Reading with Night Vision.

Rotorhead84 · March 28, 2016

Stupid question... Can you read pencil well under goggles? Im making a quick reference guide and I found out we are getting NVGs in a few months. Pencil makes it easier to change freqs and add/remove/alter obstacles as time goes on but not if you cant read it under goggles.

Thanks in advance!

Wally · March 28, 2016

I don't read anything through goggles, they are for out of the aircraft only. Wear them high enough to see panel and read under them or flip them up when I need to read.

CharyouTree · March 28, 2016

What Wally said:

You focus them for outside, and look under to read inside (to include the instruments if you don't have a HUD for the goggles. You can't read anything that close to you when it's focused as such.

Back in the day, the first NVGs were "full face" and you COULDN'T look under. They would focus one for inside and one for outside. It essentially gives you only one eye, and I believe is regarded as generally a bad idea.

Gomer Pylot · March 28, 2016

I can't even read the instruments through the goggles. You have to focus them to near infinity, and there is no way to focus on anything closer than a few feet, maybe 10 or so. Anything inside the cockpit you either look under the goggles or flip them up. I generally spend about half of a flight with the goggles up, depending on the situation. For a long cross country over flat terrain, I don't use them much, preferring to fly mostly by instruments. Goggles are wonderful for approaches and departures, less so for cruise, at least where I fly.

Flying Pig · March 29, 2016

You don't do anything in the cockpit by looking through your goggles. Probably best to wait for your training program to set up your check lists and your quick reference guides at this point since you don't have a foundation for the equipment.

Edited March 29, 2016 by Flying Pig

Rotorhead84 · March 29, 2016

Thanks all for the help! Appreciate it!

napoleonpp · March 30, 2016

Never flew in the civilian world, but perhaps you could use a finger light or a lip light. I hate pencils in flight. I would prefer them but I always break my lead. I might try and start using a larger lead size though and see if that helps. Worst thing ever is when someone is passing me a grid coordinate or other important info and my lead breaks and trying to push more lead out while remembering everything they said.

CharyouTree · March 31, 2016

Never flew in the civilian world, but perhaps you could use a finger light or a lip light. I hate pencils in flight. I would prefer them but I always break my lead. I might try and start using a larger lead size though and see if that helps. Worst thing ever is when someone is passing me a grid coordinate or other important info and my lead breaks and trying to push more lead out while remembering everything they said.

Skilcraft makes a 1.1 and even (I think...it's in my jacket pocket) a 1.3 mm lead. I LOVE them.

napoleonpp · March 31, 2016

Thanks I'll have to give those a shot

Gomer Pylot · April 1, 2016

If you can't push lead from a pencil while listening, how can you fly a helicopter?

Lindsey · April 1, 2016

Skilcraft makes a 1.1 and even (I think...it's in my jacket pocket) a 1.3 mm lead. I LOVE them.

I am intrigued.

napoleonpp · April 1, 2016

There are also erasable pens, which I'm going to start using on my logbook. Which wouldn't that just make it a pencil? Like the new guided rocket for the 64, it's just a new mini missle lol

Hotdogs · April 2, 2016

If you can't push lead from a pencil while listening, how can you fly a helicopter?

Probably because of which the speed and amount of vital information is being passed leaves little room for error. I've gotten dyslexic while copying stuff down and swapped grids that have similar numbers by trying to memorize it and then copy it before I was ready. My goto is pen and I don't bring pencils in the aircraft for the exact reasons stated above. Can't erase, so I just bring more paper in case I need more space and have a good shorthand that I've been deliberate about using, and obviously at night it because just that much more hard.

napoleonpp · April 4, 2016

If you can't push lead from a pencil while listening, how can you fly a helicopter?

I don't fly, I just shoot

Like Hotdog said. I can push lead out. But it gets hard when your lead breaks, the guy is passing a 9 digit grid along with other information and he just keeps going. Then the mechanical pencil decides to be stupid and I have to shake it around cus the lead isn't coming out, meanwhile he's 3 sentences in on stuff that I should be copying down.

Gomer Pylot · April 5, 2016

Well, there's the old story about how smart the Russians were by using cheap lead pencils in spaceflight, when the US spent huge amounts of money getting a pen developed that would write in zero gravity. But having pieces of carbon, which conducts electricity well, floating around in the place isn't a really wonderful idea. Pencil lead does break and chip. You can buy a pen refill from Fisher, guaranteed to write every time, on almost anything, for not a lot of money, and you can get them to fit almost any pen. I've used them for a long time, and they're worth the money. Or you can buy a real Fisher Space Pen, just like the astronauts use in space. Those aren't worth the money, IMO. Just get a refill for whatever pen you have. I like the Parker stainless steel ballpoints, but almost anything will work.