - particularly in a Viper sim. Our Trainer got an update with a motion cuing seat and G suit system, and I was one of the first called over to give it an eval. Yes, if you have a center stick the G suit can interfere with your stick movement when inflated…but if you are maneuvering at an elevated gross weight, you are probably not going to have enough G available to even get the suit to inflate. And if you are flying a Viper - with a side stick - the G suit really adds little to nothing at all because it’s never going to limit you from making control inputs.
…plus RL crew hate getting all dressed up and not getting into a RL jet and going flying…so the G suit system in our Trainer gets very little actual use.
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Yeap, one of the first evaluation tests specially for a night strike specialized squadron pilot (like 340, 347 ) is to know each switch by memory in pure darkness.
Additional gear like anti-g vest and jhmcs helmet, and maybe weapon/ammo for operational sorties makes moving difficult.
HAF crews also wear the cold months special suite replacing the classical nomex green flight suite, which is fully water resistant and keeps body warm if the pilot ejects above water. This suite is more like a diver suite rather than airborn gadget…
Add nvg goggles and there,… you can only move your fingers lol
US crews wear a rubber suit like this under their normal flight bag - referred to as a “poopie suit”. I had to help a pilot into one once…I don’t know which one of us got more of a workout! Poopie suits are universally hated.
I also once knew a Harrier pilot that said he cut the collar and cuffs off one and just wore those to keep from getting asked…claiming that if you go down in the north Atlantic - “any survival gear only prolongs the agony”.
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Yeap, one of the first evaluation tests specially for a night strike specialized squadron pilot (like 340, 347 ) is to know each switch by memory in pure darkness.
Additional gear like anti-g vest and jhmcs helmet, and maybe weapon/ammo for operational sorties makes moving difficult.
HAF crews also wear the cold months special suite replacing the classical nomex green flight suite, which is fully water resistant and keeps body warm if the pilot ejects above water. This suite is more like a diver suite rather than airborn gadget…
Add nvg goggles and there,… you can only move your fingers lol
Makes me think about something here … with all that gear on … you better have good air conditioning else you are going to get sick really quick.
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Makes me think about something here … with all that gear on … you better have good air conditioning else you are going to get sick really quick.
These dry suits are to protect the crew from cold sea water, so only used when necessary / the cold months.
But overall, yes this is a general rule! No cold air from ecs = bad things will happen… forget pulling g’s
There is actually a civilian in this forum having flown with a haf viper, where hot weather and cockpit conditions initiated a hell out of bad things… lol
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These dry suits are to protect the crew from cold sea water, so only used when necessary / the cold months.
But overall, yes this is a general rule! No cold air from ecs = bad things will happen… forget pulling g’s
There is actually a civilian in this forum having flown with a haf viper, where hot weather and cockpit conditions initiated a hell out of bad things… lol
That remembers me back when my younger brother joined the Luftwaffe with 74 TacticalWing and was constantly complaining about Flight Gear and tiny cockpits. At that time I was XO of 2nd Company 304th Tank bataillon. So I invited him on a weekend where we trained on Münsingen Training area. I put him for 6 hours onto the gunners seat of a Leopard2 riding through heavy terrain on a day with 30°C.
He never complained again -
Reminds me when I jumped into a Mirage F1 cockpit and they closed the canopy, I was not able to move nothing more than the stick. Don’t know how they managed to live and fight in there!! :noidea:
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At 4:26 you get a pretty good idea how much a pilot can move to see around -
These dry suits are to protect the crew from cold sea water, so only used when necessary / the cold months.
But overall, yes this is a general rule! No cold air from ecs = bad things will happen… forget pulling g’s
There is actually a civilian in this forum having flown with a haf viper, where hot weather and cockpit conditions initiated a hell out of bad things… lol
I can only imagine. sitting in an A320 cockpit with no APU, no ACU in Niamey … is hellish enough and i am only wearing a shirt and a tie …and my pants of course.
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I can only imagine. sitting in an A320 cockpit with no APU, no ACU in Niamey … is hellish enough and i am only wearing a shirt and a tie …and my pants of course.
Why no APU if I may ask?
All the best,
Uwe
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Why no APU if I may ask?
All the best,
Uwe
Hi hoover,
APU do break down. In our case it was the bleed air part that broke down, so we still had the electrical generating part. The area i fly in is tropical and also arid. It is very hot and we run the APU’s constantly, which puts a lot of stress on them. Normally we should use ACU’s to not overuse the APU’s but this is another topic.