On Jul 26, 11:11*am, "jrw" wrote:
Ed Rasimus wrote:
As I understand it, when jet aircraft were flown from aircraft
carriers, procedures and equipment used with piston aircraft proved
inadequate, and the United States adopted a set of devices developed
by the British, including the angled deck, the optical glide path,
and the angle of attack indicator. By the time the Douglas Skyhawk
was built, the angle of attack (AOA) indicator was used with a head
up display.
I think you'll find AOA information available in some format or other
all the way back to the early '50s in USAF aircraft.

The A-4 had no HUD, at least not until the Marines' A-4M version.
There was an Indexer on the glareshield, though.

I misread the picture of the display system on the A-4. I see now that
the three color display is at the lower edge of the windscreen where
it can be seen in the pilots peripheral vision. In another source, I
found that British AOA systems circa 1960 for carrier jets had audio
output indicating whether AOA was optimal.

Peter Wezeman
anti-social Darwinist