When we get a Navy Phantom it should have the VTAS helmet mounted sights

[Top Jockey]

On 3/8/2023 at 12:58 AM, Biggus said:

And anyone that likes a later Phantom isn't a real enthusiast?

Sorry, I can't agree with that.  I've used sims since the late 80s and the single greatest desire for me has been to have a late J or an S.  You can have your own desires, but there's no need to belittle or gatekeep the desires of others.

And as others have said, if you don't want to use VTAS, don't use it.  It's perfectly historically accurate to not use it, because plenty of squadrons ignored it.  It's a very limited system with only around 20 degrees of off-boresight capability, best used for pulling a bit of lead before a tail aspect sidewinder shot.  Worked well with Sparrows too, but the main intention was to help crews get into better parameters for a fox-2.

 

Hello,

This system ( VTAS ) spikes my curiosity a lot, essentially because of its originality, rudimentar and pioneer technological aspects.

Regarding the bold, on the 20 degrees off-boresight.

With such a limited (angle wise) off-boresight capability, probably its line of sight gimbal limits are:

- horizontal, inside the cockpit front frame arc - the 2 'windows' at each side of the HUD

- vertical, not too much above the cockpit front frame arc

Something like this ?

[Biggus]

5 hours ago, Top Jockey said:

 

Hello,

This system ( VTAS ) spikes my curiosity a lot, essentially because of its originality, rudimentar and pioneer technological aspects.

Regarding the bold, on the 20 degrees off-boresight.

With such a limited (angle wise) off-boresight capability, probably its line of sight gimbal limits are:

- horizontal, inside the cockpit front frame arc - the 2 'windows' at each side of the HUD

- vertical, not too much above the cockpit front frame arc

Something like this ?

I don't think I did a very good job of wording what I said.

The ~40 degree limit was really the limit of the Sidewinder seeker.  I believe that the actual helmet gimbal limits are closer to 75 degrees in azimuth and elevation.

[Top Jockey]

On 11/14/2023 at 3:07 AM, Biggus said:

I don't think I did a very good job of wording what I said.

The ~40 degree limit was really the limit of the Sidewinder seeker.  I believe that the actual helmet gimbal limits are closer to 75 degrees in azimuth and elevation.

 

Thank you.

Let's see if Heatblur eventually decides to implement these systems ...

[throAU]

guessing 1970s helmet mounted tech was heavy. you’re talking pre carbon fibre, pre electronics miniaturisation, on top of helmets no doubt already made with heavier than modern materials.

 

under G multiply the weight. that additional fatigue will be felt every time the pilot turns the jet, whether in a dogfight or not.  probably made it much more painful to look over shoulder whilst under g load; likely more than negating the benefit of some small off bore sight capability  

 

as someone who regularly rides with a motorcycle helmet and has noticed improvements in tech being a real world comfort improvement over the past 20 years due to lower weight and better aerodynamics (without multiplying the weight difference due to g loading) i am not surprised it wasn’t liked. 

 

if it gets modelled in the sim, it should come with some form of pilot g tolerance penalty.  how much? how to implement? who knows. probably a simulation issue…

Edited December 20, 2023 by throAU

[Biggus]

Modelling human factors penalties should be a sim-wide undertaking if it's going to be done at all.  Not just helmet weight, but also the weight of control forces and the effect of weight and effort over time.  I'd like to see it done, but it's a pretty large can of worms.

[upyr1]

On 3/17/2023 at 5:52 PM, exhausted said:

OK, but only if you promise to fly like a fighter pilot and not like the product of TAC trying to save its budget from SAC by cutting training costs  

In all seriousness, if we were only ever going to get a version of the Phantom that can't land on carriers, then I was really hoping for an F-4D for its sexy shape and capabilities. 

 

As much as I want the E, I hope we can get the D as well. My understanding the D would basically have a navy flight model and share a lot of avionics with the e. 

[upyr1]

On 3/8/2023 at 10:56 AM, LanceCriminal86 said:

Folks, things being "optional" isn't the problem here, it's the level of effort to implement in the first place whether you think you want to turn it off and on.

VTAS presents a good number of hurdles, many of which I've already run into as a collector, namely being:

1) Preserved examples for scanning/fitting/modeling/weighing

2) Photos of the helmet in use for skins, timeframe of use

3) Photos/diagrams of the complete setup including where all the wires and plugs run, where the IR boxes are and what they look like, processes for starting up/enabling VTAS, actual limitations of use, reticle, troubleshooting.

these are legitimate reasons not to have them. However, if it is difficult to model them correctly then the discussion is moot.

[throAU]

On 12/21/2023 at 7:46 AM, Biggus said:

Modelling human factors penalties should be a sim-wide undertaking if it's going to be done at all.  Not just helmet weight, but also the weight of control forces and the effect of weight and effort over time.  I'd like to see it done, but it's a pretty large can of worms.

yup, agreed and this is why i think simulating something like the VTAS helmet which likely had significant penalties in real world use is not “worth it” for the f4.

Human comfort factors are often as or more important as machine factors in determining effectiveness but unfortunately there’s no an easy way to simulate some of them.

[303_Kermit]

to be honest I can imagine some "Inertia effect" while "G" forces rise. Probably I would be hard to simulate, and all the work would lead players to conclusion, that it's not useful in dogfight. Like it was in original.

Interesting fact is, that Heatblur introduced a possibility of having different helmets, so the subject is not dead.

Regards

Edited December 26, 2023 by 303_Kermit

[Dragon1-1]

11 hours ago, 303_Kermit said:

to be honest I can imagine some "Inertia effect" while "G" forces rise. Probably I would be hard to simulate, and all the work would lead players to conclusion, that it's not useful in dogfight. Like it was in original.

I suspect the "not useful in a dogfight" thing was more related to the fact that the missiles it was used with didn't have a whole lot of off-boresight capability. If you could lock onto something with VTAS, you could probably also lock it up with the radar and slave the Sidewinder to it. Not sure if VSL was a thing in the Phantom, but with Sidewinders of the era, it'd have been more useful than a helmet sight. It was only with R-73 and AIM-9X that helmet cueing really came into its own.

[303_Kermit]

53 minutes ago, Dragon1-1 said:

I suspect the "not useful in a dogfight" thing was more related to the fact that the missiles it was used with didn't have a whole lot of off-boresight capability. If you could lock onto something with VTAS, you could probably also lock it up with the radar and slave the Sidewinder to it. Not sure if VSL was a thing in the Phantom, but with Sidewinders of the era, it'd have been more useful than a helmet sight. It was only with R-73 and AIM-9X that helmet cueing really came into its own.

Pilot reports tell about heavy weight, and wrong center of gravity (while G rises helmet front lowers down on the eyes, and limits the visibility forward-up in fight). These solutions were warm accepted on AH-1 Cobra, but F-4 needs something lighter, and better balanced.

regards

Edited December 27, 2023 by 303_Kermit

[Biggus]

There are also accounts of pilots that loved VTAS.  Being able to slew the radar quickly without needing to coordinate with the RIO, being able to pull lead so that you can take a few seconds to ease up on the G for an in-parameters sidewinder launch, etc.  Hell, just knowing where your seeker is looking is a big deal.

Focusing on the weight of the helmet in a Phantom is going to be silly if we're going to end up fighting MiG-17s that can sustain near infinite 6G turns with no pilot fatigue.

[Top Jockey]

12 hours ago, Dragon1-1 said:

I suspect the "not useful in a dogfight" thing was more related to the fact that the missiles it was used with didn't have a whole lot of off-boresight capability. If you could lock onto something with VTAS, you could probably also lock it up with the radar and slave the Sidewinder to it. Not sure if VSL was a thing in the Phantom, but with Sidewinders of the era, it'd have been more useful than a helmet sight. It was only with R-73 and AIM-9X that helmet cueing really came into its own.

 

9 hours ago, Biggus said:

There are also accounts of pilots that loved VTAS.  Being able to slew the radar quickly without needing to coordinate with the RIO, being able to pull lead so that you can take a few seconds to ease up on the G for an in-parameters sidewinder launch, etc.  Hell, just knowing where your seeker is looking is a big deal.

Focusing on the weight of the helmet in a Phantom is going to be silly if we're going to end up fighting MiG-17s that can sustain near infinite 6G turns with no pilot fatigue.

 

Fully agree.

Doesn't make much sense (for me at the least), not featuring a system because is was somewhat cumbersome to use when it first appeared IRL.

I can understand difficulty in finding the necessary documentation to fearure it correclty, but I'm sure it is possible to eventually gatter it.

[Ramstein]

On 11/13/2023 at 7:07 PM, Biggus said:

I don't think I did a very good job of wording what I said.

The ~40 degree limit was really the limit of the Sidewinder seeker.  I believe that the actual helmet gimbal limits are closer to 75 degrees in azimuth and elevation.

we took a lit cig on the flightline with the F-4 Phantom, front of the Aim-7 and watched the eye follow the lit cig. it followed it end to end of it's travel... 1980. FYI. USAF Vet.

[Cab]

6 minutes ago, Ramstein said:

we took a lit cig on the flightline with the F-4 Phantom, front of the Aim-7 and watched the eye follow the lit cig. it followed it end to end of it's travel... 1980. FYI. USAF Vet.

I think you meant the AIM-9

[Ramstein]

On 1/21/2024 at 4:15 PM, Cab said:

I think you meant the AIM-9

your right... aim-9... the other weapon they carried was the A-G. I took these photo on Zulu pad Alert East German Border. 1980. While working the flight line. Old age.. memory crap.

Some of my photos are different, because I took buttloads of slides in those days, and rescanned them.

Edited January 23, 2024 by Ramstein

[Bremspropeller]

@LanceCriminal86 this dude seems to be wearing a VTAS helmet at around 2:09. Can you confirm or deny?

 

[LanceCriminal86]

19 hours ago, Bremspropeller said:

@LanceCriminal86 this dude seems to be wearing a VTAS helmet at around 2:09. Can you confirm or deny?

 

Yes, that looks like a VTAS II based on the visor housing and protrusions. There have been accounts of limited use of it into the early 80s but by then it was an individual choice for the most part, and depending on if the system was up. Most chose not to use it and wore a standard APH-6 or HGU-33 helmet.

The video is at least from their '81-'82 cruise, as they had F-4Ns during their previous cruise through '80. It appears the VTAS system was "abandoned" around '79 so squadrons or pilots holding onto it for a few years longer makes sense until it was removed from inventory wholesale. There were apparently some commanders that insisted on the system being up, and pilots that preferred to use it when it was operable so seeing it here and there into the early 80s isn't out of place.

[Bremspropeller]

Awesome, thanks for the input!

[Ramstein]

1980 the VTAS on F4-E4 was on the helmet, on a small extension so it could be put over the left eye, it was about a 2 inch square. I have no clue if it was moved to other side of helmet or not. I wore one helmet with it in an F4, I was told by crews the pilots did not like them when they first came out.

[fl120]

On 3/8/2023 at 5:56 PM, LanceCriminal86 said:

Folks, things being "optional" isn't the problem here, it's the level of effort to implement in the first place whether you think you want to turn it off and on.

VTAS presents a good number of hurdles, many of which I've already run into as a collector, namely being:

1) Preserved examples for scanning/fitting/modeling/weighing

2) Photos of the helmet in use for skins, timeframe of use

3) Photos/diagrams of the complete setup including where all the wires and plugs run, where the IR boxes are and what they look like, processes for starting up/enabling VTAS, actual limitations of use, reticle, troubleshooting.

I have a VTAS II in my collection, with stick grip and IR boxes and manual.
So that problem is off the table. 

[fl120]

On 3/9/2023 at 10:07 PM, LanceCriminal86 said:

Feedback I'm seeing from Phantom pilots was VTAS again being potentially great, WHEN it worked, which from the maintainer and crew inputs often it wasn't. Feedback about it adding a whole new list of things to down a jet before the flight or the system being INOP. The trackers in the cockpit often had issues and required protective coatings and such to frequently be replaced, wiring hassles, the helmet sensors being somewhat fragile. Basically by the end of the 70s the Navy crews weren't using it anymore on Ns/Js/Ss, maybe the Marines did a little longer but it sounded like they ditched it too due to upkeep vs benefits. A paper on head tracking helmets, particularly Honeywell systems like VTAS, mirror the Navy divesting interest by 1979. So whoever said VTAS was getting use well into the 80s, cruise photos and personal accounts seem to show that not to be the case. VTAS boxes were left in the jets as you can see them on the canopy rails, but no VTAS helmets present at all in the 80s cruises. They either converted the helmets back to a traditional configuration or went with replacement APH-6s or HGU-33s. One of my two helmets from the PMTC/Pt. Mugu is a VTAS I with a standard single visor APH-6 housing fitted. The guy that wore it in the backseat said it was noticeably more difficult to keep his head up during maneuvers when he rode with VX-4, and very fatiguing. VTAS II are exceedingly rare to find on the collector side, and stand out pretty sharply in photos due to their offset visor housing knobs.

I did find out that there is a "manual" of sorts out there for use of the VTAS in the Phantom II, but it appears to be exceedingly rare and not looking good to be able to find a copy. It might be able to fill in some of the blanks that would be missing from any F-4J/N/S manuals, but have to actually acquire one first to get it scanned.

As to ACEVAL/AIMVAL, nothing I can share openly but "Roger, ball!.." covers a lot of the pre-event training and then lessons learned from the event. It sounds like somewhere out there is a report from one of the big T&E departments in the DoD that discusses the major flaws of the test itself being the scenarios and ROEs. It essentially forced a slanted result because of how the scenarios were being run, allowing the pilots to "game" the system to get wins because they didn't actually have to defend an objective or deny the enemy, not to mention the numbers of aircraft involved didn't really reflect realistic scenarios. Plus they were all seasoned pilots, and they also had full knowledge about their adversaries as they had trained together. And probably because the takeaway that was chosen from ACEVAL/AIMVAL was "we need longer range fire/forget missiles" due to high attrition and 1:1 kill exchanges in the testing, which also killed AGILE (that could actually have made VTAS worth it), it seems to be why VTAS was skipped on the F-14 and phased out of F-4 use.

The manual is pretty limited... but interesting nontheless. Here's a screen from the first two pages.
I found the manual and had is scanned.
null

[Top Jockey]

On 8/12/2024 at 10:24 PM, fl120 said:

The manual is pretty limited... but interesting nontheless. Here's a screen from the first two pages.
I found the manual and had is scanned.
null

 

 

Only now I've seen this, very good !

So, does Heatblur go forward with VTAS in the Phantom or not ? 

[LanceCriminal86]

On 3/7/2025 at 2:32 PM, Top Jockey said:

 

 

Only now I've seen this, very good !

So, does Heatblur go forward with VTAS in the Phantom or not ? 

They haven't even decided which Navy Phantom they plan to do, and it's years out most likely.

[Top Jockey]

5 hours ago, LanceCriminal86 said:

They haven't even decided which Navy Phantom they plan to do, and it's years out most likely.

 

Yeah I know, although sometimes I forget that.

Wishful thinking I suppose.