00:00An F-35 pilot can see the ground through the floor of his jet.
00:03He can look over his shoulder and see through the tail.
00:06And his cockpit has no head-up display at all.
00:09All three come from his helmet.
00:12This is the F-35A Lightning II, the Air Force's stealth fighter.
00:17Six infrared cameras are built into its skin.
00:20Two look up and two look down.
00:22One looks out of each side of the nose.
00:24Together, they see in every direction at once.
00:27A computer joins their pictures into one sphere of video.
00:31Then, the helmet picks the piece he needs.
00:33A transmitter in his seat makes a magnetic field.
00:36Sensors in the helmet read it, so the jet knows where his head is pointing.
00:40Two small projectors shine that part of the sphere onto the inside of his visor.
00:44So when he looks down, the floor seems to vanish.
00:48The desert slides past under his boots.
00:50The visor also shows his speed, height, and targets wherever he looks.
00:55That's why the jet doesn't need a head-up display.
00:57But the picture has to keep up with his head.
01:00Early helmets lagged behind, so the world dragged across the visor.
01:04Newer ones added a motion sensor that predicts where his head will go next.
01:08Each helmet is fitted to a 3D scan of the pilot's head, and costs about $400,000.
01:14So every time he looks down...
