provides the user 20/25 visual acuity. “We use the same eye charts that ophthalmologists do,” Hauquitz said, explaining how visual acuity is measured with the CRVS. On eye charts, 20/20 vision is considered perfect. What looks 20 feet (6 meters) away is 20 feet away. If someone has 20/25 vision, it means something that 20 feet away appears as if it were 25 feet (7.5 meters) away. The capability of the CRVS to give pilots visual simulator acuity of 20/25 or even 20/40 is significant for their training, said Hauquitz, a U.S. Army veteran. “The team knows that our simulators are providing the warfighter the best training available, and as a veteran that means a lot to me,” Hauquitz said. “The closer we can get to real life, the better. We need pilots who can react on instinct, and not have to think. If we can put them in a situation in a simulator that’s going to train them to use their instinct, that’s going to make them better pilots.” Isenberg agreed. Having spent a lot of time training in legacy simulator systems, Isenberg said there are many tactics pilots can now train for using the CRVS that they weren’t able to before, such as formation flying and air-to-air refueling. Training for night vision is also enhanced. To train for night flying on a legacy system, pilots wear goggles that simulate night using a projected image. With the CRVS, pilots fly with actual night-vision goggles and the system stimulates the goggles to create a night scene. “The realism that goes with that is second to none,” Isenberg said. “It’s important to train for night to learn how limited the field-of-view is, and how cues such as line of sight and closure are degraded at night.” Isenberg doesn’t believe training in simulators will ever fully replace the experience of actually flying in an aircraft, but he said a simulator does provide pilots the opportunity to practice routine tasks and hone their skills in an environment that can’t always be replicated in an aircraft, at a significantly reduced cost compared to actual flight time. “I’ll go for a week to the mission training centers,” he said, “and those missions become so advanced by the end of the week that once you go back to flying the aircraft, you feel like you can take on the world—because you’ve just been through the gauntlet in the sim, in an environment that felt so real.” The capabilities and realism of CRVS also means pilots can practice against the next-generation of enemy fighters that don’t yet exist, he said, and prepare for the kinds of threats those aircraft would present. “We have to rely on better training systems in order to practice against these advanced threats,” Isenberg said. “The CRVS takes training to another level, complementing the realism that you get from these really high-fidelity cockpits and introducing those advanced threats that we don’t have assets to replicate in the real world.” So what’s next for the visual system? Hauquitz said Boeing is continuing to develop the CRVS. “By the time you get to 20/25, you’re real world,” Hauquitz said. “Next we’ll bring in motion, and other technology that the jets have. If we can do that, we can take a lot of danger out of the sky, so it’s a lot safer when pilots are in flight.” n ekaterina.g.perdaris@boeing.com Photo: An Apache pilot prepares for a training mission in the Apache Longbow Crew Trainer with CRVS. Ron Bookout | Boeing 34 Boeing Frontiers
Frontiers August 2015 Issue
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