Rick50

Thank you sir! That's exactly what I had in mind, and the multicolor advantages become very apparent in the video... it's not that it can provide more information (I mean with all green you can put as much data symbology as you wish, but too much green becomes a liability at some point?), but that it probably makes it easier for tactical pilots to process and absorb the same amount of information quicker, more clearly. Perhaps even enough to handle more data in future than with monochromatic green these days.

Slightly off topic: is there any near future developments to make HMD displays color? Or rather, more colors than green? Or does that present visibility issues for the pilot? or maybe a technical limitation? I ask because in my imagination, this would seem to have great utility if we could have multi-color displays... yet I can't recall any serious effort to do this for anything more than arcade games, I've never once heard of even thinking of trying it in real aircraft, I kind of thing there's probably a strong reason it's not been implemented yet? I know that green displays are have a great deal of clarity/visibility for see-through displays, so as a choice it makes perfect sense... but for displaying super complex fusion of information, I'd wish that more colors were available.

I guess we also need to strongly consider current/future HOTAS controls may have a degree of interface control over the systems, that more fully enable mission completion or at least a safe RTB even with degraded displays... I'm not talking about using hat switches to select this weapon or that, but maybe more like controls for menu navigation to get tasks done. And I'm sure they'll give a degree of AI to help determine wants and needs...(cue The Terminator theme song). I do wonder about the toughness of such a large display to the thumps and vibrations of doing combat flight, in particular if missile prox fuses have explosions close by but not quite close enough to kill your plane... or the rough air that very low level flight at treetop level can sometimes experience. But I guess additional backup displays, modern HMD's and partial LAD survivability would go a long way to making these concerns kind of a non-issue?

Keep in mind that available budgets, changing political goals, brand new weapons systems programs and missiles, all can contribute to minor and major changes to present plans... but in this crowd this is like preaching to the choir! It's also worth noting that way back in the day, the Spirit was not supposed to be just 21... Wiki says originally USAF wanted 132 airframes, but due to the end of the cold war, and wanting to reduce some mil spending, the buy got chopped to just 21 units. Now... hindsight being closer to 20/20... the big price was already spent, in development of an extremely new and super complex system... there was not THAT much more to make the full buy. But that would have introduced an absolutely MASSIVE maintenance overhaul costs, over the entire operational lives of the much larger fleet. For this reason, newer stealth has had a huge change to how to do maintenance and keep the stealth coatings easier faster cheaper to replace and maintain. This is one of the major reasons to develop the B-21, along with all the other new improvements... so that the USAF can sorta afford it, and still do all the other things. The "savings" in maintenance for the B-21 vs B-2 is likely similar to the poorer half of the world's nations' total annual defence budgets... all the more amazing when considering all the other thousands of programs, budgets, taskings and future operational needs that fall under the USAF budget. This is why I don't think the B-one B will continue much longer, as it too has significant operating costs... once the upgraded B-52's and say 15 or 20 Raiders go operational, Bone will be gone.

Agreed! Good points raised. On the one hand, PGM delivery has been jammed quite hard in that area of conflict... though seemingly not at airfields. But in future, be it this conflict or others not started yet, commando jamming behind enemy lines will almost certainly become a real problem for some adversaries. Even at "friendly airfields". Maybe with scheduled "shut downs" for PGM deliveries, but then sparked up again to disrupt enemy comms, datalink coordination, and so on. I think that between sporadic GPS signals, INS, triangulating of known fixed radio broadcasts (FM music radio towers, VOR's, cell towers, NDB's) might all help to give a decent enough "position fix" to put you close enough to a friendly airfield that you could get the ILS signal... which could be displayed on HMD... Then there is StarShield, which might offer everything one needs to get home. Maybe.

Parts on fighter jets fail all the time. That's why they are "hangar queens"... I seem to remember the F-15A was noted to require 15 hours of maintenance for an hour of flight, at least back in the 1980's, not sure about today. And that was dead simple compared to the flying fighting supercomputer "do every single airforce job there is" multirole jets of today. The engineers making these jets DO indeed know what they are doing, but the role of even a simple fighter jet is demanding a LOT more strain on materials that make up a jet, than your Chevy or my Toyota. We ask and expect a great deal more of fighters, than our regular vehicles. It's not just parts breaking though, it's also inspections to look for signs of airframes being pushed near or past their limits, looking for signs of invisible cracks using NDT methods. A general rule of thumb seems to be that at any given time, military aircraft will have only 2/3's of the fleet up and ready for combat, the 3rd is either in maintenance or inspections, or awaiting parts. Rich and ready nations might have better and faster maintenance and parts supply, but then they probably also have much more complex aircraft with many more systems needing to be taken care of... huge maintenance difference between an F-5E and an F-22, due to more sophistication and the stealth coatings that need to be repaired and maintained too. As for screens failing in aircraft, sure, in civilian aircraft it does happen, but rarely. I'm no engineer, nor even in aviation, nor airforce during my life, but we are mostly focused in this thread about fighter jets with a single giant screen... and subjecting these to high G's seems to be a fairly new thing. I expect they've been tested extensively, and should have a high "survivable duty" rating. I just thought it interesting to explore the benefits of such giant screens for fighter use, then the rather significant downsides to using a single large screen, and then explore ways that engineers and airforces might find solutions and workarounds to save the day, save the mission... or maybe just saving a pilot and the fighter for repairs! I imagine all of this has been gamed out, then engineered with lots of solutions, but I've seen many times in the real world, where such things were forgotten, not even considered about "what happens if...", only to discover some pretty major problems not even dreamed of. But really I just thought it an interesting thought experiment!

Modern FADEC should be able to give you set programs for endurance, or cruise efficiency per mile on their own without pilot intervention. Particularly for a super advanced fighter of today. Have a solid button on the side console, press and hold for 3 seconds and it illuminates a color to indicate it's mode, different color for another mode. Modern nav systems, should be able to get you right to the runway, much like a cruise missile, and the data from SIDS STARS systems. Precision GPS could do the same job as an ILS, and or ground personel on a data link could select the ILS frequencies for you. Or maybe you have a dozen preprogrammed ILS freqs, and a wheel knob on side console to pick one. When it shows in your HMD, you are golden. One auto nav mode might be a stealthy exfiltration back the way you came, thus not compromising the missions' return path. A different mode might be "fast and direct as possible" in case an interceptor is on it's way to you. A third mode might be "sip fuel limp mode" for maximum fuel efficiency if you are leaking or just low on fuel, might be enough to get home, or at least enough to get to a CSAR pickup point! Although the pilot wouldn't see it, the data link could come in very handy in such a situation: other airforce personnel could monitor your sensors and systems, and give commands to the pilot, or command systems and sensors directly. It would suck in many ways, delays due to network, but it could save the pilot, the airframe, ... maybe even save the mission. Think of it like the pilot is now just a passenger mostly, but now has a dozen guardian angels flying with you, watching over you, setting up AIM-260 shots, doing IFF for you, monitoring ground and air threats, steering your headings, getting your HARM or JDAM set up and fired. Think of it like: this WAS a manned fighter, now it's mostly a UCAV or "loyal wingman" that happens to have a human in it, with eyeballs for a HOBS shot and landing short final. The caveat is that this would need a monster of a datalink with super low latency, a dozen ground personnel that are super competent in a team, in enough numbers, who don't already have many dozens of jobs and tasks in time sensitive situations. Another possibility: if helmet mounted displays ever get full color in insanely high resolution, maybe all that data could be just displayed in helmet... lower quality than the dash display that has now failed, but maybe good enough to fully continue the mission. This does all make me wonder about modern airliners though... if such a screen fails mid-flight.

Hmm... if losing the giant display, not only have you lost ALL your instruments, ALL you tactical situational awareness, ALL your nav data... ALL your stores data, all weapon data, all threat displays, all datalink displays... you'd be resigned to just RTB if that's even a possibility at that time. ... but you've also lost MOST of your buttons and controls that aren't on the HOTAS system... I'd almost advocate for a second redundant screen behind the one that just failed and ejected... but I don't really see that happening. I guess you'd be down to just HMD and HOTAS if your main display dash fails...

It's also worth considering that the B-52 will soon be getting an engine replacement. Yes, that's right, this slow very old tech, that has precisely zero stealth, is intended to fly on in service until it sees 100 years of active duty! Sure, it'll need heavy EW even for long distance standoff wps deployment, but this IS the plan. Meanwhile, once the B-21 comes into service, they'll terminate the B-1B Bone, as it's maintenance costly and doesn't offer significant advantage over the B-52 or B-21.

tryina sneek in under the radar!!

These latest from China (J-50 and J-36) look a lot more stealthy than the J-20 Dragon... then again it looks like they may have different mission sets. To me the J-36 looks to be doing long range strikes, like the Beagle, SU-34, A-12 Avenger /Burrito, and maybe mini-B-21 Raider? The J-50's very long nose looks like it could house side looking radar arrays... recon perhaps? ELINT and or EW ? Something else?

Another Chinese stealth prototype takes to the air, this is different from the 3 engine delta design, this one seems a twin engined single seater: https://www.twz.com/air/chinas-j-50-tailless-stealth-fighter-seen-in-new-imagery

you know, you are right, I'll give it 30 minutes and then delete my discussion on this sub-topic, as it's wildly off topic. Screenshot it if you like, but I don't want to poison the rest of the discussion, risk the whole thread being deleted. If anyone wants to debate further, or ask questions, challenge me on it, I'm game. But I won't do so on ED's forums or this site's PM's. Instead, PM me with an email address, and we could continue by private email. 30 minutes have elapsed, so I have edited my previous posts "Edited: well off topic"

Look, I hope this concept is wrong. That some of us have been lead to a silly notion. I'm just saying, keep an open mind about this as you watch news stories in the future, and remember past events. And I'm done on this sub-topic.