OH-58 Pilot Display Unit (PDU) Simulated Crash Tests.

Abstract : The pilot display unit (PDU) is designed to be placed directly in front of the pilot's eyes in the OH-58 helicopter to provide targeting and a missile status display. The location and the 7-pound mass of the unit creates a potentially hazardous head impact surface. In order to determine the degree of the hazard, a damaged OH-58 cockpit section was exposed to five survivable simulated crashes of moderate to severe impact vectors with an instrumented dummy pilot in the right seat behind the PDU. The cockpit floor was exposed to crash force up to 8 G in the vertical (z) axis and 19 G along the longitudinal (x) axis with velocity changes of 24 fps and 36 fps, respectively. These exposures did not exceed acceptable levels of human tolerance for neck and head forces when a properly fitted flight helmet was worn so that impact occurred on the helmet and not the head.