Elbit Systems Tests Night Attack Flight System For Helicopters

Elbit Systems has performed a series of demonstration flights using BrightNite system, a solution that enables utility helicopters to perform Degraded Visual Environment (DVE) missions.

The goal of the flights was to demonstrate the systems’ performance in DVE conditions, in moonless, pitch dark nights, in which flights are rarely executed. Dozens of pilots from a variety of Air Forces around the globe participated in the demo flights, which took place in Israel. Installed onboard an Airbus Twin-Star helicopter for the demo, the BrightNite system provided the pilots with night-piloting capabilities similar and even exceeding to those of attack helicopters, the company said in a statement Wednesday.

BrightNite is a multi-spectral end to end panoramic piloting solution that delivers the essential data directly to both eyes of the pilot, enabling intuitive flight in a head-up, eyes-out orientation in pitch dark and other DVE conditions.

The BrightNite is comprised of non-gimbaled uncooled FLIR and highly sensitive Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) sensors that present an ultra-wide field of regard intuitive image to a display system which projects to the HDTS, Elbit System’s most common ANVIS/HUD HMD with Line Of Sight capabilities).

The display is overlaid by a synthetic layer that follows the contours of the landscape and a third layer of 3D mission conformal symbols, which displays hazards, mission conformal symbolical and tactical data. Multiple crew-members can simultaneously scan the entire field of regard, using a single sensor and the synthetic world, enabling them to fly any night and at all nights.