Author: Xiao Ning Source: FlightGearOnline
During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union, the leaders of the nuclear powers, had prepared terrifying nuclear arsenals and were ready to carry out a nuclear war that would "destroy the world and destroy the earth."
In order not to be blinded by the nuclear explosion, the US military racked its brains
As we all know, nuclear bombs will produce a lot of photosynthetic heat during nuclear explosions, and aircraft performing nuclear strike missions can quickly escape the shock wave of nuclear explosions through special tactical actions, and can also resist the electromagnetic pulses generated by nuclear explosions by strengthening their own electromagnetic protection, but they can never avoid the damage of the light radiation of nuclear explosions.
The strong light and infrared rays produced by the nuclear explosion will cause the aircraft to heat up the skin, burn the paint on the surface of the fuselage and parts that are not resistant to high temperatures, and affect flight safety. This problem was eventually solved by an anti-nuclear flash coating of the white or metallic skin.
In order not to be blinded by the nuclear explosion, the US military racked its brains
But at the same time, the bright light (i.e., nuclear flash) produced by the nuclear explosion at the moment can cause the pilot's eyes to be temporarily blinded, a phenomenon called nuclear flash blindness. If unprotected looking directly at the explosion point, a nuclear flash can cause burns to the retina, leaving a permanent scar that blinds the person.
It has been calculated that a daytime nuclear explosion will temporarily blind the pilot for about 2 minutes. At night, blindness can last 3 to 10 minutes due to dilated pupils, and it may take 15 to 35 minutes to fully restore vision. How to protect the eyes of pilots in nuclear explosions and prevent pilots from being blinded by the nuclear bombs they drop has become a top priority.
That's probably the effect
The original solution of the US military seems to be very helpless and strange, such as the anti-nuclear flash visor used by this B-52 bomber.
In order not to be blinded by the nuclear explosion, the US military racked its brains
However, this thing is not easy to use, and the biggest drawback is that the operation is troublesome and easy to react in a timely manner. The actual measurement results of the US military are said to be not good, but they have become used as sunshades when they are grounded and stopped.
The U.S. Navy's solution was more complex during the same period. They installed a "lobstertail" visor in the cockpit of the A-4 attack aircraft.
Before dropping the bomb, the pilot lowers the protective shield, completely covers himself, and then controls the aircraft in the same way as the instrument flew.
This "lobster tail" not only prevents pilots from being blinded by flashes, but also protects them from the high heat of nuclear flashes and even reduces the radiation dose.
As advances have advanced, protection has finally become smaller and smaller — and the military still wants lighter protection products to replace cumbersome and bulky cabin equipment. But you might not expect the initial head protection to be incredibly simple: eye masks.
Pilots who flew F-100 "Super Knife" fighter jets on tactical nuclear strike missions in the 1950s said they both received eye masks that would only cover one eye. Before the Navy asked for a bomb, they covered one eye with an eye mask and then lowered the dark visor of their helmets. In this way, even if one eye is blind, it can be safely returned with the remaining eye.
Israel's famous general Moses Dayan, who lost his left eye in World War II and began to wear an eye mask, became his iconic image
Because Israel's one-eyed general Dayan was often on the news at the time, American pilots called their pirate goggles "Dayan eye masks."
With the advent of the space race, scientific and technological developments are changing rapidly, and the gold-plated protective lenses originally used for astronauts have also been used by military pilots, such as the modified HGU-2A/P(G) flight helmet of this gold-plated eye protection and the famous KMU-219/P (MIL-G-635) nuclear flash goggle kit.
HGU-2 helmet with gold-plated lenses
HGU-9 flying helmet for KMU-219
The light transmittance of ordinary sunshade lenses is about 15%, and this gold-plated layer only reduces the transmittance of the sunshade by 2%, but because of the simple and convenient structure, it can effectively alleviate the blinding phenomenon of nuclear flash of pilots, so it soon became the standard anti-nuclear flash equipment of US pilots in the 1960s.
KMU anti-nuclear flash goggle set, a box, a pair of mirrors, a backup gold lens (picture from GI).
- Although it looks golden on the outside, it is actually green from the inside out
Yet nothing is perfect.
First of all, this gold-plated sunshade lens uses real gold, and it is an aerospace process, which is very expensive to make. What is more fatal is that this coating process is not strong, and it is very easy to be scratched in daily use. Once scratched, it is an irreversible performance degradation, so the lenses on the helmet are rarely used, and the style of stand-alone lenses is changed. Kits like KMU are usually put in the matching protective box and stored in the cockpit, and then taken out and put on when needed.
In addition, although this gold-plated lens alleviates the symptoms of nuclear flash blindness, it does not solve the fundamental problem, and the US military still hopes to have better goggles.
So strange fantasies appeared - when material technology could not break through, Americans thought of overtaking in curves and mechanically controlling the amount of light entered. The world's rare electromechanical blackout was born.
Renderings of the United States Air Force in 1964
Each eyepiece of this goggle consists of two lenses, one fixed and one that can be moved left and right, and the lenses are plated with vertical metal strips. When not activated, the metal bars of the two lenses overlap each other to allow the eyepiece to transmit light. The goggles are equipped with a photocell, once the strong light is detected, it will automatically start the small piston motor to translate the metal grid, so that the metal strips are interlaced with each other, blocking 99.99% of the light from entering. The motor's propellant is enough to run four times, allowing the goggles to close completely within 500 microseconds. This is actually a "blind" installed in the goggles that can be automatically closed.
The project was lost due to reliability issues and eventually disappeared into the old paper pile of the Cold War. During the same period, the U.S. Navy launched the development of the DH-101 helmet.
The DH-101 was adapted from the APH-6 helmet as a baseplate, and the most prominent feature was the installation of a frame with replaceable protective lenses for the installation of specially customized special flash lenses. The lenses of dh101 are also double-layer hollow lenses, but instead of using a metal mechanical structure, they use graphite suspension. When the fighter's nuclear explosion sensors set off, the miniature explosives in the goggles group explode, and the originally transmitted lenses will be crowded with graphite suspension to block out the light.
Probably thinking the explosives were too dangerous, the helmet was also produced in a compressed gas version. But no matter which version, it is not installed in the end.
So is there no solution to the nuclear flash? No, there is now the final form of the Cold War rhapsody - the EEU-2/P and -2A/P anti-nuclear flash goggles group.
Isn't this look very Gedemis?
With the advancement of technology, black technology has emerged - a material called lanthanum-doped zirconium titanate (referred to as PZT) transparent ferroelectric ceramic material has entered the field of vision of researchers. This material has very outstanding photoelectric properties, can quickly change between transparent and opaque, and is very responsive.
In view of this characteristic, In 1975, Sandia Laboratories began designing and developing PHZT goggles for the U.S. Air Force in order to completely solve the problem of nuclear flash protection.
The goggles are made of a laminated composite of polarized glass with a transparent electro-optical ceramic called PHZT on the inner layer, and the lens is transparent when the current is turned on. When the photocell detects a flash of nuclear explosion, it causes the circuit to break in an instant, causing the goggles to quickly become completely opaque.
Physical images are provided by GI
Physical images are provided by GI
Physical images are provided by GI
The all-solid-state design of the PLZT goggles eliminates the mechanical structure and eventually becomes a near-perfect anti-nuclear flash goggle. They began to be officially equipped with U.S. Air Force strategic bombers in 1980, and were first used by F111 pilots.
The U.S. Air Force's nuclear combat duty pilots still use the goggles to this day.
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