For $400,000, you can buy a new house or... - F-35 -helmet.jpg ...

....one pilot's helmet for the F-35

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https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ssor/74650574/

F-35 helmet costs $400,000 — 4 times that of predecessor

When the joint strike fighter, the F-35 Lightning II, finally takes to the skies
on its first official mission, it will be one of the most advanced and one of
the most expensive planes ever.

And the pilots flying the aircraft will be wearing the most advanced and most
expensive helmet ever.

The helmet will give pilots quicker access to the information they need to see
and has special cameras to "see" through the bottom of the plane. But it will
cost an estimated $400,000 per helmet — more than four times as much as the Air
Force paid for head wear for other aircraft such as the F-16.

Helmets for all the F-35s scheduled to be purchased will cost at least $1
billion, Air Force Times estimates.

The helmet makes use of six cameras embedded in the skin of the plane to give
pilots a 360-degree view of the surrounding airspace, including enabling them to
"look through" the floor of the plane. Plus it has advanced night-vision
capabilities built in; and the heads-up-display projects directly onto the
visor, putting information like altitude, speed and targets right in front of
the pilots' eyes.

It is also larger and heavier than helmets for other aircraft. And that has
spawned its own set of problems. One pilot has complained that it bangs into the
canopy, and recent tests have shown that it can make ejecting more dangerous for
lighter pilots. As a result, the F-35 program office has ordered a new lighter
helmet which will be available in 12 to 18 months.

And just like everything else about the F-35, the helmet has led to a split on
whether the cost is justified for new advanced systems or a waste of taxpayer
dollars.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh said the helmet is the key to giving
pilots capabilities they haven't had before.

"The helmet is much more than a helmet, the helmet is a workspace," he told Air
Force Times. "It's an interpretation of the battle space. It's situational
awareness. Calling this thing a helmet ... we've got to come up with a new
word."

Pentagon and defense contractors insist that reported problems with the helmet
have been fixed. But the high price tag has left many oversight experts and
members of Congress wondering if the tab is worth it.

"The designers of this have come up with a very complicated, very finicky
solution for a relatively simple problem," said Dan Grazier, with the Project on
Government Oversight.

Grazier, an expert at POGO's Center for Defense Information, said he believes
the helmet is "symptomatic of a larger problem" — that designers are trying to
stick too many features on the plane and its systems.

"We need to stop trying to make this thing all things to all people because it
winds up becoming useless to all people after a while," he said. "The
characteristics of a good fighter plane are very different than the
characteristics of a good close-air support aircraft."

Rockwell Collins, a subcontractor working on the helmet, directed all questions
to Lockheed Martin. The company also declined to provide cost data on the
helmet, but said that the information had already been made public by other
reporting. It directed Air Force Times to a Washington Post article that found
the cost of each helmet was $400,000.

Air Force officials confirmed that $400,000 was an accurate estimate, but noted
that the helmet cost is incorporated in the overall cost of the plane, so
pulling out a specific cost for a specific component can be difficult.

Each helmet is created uniquely for each pilot, and built to match the
measurements of the pilot's head to ensure it fits comfortably and snugly. That
means that every person who flies an F-35 will have his or her own helmet.

The Pentagon is expected to buy roughly 2,400 F-35s, with 680 going to the Navy
and Marine Corps and the rest going to the Air Force.

If each helmet costs $400,000 and each of the 2,400 F-35s has a pilot, the
bottom line cost for helmets is $960 million — not taking into account that
pilots retire and are replaced by pilots with different-sized heads.

Issues were raised anew about the plane earlier this year, after a test flight
pitting the F-35 against an F-16.

An internal Lockheed Martin memo, first leaked by the website "War is Boring,"
showed that the F-35 was having difficulty dogfighting against the older
aircraft.

"The F-35 was at a distinct energy disadvantage in a turning fight," the report
said, and when it came to trying to operate the aircraft in a high angle of
attack, "it wasn't effective for killing or surviving attacks," the report said.

The problems extended to the helmet as well. The internal memo noted the pilot's
helmet kept smacking into the canopy when the pilot tried to turn around.

"The helmet was too large for the space inside the canopy to adequately see
behind the aircraft," the report said. "There were multiple occasions when the
bandit would've been visible (not blocked by the seat) but the helmet prevented
getting in position to see him."



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https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ssor/74650574/

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