Maintaining control and recovering from an encounter with poor weather remains a serious problem for helicopter and fixed-wing pilots. Even high-time instrument-rated pilots experience inadvertent entry into instrument meteorological conditions (IIMC) and, unless highly skilled and prepared, might not survive the encounter.
Black Hawk pilot Nick Sinopoli is trying to help pilots learn how to avoid the deadly results of IIMC encounters with the Icarus Smart View Limiting Device (VLD). The Icarus Smart VLD is a modern version of the typical hood or glasses that features eye panes with adjustable opaqueness, designed to limit pilots’ ability to see anything except the instrument panel and some of the obscured outside world, in an effort to better replicate flying in IMC. While the FAA requires VLDs for instrument training, it does not define exactly what these are, only dictating that pilots using them are “flying without utilizing outside visual references.”
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