Flight Tests of the KO-1 Aircraft at Night

The KO-1 aircraft which has the functionality of tactical observation, was successfully developed in August of 2004 in South Korea. It is important for the KO-1 aircraft to achieve successful missions at nighttime as well as during daytime. The aircraft, equipped with interior and exterior lighting systems and lighting control panel modified from those of the KT-1 basic trainer, provides improved safety, operational effectiveness, and situational awareness during operation at night when used with night-vision goggles (NVGs). KO-1 is the first domestic aircraft that utilizes the night-vision imaging system (NVIS) technology in Korea. KO-1 NVIS was developed with the goal of defining the components of NVIS and establishing test and evaluation procedures for both the subsystems and main system. In this paper, we present the establishment of a KO-1 NVIS lighting system, NVIS component development, and representative ground and flight test results.