Dossier Rafale :Cockpit and HMI1/ ComfortThis first feeling a pilot get when he seats in a Rafale is that in fact, he is laying down. Preliminary studies on the Rafale showed that a seat tilted at 32° was the best compromise between visibility and G-force resistance. The tilting aims at reducing the vertical distance between the brain and the hearth, and thus, the pilot makes less efforts for sustained high G forces. A seat tilted at 60° delays by more than 1G the effects of acceleration. This position is reached by a Rafale pilot with a seat at 32° (the pilot's back being at 29°) and when maneuvering at alpha near 30°. If in addition, the pilot uses a anti-G suit, the reduction reaches more than 2G. This is why under 9G, Rafale pilots feel like under 7G.
The tilted seat has another purpose : the position is also less tiring during long flight, and even during a whole war campaign.
As a side effect, since a tilted seat takes less room, the frontal section of the aircraft is a reduced (and thus, its frontal RCS).
There are other stuffs to improve the comfort :
- the HOTAS (a.k.a. 3M in France) which make the pilot rarely need to get the hand off the stick and throttle. He still can "speak" with the NAS through more than 30 commands (buttons, trackballs, etc) ;
- the stick "a la F-16" is situated on the side. Similar to later F-16, this stick can move a little, but is mainly sensible to force ;
- the throttle stick controls both engines ;
- the pilots' arms rest in armrests.
2/ Human-Machine Interface (aka MMI : Man Machine Interface)The Rafale cockpit layout is very innovative : it can alert the pilot with voice messages, and is made of four color screen, compatible with NVG (Night Vision Goggles).
The HUD has a wide field of 30x22°. It shows the pilot every flight informations (speed, altitude, attitude, bearing, angle of attack, alarms, etc) and provides informations about elapsed or remaining flight time of missiles. It also indicates the Jx for take-off (for quick engine check). FLIR images can be overlayed. On Rafale B, the navigator has no holographic HUD, but instead a screen connected to a camera filming forward with HUD information overlayed.
The VTM (Visualisation Tête Moyenne, or HLD -Head Level Display-), collimated to infinity avoids the pilot accommodating his(her) eyes each time he looks outside through the HUD and inside in the HLD. It is also just under the HUD. This is very efficient in terms of visual comfort, since the pilot during a mission will rapidly switch from the HUD to HLD and vice versa. This display is 10"x10", with a resolution of 1000x1000px and a field of 20x20°. It shows a kind of divine view in which all the data obtained by the sensor fusion (which merged them smartly) are shown, over a navigation map if needed. A zoom is available so as to watch targets and tactics more closely. Weapons firing envelopes are also shown (Scalp and Mica for example), with dotted line egg shape for max range, and plain line for NEZ range. For dogfights, the minimal range is also displayed. For air-to-air engagement, a lateral view is displayed in addition so as the pilot get a clear picture of the combat geometry.
Lateral screens are used for systems managements. Each measure 15x15cm and are touch sensitive so as to save space for displaying information instead of the usual buttons all around. For example, one screen may show Spectra data, while the other may show weapons data. But at any time, it's up to the pilot to choose what he needs. Though it's very intuitive to touch the screens, they also can be controlled by the trackballs on the stick and throttle.
The pilot's glove have skin of chamois on the top of the fingers, so as to clean those screens.
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