Sunglasses for the pilot

[Germane]

Flying against the sun can be very blinding so that you can no longer see the hud, runway etc. It would be good if you could use the tinted helmet visor or sunglasses. At the touch of a button you could drive it up and down. In my opinion this would be a useful feature.

[Sacarino111]

50 minutes ago, Germane said:

Flying against the sun can be very blinding so that you can no longer see the hud, runway etc. It would be good if you could use the tinted helmet visor or sunglasses. At the touch of a button you could drive it up and down. In my opinion this would be a useful feature.

HI.

Yep, the C-101 has (or had, long time since I used it) a similar feature, but the screen is not tinted enough, for my liking, but i is a cool feature.

Saludos,

Saca111

[Swordsman422]

A visor function would be pretty neat, seeing as how there actually is one on the helmet. Unfortunately, in my experience flying into the sun in real life isn't much better with sunglasses or visor on. It just makes the glare bearable enough to read your instruments and find your horizon.

[WarbossPetross]

MiG-21 has a visor. Toggle it by clicking on the black panel at the base of the gunsight.

[Germane]

vor 23 Minuten schrieb Swordsman422:

It just makes the glare bearable enough to read your instruments and find your horizon.

Well, i would say the possibility to read the instruments and find the horizon is already much better

[near_blind]

I want the Aviators the F-15E WSO is rocking, personally. 

[r4y30n]

Well if you want standard issue…

https://www.randolphusa.com/collections/the-military-aviator?usf_take=360

[Lurker]

The thing is, that modern monitors can't display the color gradient to make this as useful in-game as it can be in real life. The only ones that could come close are OLED displays, which AFAIK are not found in many monitors or VR headsets. 

[Gunslinger22]

I wouldn't mind if we had the pilot look as cool as this. 

 

Edited January 12, 2022 by Gunslinger22

[Q3ark]

That is one filthy looking Tomcat

[RustBelt]

That's one typical looking Tomcat. 

[captain_dalan]

This is a topic that was on my mind for some time, not so much as a request, but more as a question for people that flew them. In the past i was never considering the impact of filters on visibility in general, as i could neither afford nor needed quality lenses for my sunglasses, and spending most of my outdoors in late afternoons or evenings, i never needed them either. 

But in the last few years that changed, and i did start paying attention. My first issue were a G15's and though i was highly skeptical at first, they do seem to effect contrast on bright sunny days. The last example was yesterday morning, as i was driving to work on a cloudy morning with a B15 filter. Again, significant improvement in contrast and thus spotting. Both example involve non-polarized lenses. But, as @Swordsman422 said, those aren't the topic of this thread anyways. 

So my first question is to any people around here that flew the F-14's (maybe @Victory205 can chime in), were the visors on the helmets used by the  F-14's crews standard grey? Or were they tinted in any way?

My second question is, does implementation of filters matter in DCS? When i was playing around with reshade i actually did adjust contrast, sharpness and hue in order to experiment with what made most sense to me, to emulate what i felt was closest to my own impressions. But then DCS changed the lighting model and the performance hit was significant for my machine, so i stopped. As i understand it now, the standard gamma of 2.2 should represent unmodified view through a clear and transparent canopy, so i try to adjust it accordingly within my screen's capabilities. Right now, i find the setting of 2.1 to most closely match most lighting conditions i can test on my latitudes and longitudes. 

But some kind of visor options would be cool, if for nothing else then for role-playing reasons. Heck, i might even program one for me in reshade, if i had any idea what the effects of having it should be.

[Swordsman422]

Knowing something about flight helmets, I can actually chime in a bit. Standard daylight visors on the helmets are smoke grey and have about the same effectiveness of unpolarized sunglasses. They do cover a much larger area, so you don't have gaps in your peripherals like sunglasses do. But that's the standard daylight visor. There are gradient visors which are fully transparent at the cheek/mask line that fade to shaded towards the brow. Iridium visors also exist, which offer about the same protection as iridium sunglasses. Finally, you can also get spectral visors, which block against a particular color of light, but they can tint your vision and thus negatively affect your ability to read or see specific colors. If I was ever doing any flying that required a helmet, I just used either the standard or gradient visor.

[r4y30n]

You wouldn't be wearing them in the plane anyway.
Per FAR 31-34: "Polarized lenses are not recommended for use in the aviation environment. While useful for blocking reflected light from horizontal surfaces such as water or snow, polarization can reduce or eliminate the visibility of instruments that incorporate antiglare filters. Polarized lenses may also interfere with visibility through an aircraft windscreen by enhancing striations in laminated materials and mask the sparkle of light that reflects off shiny surfaces such as another aircraft’s wing or windscreen, which can reduce the time a pilot has to react in a “see-and-avoid” traffic situation."
 
That isn't to say that people don't. I've seen some dumbass shit at the airfield worse than this. I can't because the instruments and G1000 in the plane I fly turn unreadable when I wear them. Anyone with an aircraft with anti-glare instruments or screens (probably including military jets) shouldn't.
 

Oh, the polarized glasses are for civvies. Randolph also took over the military contract for HGU-4/P non-polarized glasses from American Optical in 1978.

[IronMike]

I will put it in our tracker as a suggestion. How very useful this turns out in game, given the range of monitors and VR headsets, is to be seen, but if we find time, we will look into it. Thank you!

[Bremspropeller]

[Germane]

vor 38 Minuten schrieb IronMike:

I will put it in our tracker as a suggestion. How very useful this turns out in game, given the range of monitors and VR headsets, is to be seen, but if we find time, we will look into it. Thank you!

Sounds great! I saw the MIG 29 has something similar for its HUD. In any case it is a cool feature!

[Swordsman422]

Maybe instead of sunglasses, animate the visor and have moving it be in the Jester menu. "Hey Jester, visor's up/down." Though TBH, regulations usually require visors be down at least in critical phases of flight.

Though having a clear or tinted visor depending on night or day flying would be neat.

[captain_dalan]

On 1/13/2022 at 3:59 PM, IronMike said:

I will put it in our tracker as a suggestion. How very useful this turns out in game, given the range of monitors and VR headsets, is to be seen, but if we find time, we will look into it. Thank you!

If the effect is as what @Swordsman422  describes, then i doubt it will be of any use, or at the very least it won't be different then dropping your gamma setting a few points, but it would be nice to have  from a cosmetic point of view 

[SundownSix]

The thing is, that modern monitors can't display the color gradient to make this as useful in-game as it can be in real life. The only ones that could come close are OLED displays, which AFAIK are not found in many monitors or VR headsets. 

DCS in VR (and in general) is pretty dim compared to how things would look in real life. I actually already rationalize that the pilot has his visor down to explain for why it looks so dark.

[draconus]

@SundownSix I don't share your experience - my VR view look fine.

@Swordsman422 What would Jester have to do with our visors?

Visors simulation could be a nice feature.

[Swordsman422]

12 hours ago, draconus said:

@Swordsman422 What would Jester have to do with our visors?

The animation for moving visors could apply to him as well, so it's more immersive (there's that word again) for some communication than just a hotkey to apply to both.

[Cab]

34 minutes ago, Swordsman422 said:

The animation for moving visors could apply to him as well, so it's more immersive (there's that word again) for some communication than just a hotkey to apply to both.

I don't think any communication between pilot and RIO is necessary. The rules for visor up/visor down are pretty well known by everyone:

1. Camera moves in for close up - visor up

2. Engaging an enemy or ground target - visor down

3. Destroying enemy target/pulling off target - Visor up (also accompanied by yanking off O2 mask)

[IronMike]

For Jester we would most likely implement a logic for himself, depending on situation + conditions.

[SundownSix]

@SundownSix I don't share your experience - my VR view look fine.

DCS in VR doesn’t approach the feel and brightness of a sunny day at 20K feet. There’s a slight dimness due to how it’s tonemapped that feels more pronounced on the limited brightness levels of most VR displays.

It’s not just DCS. No VR headset really comes close to producing the brightness levels of brightly lit outdoors. Hopefully things will change with better screens and HDR to at least close the gap a little.

Things feel a bit better when brightness and contrast are bumped up a tad in ReShade, but the sky and sun starts to clip. This is where HDR would also help a ton.