Night Vision Mode for Cockpit and External View

[smoking_ace420]

I'm surprised ED hasn't added this yet. It would make just flying at night possible as night missions are unplayable for me, so I only fly day and twilight missions. How does one locate a bandit at night during a dogfight without relying on BVR mode? I also know for a fact Soviet pilots had NV systems during the Cold War.

Edited February 11 by smoking_ace420
typo

[Bulldog_1]

I once asked an old F-4E Fighter Pilot how do you dogfight at night. He said "You don't" circa 1982. I suppose that with NVG's it might be a different ball game.

[bies]

They didn't. They were experimenting with NVG since Vietnam. In the late 1980s U.S. pilots were sporadically using quite advanced for the era AN/PVS-5. Even during Desert Storm in 1991 - the last battle of the Cold War - they were flying without NVGs. Even cutting edge late 1980s F-16C Block 40 and AH-64A were using FLIR. Only F-15E had, partially, NVG-compatible cockpit. And this was the US, decisively leading with microelectronics.

The only device the USSR was using, at the end of 1980s, was Очки Ночного Видения-1. It was a simple gen 2 image intensifier, significantly inferior to standard AN/PVS-5 used in NATO aircraft, with poor clarity and low signal-to-noise ratio and poor resolution due to dated microelectronics, small 32 deg. field of view, lack of depth perception, big and bulky, poor reliability and high failure rate, blinded by cockpit's instruments illumination. It was used to takeoff and landings and navigation, not for any kind of air combat, it would be a grave danger - for the pilot wearing it, unable to see his flight instruments.

MiG-29 and Su-27 had non-filtered instrument panels, blinding the googles.
On MiG-29 and Su-25 - limited trials in the late '80s, operationally only in the '90s. On Su-27 rejected due to cockpit lighting issues and overall marginal use.
It was used by special forces Mi-8/17 and Mi-24 pilots in some very specific conditions.

"Dogfighting" wearing NVGs during the Cold War was basically impossible.

Edited April 25 by bies