Why do modern day fighter pilots wear hard helmets?

[WhiningKhan]

In this article the manufacturer actually claims that rather than turn and face an enemy when they fire missiles at them, they just let the missiles do a 180 which I'm kinda skeptical about since I'm pretty sure the rockets only fire for a few seconds.

High off-boresight missiles have been available for a while already (starting with AA-11, AIM-9X, ASRAAM). They can pull extreme turns (maybe closer to 100G) after launch, turning the missile around is not a problem.

 

[Mariner]

The important question is if any of these helmets allow you to fire missiles simply by thinking in russian?

 

[WhiningKhan]

The important question is if any of these helmets allow you to fire missiles simply by thinking in russian?

Would it nowadays be better to learn chinese rather than russian if you're going to hijack a fighter prototype? I'd suggest Firefox as Nato codename for J-20:

 

[Blazkowicz]

what if the pilot needs to pick his nose?

 

[AlphaWolf]

what if the pilot needs to pick his nose?

I'm pretty sure that f-35 helmet that was linked above has it covered.

 

[Blazkowicz]

so, they didn't spend one trillion for nothing.

 

[AlphaWolf]

so, they didn't spend one trillion for nothing.

Yep, It takes care of all of the bogies.

 

[fehu]

That's not a modern day fighter pilot with his helmet, that's a 1970's one.
Take a look at F35 helmet and ask again:
http://www.dailytech.com/Fixes+for+Problem+Plagued+F35+Helmet+in+the+Works/article21023.htm

That's modern day for you - fancy, badass looking and they'll probably never get it working completely. Just like smartphones.

so much robotech! 0_0