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Once there was a program called the "Enhanced Vision System".
Its goal was to equip commercial airliners with synthetic imagery
displayed on a Head Up Display (HUD) in the cockpit, allowing them
to operate in reduced visibility conditions. The synthetic imagery
was to be supplied by either Micro-Millimeter Wave (MMW) radar or
infra-red (IR) sensors.
We integrated a wide-angle, holographic HUD from the cancelled Israeli Lavi program into our system. The HUD displayed both raster images as well as calligraphic (stroke) symbology. We drove the raster with output from the SGI box, rendering a simulated return from a MMW radar. The stroke symbology was generated by a box made by Terabit Engineering out of Utah. We modeled our own symbology set, and ported an airport database model from an E&S SPX-500. The HUD was installed in a wide-body cockpit mockup equipped with a 150 degree horizontal field of view and aligned with the out-the window visual, which was displaying the same airport model through the SPX-500. Pilots and engineers from both NASA and several major airlines evaluated the system. The SPX-500 image was set up for 200 ft visibility at night and the only view the pilots had was what they could see through the HUD. Here are two Polaroid shots I was able to get during the testing.
Click on the thumbnail for a larger image with description.
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