Daily gadget

Predator-Style Helmets Allow Pillots to See Through Planes!

The helmets are packed with the latest technology

By Roxana Deduleasa, Gadget News Editor

10th of November 2007, 15:56 GMT

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When I look at this, I have to say that the fellows from Daily Mail.com were right. It is only the neck and shoulders that prove there is a human being in there somewhere.

And this isn't any Star Trek or Final Fantasy kind of trick, but the next generation of RAF fighter pilots' look, which kinda makes you wish you were in the army.

Since I went hiding under my

bed when seeing this, mostly because of the piercing green eyes staring out from behind the visor, I guess there is nothing more I can say about the design of these way-to-cool accessories.

As Daily Mail puts it, there is no surprise that the helmet has been compared to Arnold Schwarzenegger's killer robot in The Terminator. I would rather say it looks like taken from Halo3. These helmets are said to suit perfectly the pilots flying the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Besides that, they will surely have an astonishing array of technology encasing their heads. Seeing right through their own aircraft fuselage to the ground below is just an integral part.

They will also benefit from the oxygen supply, with air pumped into lungs at higher pressure during extreme conditions. And there is also a face mask with microphone for radio and voice activation control, as well as a digital data cable integrated in the micro-system.

As if those features weren't enough, the makers have also added a nice pair of earphones for radio and synthesized voice information from the PC. The coolest of all, a pair of twin projectors beam the images onto the inside of the tinted visor. The images are taken via a series of cameras placed on the outside of the stealth warplane. They send a bunch of feed high-resolution images into the helmet, as well as fine infra-red images at night, which are then projected on to the inside of the pilot's visor.

However, according to daily Mail: "On-board computers also feed in essential flight and combat data on to the display, as well as superimposing target symbols to locate enemy and friendly aircraft or ground targets, even if they are too far away to see with the naked eye."

Being developed exclusively in the US, the supersonic Joint Strike Fighter is due to replace the Harrier jump jet. Apparently, Britain has announced its intentions of buying 150 aircraft at around �10 billion, or �66 million each. How cool is that?

TAGS:

predator | style | helmets | fighter | radio

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