Read Online Wait Until Dark (The Night Stalkers) by M. L. Buchman - Free Book Online
Authors: M. L. Buchman
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to the Majors.
When Connie glanced back, Major Henderson appeared intent on his wife’s hair, but Major Beale was watching her closely. Clearly seeing something Connie didn’t.
She turned back to John and leaned in close to see how the ADAS cabling routed around the primary armor.
Chapter 12
At the beginning of day three at Fort Campbell, Connie pulled on the new helmet. It felt wrong, odd. She’d had her current helmet for four years. There had been various technology upgrades, but it had still been her helmet.
The ADAS helmet had been custom fit, just like her first, but felt wrong. She knew the feeling would wear off, but right now it was as distracting as a new pair of boots after wearing the old ones slipper soft. The fit was okay, but the weight was about a third less and in different places. It wanted to tip her head forward just a little. Have to watch out for that during high-gee maneuvers or when slamming through an air turbulence pocket.
Then the technician turned on the system and she forgot everything else.
Yes, she stood beside her Hawk, still parked in the middle of Hangar 14. But that’s not what filled her vision.
Her point of view centered inside the Hawk, but the hull of the Hawk was invisible. Instead of leaning out gunner windows or cargo bay doors to see, she had a completely clear field of view. People walked around her in the soft grays of infrared outlines. The hangar walls were some distance in the background—eleven and a half meters to the south, her readout informed her. The resolution was astonishing. She could pick out the technicians she and John had been working with the last two days as easily as if they stood beside her and not on the other side of a ten-thousand-pound Hawk.
As she turned her head, the helmet registered the shift in orientation. The north wall of the hangar stood forty-eight meters from the center of the Hawk. The cameras perched around the craft fed their view across the inside of her visor. She could focus on the reality before her by looking through her visor or on the projected view by focusing on the inside surface of her visor. A quick blink and she managed to see both at once, the colored concrete and steel-walled hangar world through the polycarbonate of her visor and the gray-toned infrared view from the helicopter’s new cameras projected across the visor’s inside surface.
Standing on the hangar floor was a little disorienting. Clearly the helmet was set up to project the view angle as if she were in her normal seat and viewing much more remote objects while the helicopter was in flight. But knowing that, it wasn’t difficult to compensate. A further turn and she could see herself, looking away from the craft. Boots, insulated camo pants, jacket, and globular helmet where her head should be.
It was strange seeing herself like that. She didn’t think about such things. Mirrors merely reflected, but now she was viewing a real-time, thermal image of herself. She raised an arm and watched herself do so in the same instant. On those rare occasions when ground crew were offering hand signals, she’d be able to see them clearly without half hanging out of bay doors.
Then she turned to the stern and she actually cried out.
Their “six” was clear. In any aircraft, a major problem was seeing what was sneaking up behind you. The back end of the helicopter was always in the way of viewing your six o’clock position. The pilot had to skew the chopper’s body sideways again and again so the crew chiefs could keep an eye on what was behind, in addition to anything the radar revealed.
Now, because the cameras were mounted on the outside of the helicopter, she could see all around even if she were inside the chopper, everything except a thin wedge where the tail rotor sliced across the image. But there were times you wanted to check the condition of your own rotor, a trick completely impossible in a speeding chopper, right up until this moment.
The
When Connie glanced back, Major Henderson appeared intent on his wife’s hair, but Major Beale was watching her closely. Clearly seeing something Connie didn’t.
She turned back to John and leaned in close to see how the ADAS cabling routed around the primary armor.
Chapter 12
At the beginning of day three at Fort Campbell, Connie pulled on the new helmet. It felt wrong, odd. She’d had her current helmet for four years. There had been various technology upgrades, but it had still been her helmet.
The ADAS helmet had been custom fit, just like her first, but felt wrong. She knew the feeling would wear off, but right now it was as distracting as a new pair of boots after wearing the old ones slipper soft. The fit was okay, but the weight was about a third less and in different places. It wanted to tip her head forward just a little. Have to watch out for that during high-gee maneuvers or when slamming through an air turbulence pocket.
Then the technician turned on the system and she forgot everything else.
Yes, she stood beside her Hawk, still parked in the middle of Hangar 14. But that’s not what filled her vision.
Her point of view centered inside the Hawk, but the hull of the Hawk was invisible. Instead of leaning out gunner windows or cargo bay doors to see, she had a completely clear field of view. People walked around her in the soft grays of infrared outlines. The hangar walls were some distance in the background—eleven and a half meters to the south, her readout informed her. The resolution was astonishing. She could pick out the technicians she and John had been working with the last two days as easily as if they stood beside her and not on the other side of a ten-thousand-pound Hawk.
As she turned her head, the helmet registered the shift in orientation. The north wall of the hangar stood forty-eight meters from the center of the Hawk. The cameras perched around the craft fed their view across the inside of her visor. She could focus on the reality before her by looking through her visor or on the projected view by focusing on the inside surface of her visor. A quick blink and she managed to see both at once, the colored concrete and steel-walled hangar world through the polycarbonate of her visor and the gray-toned infrared view from the helicopter’s new cameras projected across the visor’s inside surface.
Standing on the hangar floor was a little disorienting. Clearly the helmet was set up to project the view angle as if she were in her normal seat and viewing much more remote objects while the helicopter was in flight. But knowing that, it wasn’t difficult to compensate. A further turn and she could see herself, looking away from the craft. Boots, insulated camo pants, jacket, and globular helmet where her head should be.
It was strange seeing herself like that. She didn’t think about such things. Mirrors merely reflected, but now she was viewing a real-time, thermal image of herself. She raised an arm and watched herself do so in the same instant. On those rare occasions when ground crew were offering hand signals, she’d be able to see them clearly without half hanging out of bay doors.
Then she turned to the stern and she actually cried out.
Their “six” was clear. In any aircraft, a major problem was seeing what was sneaking up behind you. The back end of the helicopter was always in the way of viewing your six o’clock position. The pilot had to skew the chopper’s body sideways again and again so the crew chiefs could keep an eye on what was behind, in addition to anything the radar revealed.
Now, because the cameras were mounted on the outside of the helicopter, she could see all around even if she were inside the chopper, everything except a thin wedge where the tail rotor sliced across the image. But there were times you wanted to check the condition of your own rotor, a trick completely impossible in a speeding chopper, right up until this moment.
The