V3001

The NVD pub is chapter 8 in the Tactics and Form book. Dig it out and allow some time to read this relatively long chapter. =Preflight NVDs= There is a long segment on this in the book, read it, love it. Suffice to say that your eyes can cope for a short time with maladjusted NVGs, but if your IPD is off,your goggles are tilted, or your diopter focus is too far clockwise, you are going to hurt after about a half hour. Headaches, passive air sickness and other ill effects degrade your ability to conduct the flight safely and effectively. Set your NVGs up right.

FTI preflight procedures:
 * 1. Inspect HELMET
 * 2. Inspect "Quick don block mount"
 * 3. Load battery pack, ensure selector is in "Off" position
 * 4. Inspect binoculars
 * 5. Clean lenses (DO NOT use flight suit, t-shirt or other materials) only use the lens paper provided.
 * 6. Zero out Diopter ring
 * 7. Fore and Aft adjustment all the way forward
 * 8. Center the tilt
 * 9. Set IPD (set each monocular infront of each eye) to 60
 * 10. Adjust vertical to 3.5 visible lines
 * 11. Don helmet
 * 12. Attach Binoculars
 * 13. Align and adjust NVG's:
 * 1) Vertical Adjustment
 * 2) Tilt
 * 3) Fore and Aft
 * 4) IPD
 * 5) Objective lens and Diopter lens (outside inside outside)

=Lighting Phenomenon= =Scan Pattern= You've gone from 180° to 40°. You are accustomed to using the speed of objects out of the corner of your eye to judge speed and relative distance and now all that information is gone. You must keep your head on a swivel. Rather than jump from point to point, scan from side to side in a methodical way. Look under the goggles at your instruments. Look out the right or left side window to help determine your speed.

=CRM= The non-flying pilot should deal with switches and such. There is a danger of both pilots focusing on the same thing. Call traffic but then one of you watch it and the other guy keep scanning. Same for caution lights or artificial lighting (air ports) one pilot must continue scanning for traffic or unsafe trends. SEE RWOP 3.10.3

=Interior and exterior lighting= All the stuff you talked about in the NVG lab. Non-compatible interior lighting is detrimental to effective use of NVGs. Compatible interior lighting has lights that have been designed to minimize or eliminate the emission of the near-IR spectrum that the NVGs are most sensitive to. Similarly with compatible exterior lighting. Additional exterior lighting exists which is "covert" in that they emit no visible light, but are visible on NVGs due to their near-IR emissions.

In addition to utilizing compatible interior lighting, the "NVD birds" we use have blacked out instrument panels to reduce reflected light from both interior and exterior light sources.

=NVD battery failure= Fly instruments, call NVG failure and swap controls. Then switch to the other battery pack.

=NVD tube failure= Same as above but swap to the backup set of NVG's. The FTI says that in the fleet we will have an extra pair of NGV's incase of a failure. Here in the training command we will not do this due to a restricted number of sets available.

=Goggle/De-goggle procedures= This should be prebriefed: is the flight going to be on NVGs from skids up to skids down or will they be donned at some particular time or point? Prior to goggling NVGs can be transported in their case or on the helmet in the stowed position as is appropriate. (FTI lists 3 times when goggling/de-goggling can take place: chock-to-chock, airborne, or at an outlying LZ. Of those three times, TW-5 aircrews will utilize chock-to-chock.)