F-35 Lightning II Cockpit Vision 2010-01-2330

Published
10/19/2010

Michael Skaff
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company

and USN in three variants the F-35A, F-35B, and F-35C

ABSTRACT respectively. In addition, 8 partner nations are participating in
A brief explanation of the design iterations and philosophy design and development of the aircraft.
used to integrate the pilot into the F-35 Lightning II cockpit
to achieve optimum Pilot Vehicle Interface (PVI), The three variants are nearly identical and differ mainly in
manageable single seat workload, and superior situation their ability to takeoff or land in unique fashion. The A-
awareness. model is a conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) aircraft
and will be used predominantly by traditional air forces from
long runways. The B-model has short takeoff and vertical
INTRODUCTION landing (STOVL) capability and will be used by the Marines
The design philosophy of the F-35 Lightning II cockpit is to and some partner nations. The C-model has a slightly larger
“return the pilot to the role of tactician.” This is folding wing with beefed up landing gear designed for
accomplished by allowing computers to do what computers aircraft carrier (CV) launch and recovery. This model is
do best and allowing pilots to do what pilots do best. designed exclusively for the US Navy.
Computers do not, per se, make decisions, but merely
organize, prioritize, and present data. They do this extremely The F-35 is the second 5th generation fighter to be produced.
well. With the proper algorithmic processing data becomes Figure 2 lists the characteristics which define fighter
useful information. The pilot, on the other hand, does not generations and gives examples of typical fighters from those
process data in an algorithmic fashion, but is able to make generations. The 4th generation is marked by an increase in
heuristic decisions which only he or she can do based on advanced avionics and sensors. Unfortunately, in fourth
experience and understanding. The role of the cockpit generation fighters the pilot was relegated to the role of
designer is to recognize these two fundamental differences in sensor and systems manager. There was hardly time left to
handling data and to rightly divide the tasks between man and “fly and fight.”
machine. This paper describes the cockpit design approach
and how the design team integrated the pilot into the F-35. The key attributes of the 5th generation are: very low
observable (VLO) stealth, fighter performance, integrated
F-35 PROGRAM OVERVIEW sensor fusion, network enabled operations, and advanced
supportability. The F-22 Raptor was the first and is currently
The F-35 is the world's second 5th generation tactical fighter.
the only operational 5th generation fighter in service today.
It is being produced by a team comprising Lockheed Martin,
The F-35 is scheduled to go operational with the US Marine
Northrop Grumman, and BAE Systems. Lockheed Martin
Corps in 2012, the US Air Force in 2015 and US Navy in
Aeronautics Company is the prime contractor. Four
2016.
contractual pillars underlie the program: lethality,
survivability, supportability, and affordability. The F-35 must
The F-35 will replace multiple 4th generation fighters
do better in these four areas than the fighters it replaces - a
including the F-16 Falcon, F-18 Hornet, A-10 Thunderbolt,
tall order.
and the AV-8 Harrier. It will also replace numerous 4th
generation aircraft for our international partners.
Figure 1 lists some of the important program highlights. The
aircraft is designed to meet the needs of the USAF, USMC,
 Figure 1. Program Highlights

COCKPIT OVERVIEW cockpit and then to add mass based on value added
functionality. This decision worked well to control cost and
The cockpit was designed by pilots for pilots and is the
weight in the cockpit. As many functions as possible were
culmination of a 15 year effort which started in 1995. A small
mapped to virtual switches. These functions are controlled
team of former and current military fighter pilots assembled
through cursor hooking, touch, and voice recognition.
to design the cockpit. This multi-service team had over 150
years of tactical aviation experience in 7 different fighters
The few remaining physical switches control safety critical
including the 4th generation fighters the F-35 is designed to
functions such as landing gear, engine start/stop, and
replace.
electrical reset. These functions work regardless of software
in an emergency.
Figure 3 shows the final result. The cockpit is dominated by a
large 20 inch by 8 inch Panoramic Cockpit Display (PCD)
which incorporates an integral touchscreen. The fly by wire COCKPIT DESIGN METHODOLOGY
system is controlled via an active sidestick on the right and an The cockpit consists of software and hardware. Two distinct
active throttle on the left. Active means these inceptors are disciplines can be applied: Pilot Vehicle Interface (PVI) and
under complete computer control and can be programmed as Human Factors Engineering (HFE). The PVI is akin to the
to gradient, force feedback, and stops - all on the fly. There graphical user interface and the HFE are the things which the
are 10 switches on the sidestick and 12 on the throttle. The pilot can physically touch and feel.
Hands-on Throttle and Stick (HOTAS) are mapped to the
most used tactical and subsystem time critical functions. Pilot Vehicle Interface Design
The Pilot Vehicle Interface is implemented in software and is
Notably absent is a physical combining glass for the Head Up the graphical user interface. The interface incorporates a
Display (HUD). In lieu of a HUD the pilot wears a Helmet windowing scheme and multiple individual formats which
Mounted Display (HMD). Much more about the HMD will dictate content and control interaction. Example formats are
be described later in the paper. The HMD will be as fuel, engine, and weapons. The windowing interface is not as
revolutionary to tactics as was the HUD. flexible as the ones found on desktops, but it does allow the
pilot to arrange and resize the windows. The PVI is the heart
Most pilots who look into the cockpit for the first time are of the cockpit.
struck by the lack console switches and physical instruments.
The design team decided early to start with a clean sheet/
 Figure 2. Fighter Generations

The PVI process is the pragmatic application of human anthropometric modeling. The human factors engineering is
factors done by subject matter experts. It is sometimes the backbone of the cockpit.
referred to as a BOGSAT (bunch of guys sitting around a
table). The key is that these are all extremely experienced and Special design consideration and attention to hand size is
astute military aviators who have “been there - done that” needed for the stick and throttle. The sheer number of buttons
and, in general, know what they need to be lethal and on theses controls can make the pilot feel like she is “playing
survivable in tactical aviation warfare. What, from the the piccolo.” Most of these switches are important enough to
outside, appears to be a swirling dervish of opinions, ideas, warrant double or triple redundancy which affects the grip's
and pride; will in fact result in a good design and effective volume. The HOTAS are carefully mapped to time critical
operator interface. functions which must be accessed in maneuvering flight at G-
loadings from +9 to −4. The grips themselves must be
The most challenging part of PVI is not the paper design, but comfortable and useable while wearing chemical-biological
the implementation on target hardware. The pilots, more protection gloves.
times than not, can design PVI which is well beyond the
hardware state of the art in graphical processing power. The cockpit is designed to accommodate an extremely wide
Because of this a number of technology refreshes were range of pilots from a petite 103 lb. female to a large 245 lb.
designed into the program. Even with the refreshes the male. This range of anthropometry must allow every pilot to
hardware is taxed to present the PVI. reach all of the controls in all flight conditions and to be
safely ejected in the event of an emergency.
Human Factors Engineering Design
None of the pilots on the design team were trained in formal The ejection seat must accommodate the full range of pilots
human factors and man-machine interface which makes them comfortably for 6 hour or longer missions. It is impossible to
poorly suited to scientifically integrate the human into the get up and move around. The seat must also extract the pilot
cockpit. For this task human system / human factors under conditions from motionless on the ground to near
engineers are called into the process. Their task is to properly supersonic velocities and high altitude.
engineer the accommodations, escape, life support, personal
flight equipment, HOTAS, and displays. These tasks are done Head-down Display
through full scale mockups, engineering trade studies, and The cockpit environment is particularly harsh and requires
unique display capabilities. Within the cockpit are extremes
 Figure 3. F-35 Lightning II Cockpit

of pressure, temperature, and G-loading; but the greatest The first challenge was in the area of processing power. Each
challenge is operation under a bubble canopy. The displays display is controlled by an independent computer and
must be legible and of sufficient brightness, contrast, and graphical processor unit (GPU) which must be able to
color saturation to compete with the noon day sun at 50,000 function stand-alone, if necessary. The move from three
feet. The Panoramic Cockpit Display (PCD) utilizes liquid displays to two means one less computer and GPU is
crystal displays which are backlit with high intensity light available for rendering PVI.
emitting diodes (LED). The LEDs have sufficient dynamic
range to be used at noon as well as midnight or with night The second challenge was the elimination of physical bezel
vision intensification. The displays must also fit within the buttons and keypad. The preferred design left no room in the
allotted volume and for this a detailed trade study had to be cockpit for a physical keypad. The HFE team suggested three
conducted. co-primary control schemes which did not require buttons:
cursor hooking, touch, and voice recognition. Through the
The aerodynamicists dictated the cockpit volume and outer triple availability of cursor hooking, touch, and voice every
mold lines within which the displays must fit. Figure 4 shows function may be accessed. Co-primary means that pilot
four options which met the volume and mass requirements preference and flight conditions determine which control
and were top candidates in the display trade study. Note that method is used.
three of the configurations do not depict a Head-up Display
(HUD). In these configurations a Helmet Mounted Display Head-up Display
(HMD) would have to be used as a virtual HUD. During this In lieu of a physical HUD the F-35 uses a Helmet-mounted
trade study a large number of current 4th generation fighter Display (HMD) as shown in Figure 5. The F-35 is the first
pilots were polled and to a person they asked for the largest modern fighter to use an HMD to the exclusion of a HUD.
displays possible. Initially, the lower left configuration with The HMD projects two identical images onto the visor, one
three displays was the preferred design. As the cockpit design for each eye, focused at infinity. HUD vector symbology as
progressed the pilots migrated to the upper right well as sensor video is projected onto the visor.
configuration as their preferred design. This configuration
incorporates two 10 × 8 inch displays butted together with a One of the most interesting sensors on the aircraft is the
small septum in between. The decision to adopt the two large Distributed Aperture System (DAS). Surrounding the aircraft
displays caused two major engineering challenges. are 6 staring infrared cameras which are sensitive to thermal
radiation. Video processing computers seamlessly stitch the
 Figure 4. Display Trade Space

individual images together into a 4π steradian sphere for the easy answer. An automated scheme for filtering and
pilot to look through. As she positions the helmet line of sight arbitrating display space is built into the software.
the appropriate portion of the imaged sphere is projected onto
the visor. This makes it possible to “look through the aircraft Both loops use a combination of aural and visual indications
structure”. Because the cameras are located external to the to alert the pilot. The teams agreed that the controlling
cockpit pilots have remarked that “it is like flying Wonder software should never be allowed to change a display without
Woman's glass airplane.” This capability is extremely useful pilot consent. This is because the software never really knows
when trying to position the aircraft from a hover over the what is most critical to the pilot at the moment. Remember,
landing spot. the over arching philosophy rests on letting pilots do what
pilots do best and letting computers do what computers do
CONTROL AND DISPLAY LOOPS best. The pilot has the final consent/say-so while the
computer organizes, prioritizes, and presents information.
Figure 6 shows the pilot centered design approach. The pilot
sits at the center of two control and display feedback loops:
Tactical and System. She must be equipped to “kill and Tactical Loop
survive” as well as “drive the bus.” The design teams used a The tactical loop is most glamorous because this is where the
divide and conquer strategy in order to work each loop pilot “flies and fights.” This loop assembles tactical data,
concurrently. The first team concentrated on the system loop transforms it into information, and then presents the fused
and the Integrated Caution and Warning System (ICAWS) and integrated picture. The mountain of incoming sensor data
while a separate team concentrated on the tactical loop. The must be turned into information to allow the pilot to be lethal
loops are equally important. Representatives from each team and survivable. Even the best integrated sensor fusion is not
met weekly to coordinate their designs and to arbitrate use of perfect. In these cases the pilot is allowed to drill down into
the controls and displays. the data and override what is being displayed.

The challenge for the teams was in how to properly share the Figure 7 is an example of the Tactical Situation Display
same controls and displays to support both control loops (TSD) programmed into a 10 × 7 inch window. The TSD is
simultaneously. For example: is it more important to see a the “one-stop-shopping” display onto which the fused and
missile about to hit the aircraft or an engine problem which integrated tactical picture is presented. This picture allows the
will result in immediate loss of thrust? There is not always an pilot to observe, orient, decide, and act based on what is
 Figure 5. Helmet Mounted Display

happening outside of the aircraft. Note that the top one inch upon. At the top of the prioritization tree are WARNINGS
of the display is dedicated to a portion of the system loop. which are shown in red and audibly annunciated in English.
Warnings are defined as failures so extreme that loss of life
System Loop or major aircraft damage is certain if not tended to
The system loop may not be as glamorous, but it is critical for immediately. CAUTIONS are next in priority, are displayed
safe flight. Regardless of how magnificent the tactical loop is, in yellow, and are audibly heard as “deedle-deedle.”
if the pilot cannot safely get the aircraft to and from CAUTIONS indicate failures in which damage may occur,
battlespace, all is lost. The aircraft system manager works but the sense of urgency is much less than a WARNING.
silently behind the scenes monitoring the various subsystems Finally, INDICATIONS are displayed in green and are least
and only interrupts the pilot on a need-to-know basis. The severe. Most can be ignored without hazard or, at most,
entire top inch of the display is dedicated to system tended to when time allows.
monitoring. The system loop uses this area to keep the pilot
apprised of her aircraft. In the event of serious problems the The aircraft has been provisioned for 3-dimensional audio.
pilot may instantly reconfigure the display to bring up the Currently, the communications suite uses this capability for
ICAWS information. left-right audio discrimination of the various communications
channels. It is not being used by the ICAWS, yet. The human
Figure 8 shows a series of onboard failures. They are color factor engineers are beginning to explore multiple
coded, automatically prioritized according to severity, and simultaneous audio channels with voices and tones which
written in human readable terms. In this example the pilot has seem to originate within the aircraft at the location of the
linked into the onboard checklist in order to remedy the faulty subsystem. This may prove to be a means getting more
faults. The checklist is color coded and presents a clear and better information to the pilot.
sequence of mitigating actions which the pilot should
implement. In the unlikely event of catastrophic engine failure in hover
mode the F-35 is equipped with an automatic ejection seat.
The ICAWS software constantly monitors various This feature is only armed and available at the extremes of
subsystems such as fuel, hydraulics, engine, and flight the vertical landing envelope. At first thought an auto-eject
controls. The internal aircraft monitoring system generates function seems extreme to most pilots, but once they are
mountains of data. The ICAWS must categorize, prioritize, made aware of the time critical urgency and the total inability
and turn this data into useful information for the pilot to act of the human to command a manual ejection during low
 Figure 6. Control and Display Loops

altitude hover, most are thankful for this capability. This is a exercised and pushed to the limit to increase pilot lethality
clear example of letting the computer do what computers do and survivability. These missions represent the worst-case
best. anticipated wartime scenario with postulated future threats.

INFORMATION CHALLENGE Now combine the two into a full mission simulation and the
pilot is faced with an inbound missile and imminent engine
With the F-35's array of tactical sensors, internal monitoring,
loss of thrust at the same time. Both control and feedback
and networked datalinks it becomes increasingly difficult to
loops get exercised in worst-case scenarios. At some point the
manage data and to turn this data into useful information. It is
workload is beyond what the human can perform and
all too common for information dominance to become
situation awareness is in the map case. It is at this edge of
information overload. At times the aircraft knows so much
man-machine performance that we really make progress and
about the internal and external environments that it swamps
get a glimpse of what is needed for 6th generation tactical
the pilot with “interesting, but irrelevant information.”
aircraft. It is conceivable that the 6th generation will be
Information overload overwhelms even the best pilots,
pilotless. The term “displaced reality” describes the condition
increases workload, and degrades their situation awareness.
when the pilot is resident at some distant location controlling
The design challenge is to present and prioritize only the
a myriad of tactical vehicles.
information the pilot needs at the time. This is easier said
than done.
SUMMARY/CONCLUSIONS
It is through robust modeling and simulation that information The F-35 Lightning II is the most advanced tactical cockpit
leveling algorithms are developed and tested. In system loop ever designed. Figure 9 highlights some of the important
simulations the pilot is presented with conditions and failure capabilities. The unique design philosophy of “return the
modes which totally tax her ability to maintain aircraft pilot to the role of tactician” dominates. This was
control. These are primarily takeoff and landing calamities accomplished by allowing the pilot to do what pilots do best
the likes of which should not be expected to occur more than and letting computers do what computers do best. Together
once in tens of thousands of hours of flight. Of course, the man and machine become more lethal and more survivable.
pilot must be trained to deal with these unlikely situations.

In tactical loop simulations the pilot is presented with nearly

impossible air and surface threats. Here the tactical loop is
 Figure 7. Tactical Situation Display

CONTACT INFORMATION DAS

Distributed Aperture System
Michael L. Skaff
Principal Systems Engineer
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company FPA
1 Lockheed Blvd. Focal Plane Array USMC - United States Marine
Ft. Worth, TX 76101 Corps

DEFINITIONS/ABBREVIATIONS GPU
Graphics Processing Unit
Air Systems Integration Facility
combined Mission Systems and Vehicle Systems full
mission simulator HFE
Human Factors Engineering

CTOL
Conventional Takeoff and Landing HMD
Helmet Mounted Display USN - United States Navy

CV
Carrier Variant USAF - United States Air Force HOTAS
Hands On Throttle and Stick
 Figure 8. Integrated Caution and Warning System (ICAWS)

HUD STOVL
Head Up Display Short Takeoff and Vertical Landing

LED Vehicle Systems

Light Emitting Diode team which is responsible for flying qualities, flight
control software, non-tactical subsystems
Mission Systems
team which is responsible for tactical avionics VLO
Very Low Observable
PCD
Panoramic cockpit Display
DISCLAIMER
PVI Statement A: Approved for public release; distribution is
Pilot Vehicle Interface unlimited; JSF10-122, 2/23/10.
 Figure 9. F-35 Cockpit Highlights

The Engineering Meetings Board has approved this paper for publication. It has Positions and opinions advanced in this paper are those of the author(s) and not
successfully completed SAE's peer review process under the supervision of the session necessarily those of SAE. The author is solely responsible for the content of the paper.
organizer. This process requires a minimum of three (3) reviews by industry experts. SAE Customer Service:
Tel: 877-606-7323 (inside USA and Canada)
ISSN 0148-7191
Tel: 724-776-4970 (outside USA)
doi:10.4271/2010-01-2330 Fax: 724-776-0790
Email: [email protected]
SAE Web Address: http://www.sae.org
Printed in USA