Aircraft Head Up Display (HUD) systems provide the pilot with essential flight, navigation, and in the case of military aircraft, weapon aiming information. The information, which is generated on a crt display, is collimated by an optical system and projected such that it is superimposed on the pilot's view of the outside world. The pilot is thus able to fly the aircraft 'head up' thereby reducing workload and enhancing his weapon aiming capability. The influence of the HUD engineer, with his awareness of the HUD performance requirements and constraints imposed by the cockpit and cockpit-pilot relationship, on the optical designer in his choice of optical system design is discussed in this paper. Examples showing how optical systems may be folded, extended and shaped to suit a particular aircraft installation in order to improve field of view performance are considered.
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