For your amusement and consideration…

Video on Vimeo ; http://vimeo.com/101826751 HITS Aeroglasses

Link: http://glass.aero/news/2014/07/augmented-reality-meets-synthetic-vision-pioneer-beta-program-has-launched/

These cool glasses somewhat resemble Google Glasses and provide virtual info like Highway In The Sky (HITS) , and more. If they ever implement a Highway In The Backcountry (HITB) feature I am there.

So...what do you think ??

Out of curiosity I contacted them when they first announced their Beta program. There is a substantial cost (don't recall exactly but thinking around a grand). They had clip-ons to go over regular glasses for those wearing prescriptions. But most of what you see in the video doesn't yet exist.

Fast forward to today and look at the apps that currently actually offer synthetic vision, none of them have most of those features either.

I'll admit the geek in me goes "cool". But the pilot in me goes "What's the point? I already know how to fly a glide path, land on the runway, watch out for traffic, and avoid airspaces."

I had a ZO6 Corvette back in 2001 that had "heads up display". It was very cool. But 14 years later, if it had actually had value, all high-end cars would have it. And they don't.

But it is cool.

The gadgets are cool for high altitude flyers, but instrument flying can be fully automated (think drone) anyway. Night vision goggles and fancy radar let Cam Tom 12 go get the bad guys in the dark, but the other pilot was keeping track of the actual sights, sounds, feel, and smells of the things you might fly into out there. Very low altitude work requires human brain/sight/sound/smell/feel stuff for full situational awareness, day or night. When you have to maneuver aggressively just to miss stuff, a computer cannot be programmed to think, "The tactical situation is always fluid." If a pullup, wings level, followed by a ninety degree turn while allowing the nose to go down into the hole created by the pullup is necessary to stay in a narrow canyon, computers can't keep up with that kind of stuff. J. L. Seagull ends up saying perfect flight is, "being there." I don't believe it. I will die not believing it.

It's interesting, and if it all works it would represent a significant technical achievement.

But for everyday VFR flight the risk exists that devices like this would even further reduce the amount of actual flight training students receive, and reduce the pilot population's level of "give a shit" for actual hands-on flight skills like Contact mentioned.

For instrument flying, night flying, and poor visibility situations, the concept of synthetic/augmented vision could be an important advance. If it can be made to work with accuracy and precision, then it could save lives, and make instrument flight much safer.

However, not being an instrument pilot myself, people who fly or have flown in really bad weather should be commenting on this technology's actual benefit in those conditions.

I work for a VR gaming company and have a fair amount of experience in VR and Augmented reality which these glasses fall into. On one hand its cool, but on the other, I cant say I like it. I want to fly to enjoy the experience, see scenery and such. Using these to fly into a scenic area like Johnson Creek seems like sacrilege to me. Tablets and software have come a long way and while I understand people wanted to find ways to take peoples eyes off tablets yet still offer the info in a HUD system, it just seems too much. What happened to just enjoying the simple fun of things such as a nice sunset flight. It seems technology is creeping into every aspect of our life and now its tough to see people walking on the street without looking down at their phones. This view may seem strange coming from a person who sells camera mounts for aircraft, but at least that portion of technology has the ability to share the joys of flying with others and may one day inspire people to fly through awesome videos.

Best regards,

Marc