Movie: Firefox How realistic?

Question

The Clint Eastwood movie, entitled Firefox, of early 1980s vintage, had a somewhat futuristic helmet. That is, thought-guided, thought-controlled weapons system. The Pilot does not have to press a thing. All done via his thought-pattern to kill the enemy aircraft.

Is something like this in the pipeline ? Or pure fantasy ?

Remember that the Shuttle was thought of as fanciful, too.

Answer 1

Quite realistic and we are making gentle progress. Google for "Brain Computer Interface" or "Brain Machine Interface"

While the movie was interesting, you should try the book with the same name and the author is Craig Thomas, 1978. It mentions how the Brain Computer Interface was originally designed for and in fact that part was not fiction. BCI or BMI was being researched since the 70's

For those who mention the slaving of a weapon system to the helmet, that is a different mechanism. It is physical and has nothing to do with the brain as depicted in the Firefox stories.

And my ID is Firefox for the same reasons...

Answer 2

Ignoring some of the exaggerated flying scenes, the actual technology shown exists or is not far off.

Hillary winning the presidency is actually pure fantasy.

Answer 3

its a movie but remember the Apache helicopter its hood was by eye movment and thought. maybe not the same but close though.

Answer 4

the traditiional hemlet sights, mentioned by other answerers truly do not touch this man-machine interface... they are done exclusively by remote sensoring the position of the head and helmet, thus assuming the vector of the pilot's sight. this is done bz various mechanisms, mostlz including opto-elecronic measures, much like the computer assisted movies... it is called motion capturing.

the thought controlled man-machine interfaces are frequentlz shown in various computing festivals, but are not much useful, yet.

I believe there was effort to manufacture voice-controlled aircraft systems, but this proved unsatisfactory, because of limited voice recognition routines avaiable, and due to the physical changes to the human voice under both psychic and physical stress. similar conditions would badly interfere with the thought control inerfaces, as well.

Answer 5

The helmet is more realistic than you believe.The military has been working along a similar path for years at Wright-Patterson Air Force base. You are seeing some of the results with the look and shoot helmet and HUD displays on the visor.The thought-controlled weapon systems is still a way off but in the works.