Thales, NEUILLY-SUR-SEINE, France: Thales’ TopOwl Helicopter Helmet Mounted Display has been selected to participate in the demonstration of Lockheed Martin’s Modernized Pilot Night Vision System to different US military organizations.
The tour of US bases to demonstrate the capabilities of the Modernized Pilot Night Vision System, required a helmet system capable of providing high accuracy head tracking and high resolution LCD based displays. TopOwl, already in service with the US Marines, was selected by Lockheed Martin for this important capability demonstrator after a thorough evaluation of other helmet-mounted display systems.
The Thales TopOwl Helmet Mounted Sight and Display is being used to demonstrate the utility of helmet projected high resolution FLIR (Forward Looking Infra Red) video on an U.S. Army UH-1 test-bed aircraft.
These demonstration flights, being done under the name “Pathfinder” use TopOwl’s capability to show high resolution FLIR video corrected for head roll but the system offers many other advantages, including:
– Integrated image intensifiers that may be selected via a cockpit or HOCAS (Hands Off Collective And Stick) mounted switch.
– Capability of developing and displaying virtually unlimited symbology corrected for head position.
“To date, multiple flights have been completed for VIP and operational pilots with outstanding results in night conditions. The performance we’ve seen from our LCD demonstrator clearly shows that the right engineering decisions have been made” said Phil Naybour, Vice President, Thales Helicopter Solutions. “The high resolution video coming from the FLIR remains clear and precise even during high speed head movements.”
Thales is designer and supplier of TopOwl, the most advanced Helicopter piloting Helmet mounted Display system available to date. TopOwl is currently in production in its CRT based configuration and has delivered more than 350 systems to both US and International customers in 15 countries. More than 1500 will be delivered over the next 10 years for those programs for which Topowl is already selected.
Thales is a leading international electronics and systems group serving defence, aerospace and security markets worldwide, supported by a comprehensive services offering. Thales offers a capability unmatched in Europe to develop and deploy critical information systems. Thales employs 70,000 people in 50 countries and generated revenues of EUR 10.3 billion in 2006.
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