Which was the best night fighter?

[collector]

Carrots contain a high amount of something called beta-carotene, this is converted into Vitamin A (retinal) by our bodies. It is then converted to a molecule called retinal which essential for a protein called rhodopsin to work. Rhodopsin is found in rods in your eyes and it converts light into an electrical gradient.
It's more a case of eating no carrots and not getting any beta-carotene causes night-blindness.

It's my first message so I apologise if it's not really about night fighters (having written a book about this matter, my personal opinions on the matter differ quite amply from the opinions of many of the excellent experts on this forum....) but as a M.D. and ophthalmologist I can confirm that, yes, carrots might help getting a better night vision and berries (blueberries, blackberries, etc), containing antocyanosides, can be even more helpful in attaining a singificantly lower sensitivity to low lights, so they were actually useful to night fighter pilots in those days. Nowadays rallye drivers simply gulp 2 or 3 tablets of concentrated antocyanosides (Tegens, etc) and it's ok. In those days, you ate berries or carrots; it's not a myth.

I must say that this is a really brilliant forum. I really wish to congratulate you all for your excellent education and for the good manners of this conversation. Hals und Beinbruch!

Stefano

Stefano Pasini's Homepage

[HoHun]

Hi Stefano,

>as a M.D. and ophthalmologist I can confirm that, yes, carrots might help getting a better night vision and berries (blueberries, blackberries, etc), containing antocyanosides, can be even more helpful in attaining a singificantly lower sensitivity to low lights, so they were actually useful to night fighter pilots in those days. Nowadays rallye drivers simply gulp 2 or 3 tablets of concentrated antocyanosides (Tegens, etc) and it's ok. In those days, you ate berries or carrots; it's not a myth.

Thanks a lot, that's really a great first post here! The "carrot" story has always fascinated me, and I'm thrilled to read that it was in fact a well-thought out cover story with a proper scientific background and not just some transparent excuse to avoid breaking secrecy about radar.

Do you perhaps have a professional opinon on the effectiveness "night goggles" worn by British pilots during daytime (or under artificial light conditions) to improve their night vision? I don't know the exact method or if it was used by other air forces than the RAF as well, I only have some superficial impression from Tee Emm cartoons - which of course show PO Percival Prune bumping into hard objects while wearing these goggles on the ground!

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Man so I should have eaten more carrots and berries before flying night missions! Now you tell me...

[collector]

Do you perhaps have a professional opinon on the effectiveness "night goggles" worn by British pilots during daytime (or under artificial light conditions) to improve their night vision?

Dear HoHun, thank you for your welcome and your question. I quote from another site:

"During World War II, the British Royal Air Force noted reports from pilots that nighttime visual acuity was improved after consuming bilberries. Subsequent studies showed that bilberry improved nighttime visual acuity, provided quicker adjustment to darkness and faster restoration of visual acuity after exposure to glare." This is actually true; not so true is what the same guy writes afterwards, i.e. "....Currently, European medicine uses bilberry extracts to treat several ocular disorders such as cataracts, macular degeneration, retinitis pigmentosa, diabetic retinopathy, and night blindness." Sadly, the anthocyanosides alone cannot cure such diseases, but they're useful, enhancing the low-light sensitivity of photoreceptors, especially rods.

Night-time goggles were red-tinted lenses used to shield the retina from too much light and thus making easier the attainment of the desirable condition of sensitivity, to low lights, currently named 'mesopic' or 'scotopic' adaptment during the last crucial hours before the mission. The red light disturbs the reaching of this condition much less than the other wavelenghts (blue, yellow, green, etc; remember thata visible light is just an electromagnetic wave), thus in dim ambient light you can see throught those red lenses well enough to read a map but still not hurting your precious adaptment to low lights. All these ideas were lost after the mass introduction of radar in every miltary aircraft, making the eyes less critical to aerial combat (if you would allow me to say so).

The 'red lens' concept still works (a red-tinted lens is good to play golf because it enhances contrast even at dusk), just try it remembering that reaching a good level of low lights sensitivity would need 30-120 minutes and a single flash-light exposure to a bright light will destroy it. Amazingly, being a retinal phenomenon, either eye can attain it indipendently from the condition of the other. So, dear Eagle, you still have something to test after all! Thank you,

Collector

[Kruska]

First I was worried and upset about the German defense budget being cut down almost to nil on night vision hardware, but know I feel even worse, I HATE CARROTS

Regards
Kruska

[Graeme]

Originally Posted by collector

macular degeneration. Sadly, the anthocyanosides alone cannot cure such diseases

Hello Collector.

Macular Degeneration. Isn't this where betacarotene/carrots come in to play'?

[collector]

Hello Graeme,

thank you for your contribution. Unfortunately that article misses the mark, being macular degeneration (ARMD stands for 'age-related macular degeneration') a disease transmitted as a genetic-induced disruption of the central cones of the macula, and no amount of carotene can fight this process. Being now in holiday in Tyrol I don't have a full access to my reference books, but the last issue of 'Ophthalmology' reports the results of the Beaver Dam study where it is clear that the most effective amongst so-called VSs (Vitamin Supplements), MSs (Mineral Supplements) and other drugs NVNMs (Non-Vitamin, Non-Mineral) is the combination of zinc and antioxidant supplements, and this works only in 25% of cases exhamined (Klein, Knudsnon et al, Ophth. 115/7/2008 ). Carotene is, I think, far less useful, but if you like those weird orange things, eating one a day surely won't hurt. Cheers!

Collector

[Graeme]

Thanks for the explanation Stefano!

You could/should start an opthalmic thread!
This isn't the place, but I'd love to discuss...

1. Diabetic retinopathy.
2. Hyperkeratosis and corneal transplant.
3. And High Index glass/lens.

Cheers.

[B-17engineer]

.......how do we get carrots ..into a nighfighter thread

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by B-17engineer

.......how do we get carrots ..into a nighfighter thread

If you had gone and read the posts, you would have answered your own question.

Why don't you try it sometime?

[parsifal]

I dont know about the carrots argument, but i do know that maintaining your night vision is absolutley essential when at sea at night. it is a chargeable ofense to bring white light onto a bridge rigged for night vision. only IR lighting and hooded at that. It takes your eyes many minutes to adjust back to the inky night sky. IMakes me wonder what the interior lighting in the bombers and the NFs were like. Was the instrument pamnel brightly illuminated? if so it would have been a mistake, and downgraded the viusal accuity of the aircrew

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by parsifal

I dont know about the carrots argument, but i do know that maintaining your night vision is absolutley essential when at sea at night. it is a chargeable ofense to bring white light onto a bridge rigged for night vision. only IR lighting and hooded at that. It takes your eyes many minutes to adjust back to the inky night sky. IMakes me wonder what the interior lighting in the bombers and the NFs were like. Was the instrument pamnel brightly illuminated? if so it would have been a mistake, and downgraded the viusal accuity of the aircrew

Tell me about it. We allways used night vision goggles when flying night missions. Only red lights were allowed to be used onboard during that time (even when we flew unaided night missions without goggles).

Anyhow, I through a reporters camera out the side of my aircraft one night. I told him no flash when he took pictures. He nodded and smiled. A few minutes into the flight he took a picture with flash. Me and the rest of the crew are yelling at him and he is just nodding and apologizing. A few minutes later he took another. Whilie he as grinning I took his camera and through it out the window.

[collector]

Hello Parsifal,

the Navy rules about night-time illumination systems have always been as tight as the Air Force's, for obvious reasons. Those hooded red/IR lamps didn't disturb low light mesopic/scototpic adaptation.

Bombers and fighters designed for night duty during WWII and later were fitted with classic analogue dials with black background and white numbers and 'hands'. Maximum contrast, maximum readability. The light to illuminate those dials was always red red or, rarely, amber. Never green or blue, the hues that most disturb night adapatation. Exactly the same that functionalists like Porsche, Mercedes or Audi do today.

A short paper I presented a few years ago at a world ophthalmology congress in Detroit can be usefulm, if you would take the trouble to read it:

The Imperfect Speedometer

To the Crewchef: well made! That photographer was clearly an idiot....

Ciao

Collector

[BIG BIRD]

would'nt the flash of the guns make the pilots lose night vision. some german night fighters used 30mm cannons. 30mm= big flash.

[kool kitty89]

I think that would have been a particular problem on the Me 262, though perhaps the armament was arranged differenty on the intended nightfighter version. (that would also make mounting the radar simpler I immagine)

Does anyone have info on how the nightfighter Me 262's (the B-2a iirc) armament was to be arranged?