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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Interesting comment from someone claiming to be a USCG helicopter pilot who has flown this route:

Common question: what about Night Vision Goggles (NVGs)? - I’m in the USCG, but I assume this Army crew likely had NVGs. But goggles are not a panacea… they don’t show color, they dramatically limit your peripheral view, and in bright, urban environments, they can get oversaturated aka washed out. Flying through DC, it can change minute by minute as to whether you are better off “aided” (goggles down in front of your eyes) or “unaided” (goggles flipped up out of the way on your helmet). Sometimes it even varies depending on which side of the aircraft you’re on. Just because they had goggles doesn’t mean they were more likely to see the airliner. The airliner has a lot of bright lights on already, and the same goggles that help them avoid trees and power lines could also have reduced their peripheral vision at key moments.[/quote]

This is interesting but also begs more questions than it answers.

This seems like an insane way to train people to do what sounds like a complicated and potentially dangerous maneuver. I understand you need to be trained to evacuate people from DC at night even with commercial jet traffic. And that you might include night vision goggles in that training because you need to both avoid power lines/trees as well as other aircraft. But should that training really occur in a place with actual commercial flights in the area? Can't they use simulators and then some kind of staged training course IRL (using aircraft NOT carrying innocent civilians).

It feels like they rolled the dice with civilian planes at DCA as a way to train pilots to evacuate VIPs. Does that sit right with anyone? Not with me.[/quote]

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