PNVS

[Rogue Trooper]

How superb does the helmet mounted display look in those videos!

PNVS (Pilot Night Vision System) looks superb; I am really looking forward to seeing that in VR! night vision Images overlaid onto the right eye only, Left eye reading the bright cockpit instruments perfectly! This will be very special in VR.

I note in Wag’s introduction video, at 3minutes 18seconds he uses the PNVS and looks down and right. The displayed PNVS image kind of refreshes blank in the direction of Wag’s head movement,.... is this caused by the mechanical lag in the PNVS turret? ….. It would be so cool if that is modelled!

Something I never ever thought about before was how the PNVS was displayed on the monocle, I always thought it would display over the total circle of the monocle…… but obviously not! It is a simple mechanical rectangular image! . 

A simple TV screen superimposed onto the flight display data…. So rudimentary, so junky simple, so cool.

Another thing I never thought of is that the PNVS has no roll axis, it is bolted to the airframe and therefore tracks the artificial horizon perfectly regardless of the pilots head orientation. This rectangular PNVS Image tracks the artificial Horizon perfectly and must be very useful for the pilot to understand his roll Attitude during a turn at night.

The look down capability of the PNVS/TADS system is pretty impressive in these videos, it is like looking through steel!

Yup, ED is gonna give me a whole lotta schooling with this module.

Whichever way you look at it, whatever point of view you have, whatever country you belong too or have allegiance too…… I reckon there is a really really Bad Dog coming to DCS world.

 

[Remco]

1 minute ago, Rogue Trooper said:

I note in Wag’s introduction video, at 3minutes 18seconds he uses the PNVS and looks down and right. The displayed PNVS image kind of refreshes blank in the direction of Wag’s head movement,.... is this caused by the mechanical lag in the PNVS turret? ….. It would be so cool if that is modelled!

It was still incorrectly modelled in the introduction video, the frame of the video doesn't lag behind like that. You can see it's been corrected in Wags' later HDU video, where its the video feed itself that lags behind, but stays centered on the monocle.

3 minutes ago, Rogue Trooper said:

Something I never ever thought about before was how the PNVS was displayed on the monocle, I always thought it would display over the total circle of the monocle…… but obviously not! It is a simple mechanical rectangular image! . 

A simple TV screen superimposed onto the flight display data…. So rudimentary, so junky simple, so cool.

It's literally a CRT tube strapped to the side of your head projected onto that monocle in front of your eye, its pretty old tech, but it works.

[Rogue Trooper]

Yes I noted it in the later video that the PNVS image alone lags, I think in real life it smears the image badly.... but I do not know. 

Edited November 8, 2021 by Rogue Trooper

[doedkoett]

There is still that very short lag when turning the head/sensor and the stabilisation gear is fighting against the movement, which i recognise from other stabilised optics I’ve played around with - from the main sight of a Leopard 2 tank to the stabilisation in my telephoto lens.

I have no Idea if that is true also for the PNVS, but I am sure some of you guys can tell us. 

[Remco]

Just now, Rogue Trooper said:

Yes I noted it in the later video that the image alone lags, I think in real life it smears the image badly.... but I do not know. 

It actually looks quite spot on in the HDU video, we may or may not have given ED some advice after seeing the PNVS as it was in that introduction video 

[Rogue Trooper]

there will be an IRL Apache boy here soon... I am sure!

[Remco]

Just now, Rogue Trooper said:

there will be an IRL Apache boy here soon... I am sure!

There already is.

[Rogue Trooper]

Oh I say!

I am blushing!

 

so the second video on the projected monocle looks good?

[Rogue Trooper]

Just watching the second vid, helmet mounted sight vid again, For you it looks good?

Seems to be little delay in turret movement, I guess this could be so with military Engineering.

[Remco]

Just now, Rogue Trooper said:

Just watching the second vid, helmet mounted sight vid again, For you it looks good?

Seems to be little delay in turret movement, I guess this could be so with military Engineering.

Yes there's a delay in the PNVS movement so the video may need to catch up when you move your head, the physical PNVS turret can only move so fast. But the video stays centered in the HDU, its just straight up the feed from the PNVS camera projected onto your eye, and the PNVS turret follows your helmet movement, nothing more nothing less.

[Rogue Trooper]

Sweet! Are you on the test team Remco or just waiting for our DCS Apache?

 

[kgillers3]

Don’t know if it will be modeled but the tads will lag behind d when you’re using it as a sensor so you have to move your head slower. Pnvs you really gotta be whipping your head around to a point that you’re not flying anymore just trying to spatially disoriented 

Edited November 9, 2021 by kgillers3

[Remco]

31 minutes ago, kgillers3 said:

Don’t know if it will be modeled but the tads will lag behind d when you’re using it as a sensor so you have to move your head slower. Pnvs you really gotta be whipping your head around to a point that you’re not flying anymore just trying to spatially disoriented 

 

True, but that'll be quite a bit easier to do in DCS without a heavy helmet on your head and the movement exaggeration of headtracking.

[kgillers3]

20 hours ago, Remco said:

True, but that'll be quite a bit easier to do in DCS without a heavy helmet on your head and the movement exaggeration of headtracking.

Yeah you’re not wrong, 1:4 movement = 180 head spin or what ever you have it set too with track ir, didn’t correlate it thanks

Which means tads… eeeee

Edited November 9, 2021 by kgillers3

[kgillers3]

@Rogue Trooper i truly hope nvs is a semi realistic experience. It’s by far one of the hardest things I’ve done or had to learn. Day flying is easy. But flying off the camera is a whole different world. I don’t expect a 1-1 experience personally but I hope it’s real enough that you get a taste and have fun doin it.  

[Hummingbird]

So IRL there is this slight delay between moving your head and the PNVS image moving?  Makes sense if so, just wondering.

[kgillers3]

1 hour ago, Hummingbird said:

So IRL there is this slight delay between moving your head and the PNVS image moving?  Makes sense if so, just wondering.

Not noticeable with the pnvs really. There’s probably some but it’s not noticeable. You’d have to really whip your head around. If you’re using the tads instead of the pnvs as the nvs it’s rate of slew is slower and you can noticeably tell it lags behind and it’ll mess with you if you’re moving your head too fast. So you just turn your head slower. How that comes across in game idk 

Just to be clear so there’s no confusion, both the pnvs and tads can be used as night vision sensors (nvs) by either seat but bs defaults to pnvs and front seat defaults to tads as a sensor. 

[kgillers3]

Now granted you can probably whip your head around easier in game with track ir so idk

[Mad Dog 762]

We are apparently getting the M-PNVS and presumable the M-TADS as well?  I guess higher resolution in both?  Also, I see the M-PNVS has an additional sensor window.  I read something (but did not really pay attention at the time) that the M-PNVS uses both FLIR and IR to give kind of a "merged" image?  Can anyone expound on that?  

[Remco]

2 minutes ago, Mad Dog 762 said:

I read something (but did not really pay attention at the time) that the M-PNVS uses both FLIR and IR to give kind of a "merged" image?  Can anyone expound on that?  

Negative, IR/FLIR fused sensor is an Echo only feature.

4 hours ago, Hummingbird said:

So IRL there is this slight delay between moving your head and the PNVS image moving?  Makes sense if so, just wondering.

Not so much an inherent delay, it responds practically instant to the point you don't notice a delay at all. It's just that the speed the turret can physically slew at is limited, so it may not keep up with very fast head movement. And in his video Wags is using trackir, which obviously gives you much snappier head movement than in the real world, so its easier to notice.

[Raptor9]

43 minutes ago, Remco said:

Negative, IR/FLIR fused sensor is an Echo only feature.

While it is certainly present on the Echo, the Delta's have had this feature even before the Echos had it, and of course both fleets have it now.

EDIT: But no, it wasn't present in the 2005-2010 Deltas though.  When the MTADS system was first fielded, the MPNVS side of it had the additional window/housing from the get go, but it was there as a "future growth" option.  That growth eventually happened, but for the most part of the early MTADS years the additional window on the MPNVS was an empty shell.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Raptor9

[Hummingbird]

1 hour ago, Remco said:

Not so much an inherent delay, it responds practically instant to the point you don't notice a delay at all. It's just that the speed the turret can physically slew at is limited, so it may not keep up with very fast head movement. And in his video Wags is using trackir, which obviously gives you much snappier head movement than in the real world, so its easier to notice.

 

Ok, because in Wags video there appears to be lag even when he's moving the head at way less than 120 deg/sec, even when he's moving his head up and down slowly like at 10:46 min:

 

Anyway thanks for the answers Remco & kgillers

Edited November 10, 2021 by Hummingbird

[kgillers3]

I mean not everything will be 1-1 and I’m no programmer but that’s gotta be terribly hard to get tuned right. I imagine it’ll break a couple times in game and then it’ll smooth out with updates 

Edited November 10, 2021 by kgillers3

[Hummingbird]

Copy that, not expecting things to be perfect in EA, just good to know what to look forward to further up the line