Ornge Chopper Pilots to get night vision goggles

[jschnurr]

Personally I think this is superfluous, but I don't fly those things...
http://www.metronews.ca/news/toronto/20 ... ggles.html

[plhought]

The STARS guys swear by them in Calgary. Very pricey to make cockpits compatible with them though.

[timel]

Personally I think this is superfluous, but I don't fly those things...
http://www.metronews.ca/news/toronto/20 ... ggles.html

Trust me, night vision is gold for helicopter medevac pilots. This is very good news for safety. It will probably save a few pilots from cfit. I lost a very good friend and experienced pilot because of that.

[iflyroads]

Wow that's actually pretty cool

[The Mole]

Awesome upgrade. Landing at night can be very challenging off airport/heliport.

[xsbank]

You can buy them on eBay, don't suppose they are STC'd, but it looks like a good move to me.

Which reminds me, did they hang that thief Doctor who cheated everyone? Just curious.

[ipilot54]

You can buy them on eBay, don't suppose they are STC'd, but it looks like a good move to me.

Which reminds me, did they hang that thief Doctor who cheated everyone? Just curious.

Nope. No charges were ever laid. It would be too embarrassing for the government....and they promoted the Health Minister!

[AuxBatOn]

You can buy them on eBay, don't suppose they are STC'd, but it looks like a good move to me.

Which reminds me, did they hang that thief Doctor who cheated everyone? Just curious.

Flying on NVG without proper approved equipment, mods and training would be foolish at best but more likely extremely dangerous and reckless.

[teacher]

You can buy them on eBay, don't suppose they are STC'd, but it looks like a good move to me.

Which reminds me, did they hang that thief Doctor who cheated everyone? Just curious.

Nope. No charges were ever laid. It would be too embarrassing for the government....and they promoted the Health Minister!

Of course! The government was briefed all along about what Orange was doing. I have internal sources on the matter. Problem is as a government who got caught with their pants down like what happened at Orange you have a dilemma. You either:

1) admit yo knew what was happening which makes you corrupt
2) claim you didn't know which makes you negligent

Best to focus on fighting climate change, cancelling gas plants and build windmills at tax payers expense and hope people forget, which they have.

[photofly]

The STARS guys swear by them in Calgary. Very pricey to make cockpits compatible with them though.

I'm ignorant. What do you have to do to the cockpit?

[Maynard]

Personally I think this is superfluous, but I don't fly those things...
http://www.metronews.ca/news/toronto/20 ... ggles.html

So a company who had a nighttime CFIT accident that kills everyone on board, now wants to make the job safer and reduce risk, and you think it's unnecessary? Give your head a shake!

[timel]

The STARS guys swear by them in Calgary. Very pricey to make cockpits compatible with them though.

I'm ignorant. What do you have to do to the cockpit?

http://www.asu-nvg.com/services/nvis_modifications/
I heard it is an expensive stc, but mandatory for nvg.
And the set per pilot is 50k each, it is like flying at day time, it does a very nice job.

[jschnurr]

So a company who had a nighttime CFIT accident that kills everyone on board, now wants to make the job safer and reduce risk, and you think it's unnecessary? Give your head a shake!

Maybe I should have said that I think it "sounds" superfluous... These guys were taking off from an airport, over level terrain, in a fully functional helicopter. Of course NVG would be a huge benefit especially in mountainous terrain, as many posters here indicate. But in this case, simply maintaining a positive rate would have avoided a crash. But like I said, I don't fly those things...

[AuxBatOn]

And the set per pilot is 50k each, it is like flying at day time, it does a very nice job.

It absolutely does NOT make night into day. This is probably the most dangerous attitude to have when flying on NVGs. You go from 140 degrees FOV during daytime to 40 degrees with NVGs. You normal night/IFR crosscheck needs to keep going. You just add 1 more item: outside. There are several ways to hurt yourself with NVGs if you are not careful.

Oh, and for the low fliers, LED lights on towers are not visible. You need to peek under the gogs to see them.

[timel]

And the set per pilot is 50k each, it is like flying at day time, it does a very nice job.

It absolutely does NOT make night into day. This is probably the most dangerous attitude to have when flying on NVGs. You go from 140 degrees FOV during daytime to 40 degrees with NVGs. You normal night/IFR crosscheck needs to keep going. You just add 1 more item: outside. There are several ways to hurt yourself with NVGs if you are not careful.

Oh, and for the low fliers, LED lights on towers are not visible. You need to peek under the gogs to see them.

I know a helicopter pilot who tried it and he was amazed by the how the good image was. I did not mean to say, go vfr with nvgs, but I admit the way I said it was confusing.
So yes, it has its limitations. I am glad civilians can enjoy this technology, it is definitely a good investment, if used properly.

[AuxBatOn]

It is still a synthetic image with a very limited FOV and some very real limitations. From experience, it takes more time to process what the NVGs are projecting than the real outside. I fly VFR with them. I just keep a constant crosscheck. But again, it does not make night into day.

[Nark]

I fly helicopters with NVG:
As for STC's and compatible lighting mods, all light sources create a reflection on glass surfaces. Certain lights will washout the the glass, and using the goggles, you can't see past the glairshield. Obviously not a good thing.
You don't actually use the goggles to look at the avionics on the cockpit, you have to look underneath the goggles.

Googles have extremely dangerous considerations and characteristics if you don't know what you are looking for/doing when flying. Like Aux said, you narrow your field of view down to 40* which is not much. Plus you lose depth perception and most binocular cues, that you take for granted.

I'm really surprised night medevac guys haven't been trained and using NVG's already.

[Heliian]

It's not magical and it's a relatively inexpensive method of safety. The use of NVG's aren't for expanding your operational envelope but for improving your safety margins when flying/landing in sparse, dark areas. NVG's are not needed in Toronto but will serve best in the more northern reaches of the country. Ornge has a/c operating in Kenora, thunder bay and sudbury that will highly benefit from this technology.

A set of goggles is about 15g's usd and night vision mods to a/c can cost anywhere from 50,000$usd for basic filters to serveral hundred thousand for specific manufacturer kits. The more expensive conversions don't include core returns for the digital displays and whatnot.

[J31]

Oh, and for the low fliers, LED lights on towers are not visible. You need to peek under the gogs to see them.

A lot of lights are being converted to LED lights....towers, street lamps, runway and heliport lighting, etc.

Is this presenting challenges for night vision goggle operations?

[fish4life]

And the set per pilot is 50k each, it is like flying at day time, it does a very nice job.

It absolutely does NOT make night into day. This is probably the most dangerous attitude to have when flying on NVGs. You go from 140 degrees FOV during daytime to 40 degrees with NVGs. You normal night/IFR crosscheck needs to keep going. You just add 1 more item: outside. There are several ways to hurt yourself with NVGs if you are not careful.

Oh, and for the low fliers, LED lights on towers are not visible. You need to peek under the gogs to see them.

Do they not show any return on LED lights of any type? With everything including lights of other aircraft and even runway lights going to LED now does this not seem like a huge limitation?

[Heliian]

I believe that they are attempting to address the issue of visible obstacle lighting for nvgs. There are combination lights available.

[timel]

A set of goggles is about 15g's usd and night vision mods to a/c can cost anywhere from 50,000$usd for basic filters to serveral hundred thousand for specific manufacturer kits. The more expensive conversions don't include core returns for the digital displays and whatnot.

I checked again, it is 12000$-15000$ for goggles.

[AuxBatOn]

Do they not show any return on LED lights of any type? With everything including lights of other aircraft and even runway lights going to LED now does this not seem like a huge limitation?

No return at all. In an airport environment, you wouldn't want the lights on anyways since they are mostly non-NVG compatible and gain the goggles down, reducing the visial accuity. When I landed on gogs, I would get ATC to turn the running lights, runway and taxiway lights off.

Not a huge factor for me as I don't fly below 1K on gogs, but certaibly an issue for low fliers like helos. I seem to recall hearing that our Griffon crews fly with 1 crew under the gogs and one with the gogs up, to mitigate the obstacle lighting (amongst other things). Yup, they are working on a solution for the lighting, but I don't see the solution found and implemented within the next 5 years... Probably more like 10-15 years...

I don't agree that you can't do more than you used to without goggles. You can indeed do more at night than without. However, you can't do everything you would during daytime: it's an in-between.

[old_man]

Do they not show any return on LED lights of any type? With everything including lights of other aircraft and even runway lights going to LED now does this not seem like a huge limitation?

https://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/ ... 02-695.htm

Basically it is only some red LEDs that don't appear on NVGs.

Only a minute portion of the radiation spectrum is available for human vision and ranges from about 400 to 700 nanometers (nm). Aviation Red lights have an output from about 610 to 700nm. NVGs approved for civil aviation (having a Class B Minus Blue Filter) are sensitive to energy ranging from 665 to about 930nm in the infrared region. Because LEDs have a relatively narrow emission band and do not emit infrared energy [heat] like incandescent lights, it is possible for them to meet Transport Canada requirements for Aviation Red yet may not be observable through NVGs.

Echo by FAA

https://www.faa.gov/other_visit/aviatio ... O09007.pdf

But they will see other things at night like static electricity from landing in dust.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1xWiNRe-Lo

[GyvAir]

The LED light thing is interesting.
Getting a little tangential here, but what happens when someone points one the various toy, or not so toy lasers out there at an NVG equipped pilot? Probably not a likely scenario flying into a dark helipad north of Sudbury, etc... I’m just asking out of curiosity.