Effects of armoured glass windscreens

[Jemiba]

Found via the German Flugzeugforum, the video isn't quite up to professional
quality, but it shows very good the effect, an armoured glass windscreen can have:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCGsyjt5ANU

Was this just an accidental effect, or was it used deliberately, maybe in other aircraft, too ?
(The angle of the windscreen is essential, I think)

 

[SteveO]

Refraction is weird and shouldn't be allowed, same goes for everything else I don't instantly understand! ;D

I guess those supersonic bizjet cockpits with no conventional forward facing windows could use this effect?

 

[Arjen]

I think the later Leduc ramjet fighter designs used thick glass/prisms to provide the pilot with a slightly better forward view, necessary because the later designs did away with the earlier Leduc aircraft's fully transparent nosecones. Nice find.

 

[Richard N]

Refraction is a fact of life in windshield and canopy design and fabrication. Here is a paper about it: OPTICAL FACTORS IN AIRCRAFT WINDSHIELD
DESIGN AS RELATED TO PILOT VISUAL PERFORMANCE

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/767203.pdf

I have seen an article about how the camera that views through the F-16 canopy is tweaked to compensate for refraction and variations in each canopy. The canopy and camera are placed in a fixture and the camera views a grid on a surface outside of the front of the canopy. The camera is then tweaked so that the grid appears square and without distortion in the correct position in front of the canopy.

 

[sienar]

That video was created to try and settle the age old argument about the "bar" in the Il-2 series of flight sims.

It was an intentional aspect of the 190s design. There are some drawing that show the pilots line of sight deflected through the armor glass. I wouldn't be surprised if the same idea was used in Tanks other fighter designs.