{"id":227268,"date":"2021-02-09T08:32:30","date_gmt":"2021-02-09T08:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=227268"},"modified":"2021-02-11T06:55:32","modified_gmt":"2021-02-11T06:55:32","slug":"f-35-pilot-reveals-the-disappointing-truth-about-the-fighters-cockpit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=227268","title":{"rendered":"F-35 Pilot Reveals the Disappointing Truth About the Fighter\u2019s Cockpit"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>&#8220;I haven&#8217;t met anyone who uses it,&#8221; the pilot says about one pointless feature.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Kyle Mizokami \u2013 Popular Mechanics Jan 26, 2021<\/strong><\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li>An\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.popularmechanics.com\/military\/aviation\/a26630729\/f-35-pilot\/\">F-35 pilot<\/a>\u00a0says the Joint Strike Fighter\u2019s cockpit is a technological wonder, using helmet-mounted displays, voice recognition tech, and touchscreens.<\/li>\n<li>Unfortunately, while all of those features sound great in theory, in practice,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hushkit.net\/2021\/01\/21\/what-is-good-and-bad-about-the-f-35-cockpit-a-panthers-pilots-guide-to-modern-cockpits\/\">they come up short<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>At least one of the features is so useless, the pilot doesn\u2019t know anyone who actually uses it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.popularmechanics.com\/military\/aviation\/a26630729\/f-35-pilot\/\">F-35 Joint Strike Fighter<\/a>\u00a0is probably the most advanced fighter jet flying today. The F-35, a.k.a. the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.popularmechanics.com\/military\/aviation\/a20789594\/the-f-35s-new-much-better-nickname-is-panther\">Panther<\/a>,\u201d is the first jet to use a number of new technologies designed to make it the most lethal and survivable warplane around. The problem? Some of those bells and whistles have landed with a resounding thud.<\/p>\n<p>In an\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hushkit.net\/2021\/01\/21\/what-is-good-and-bad-about-the-f-35-cockpit-a-panthers-pilots-guide-to-modern-cockpits\/\">interview with the excellent aviation magazine\u00a0<em>Hush-Kit<\/em><\/a>, an anonymous Panther pilot describes the F-35\u2019s cockpit and interface system. The pilot says the cockpit itself is \u201cbeautiful,\u201d full of screens that allow you to bring up an incredible amount of information about the fighter with just a few finger swipes, and customize the data to tailor it for the particular mission.<\/p>\n<p>The F-35 is the first to use touchscreen technology. Unlike switches, which take up permanent cockpit space, touchscreens allow the same LCD screen space to be instantly repurposed. One minute, a display could be used to pull up data on an aircraft\u2019s fuel reserves, and the next, it could help target an enemy position on a mountainside. That goes a long way toward simplifying the cockpit and not overwhelming a pilot with wall-to-wall physical switches, dials, and single-use displays.<\/p>\n<p><strong>But the problem with touchscreens, the pilot explains, is a lack of tactile feedback.<\/strong> Switches have a nice, satisfying click that instantaneously lets the user know they were successfully flipped. Almost everyone with a smartphone has touched a virtual button on a touchscreen, expected a result \u2026 and then nothing happens. <strong>The anonymous pilot reports failing to get a result from a touchscreen about 20 percent of the time:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At present I am pressing the wrong part of the screen about 20 [percent] of the time in flight due to either mis-identification, or more commonly by my finger getting jostled around in turbulence or under G. One of the biggest drawbacks is that you can\u2019t brace your hand against anything whilst typing\u2014think how much easier it is to type on a smartphone with your thumbs versus trying to stab at a virtual keyboard on a large tablet with just your index finger.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Other problems include the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/2016\/06\/course-f-35-comes-400000-augmented-reality-helmet\/\">$400,000 custom-fitted \u201cmagic helmet\u201d<\/a>,<\/strong> which replaces the heads-up display (HUD) as well as sensor displays. <strong>The F-35 pilot believes old-fashioned HUDs are superior due to their ability to better display information without the need to \u201cshrink\u201d it to fit the helmet\u2019s field of view.<\/strong> The voice recognition feature also apparently goes completely unused:<\/p>\n<p>Voice input is another feature of the jet, but not one I have found to be useful. It may work well on the ground in a test rig, but under G in flight it\u2019s not something I have found to work consistently enough to rely on. I haven\u2019t met anyone who uses it.<\/p>\n<p>Read about the F-35\u2019s cockpit problems, as well as the pilot\u2019s experiences flying the Panther compared to other aircraft, at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hushkit.net\/2021\/01\/21\/what-is-good-and-bad-about-the-f-35-cockpit-a-panthers-pilots-guide-to-modern-cockpits\/\"><em>Hush-Kit<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.popularmechanics.com\/military\/aviation\/a35310375\/f-35-pilot-reveals-truth-about-fighter-jet-cockpit\/\"><strong>Popular Mechanics<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The F-35 is packed with advanced features: voice recognition technology, touch-screens, helmet-mounted displays. The problem is there&#8217;s little tactile feedback. So none of this helps fly the plane any better. Making the F-35, for many pilots, a turkey not an eagle  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":95945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-227268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Fringe_Science_New_Discoveries_and_Developments"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=227268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":227269,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227268\/revisions\/227269"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/95945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=227268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=227268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=227268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}