Folks,
I just want to thank Larry Stack, CEO of Photonis Defense USA, for providing me with a tour of their PA facility and a general rundown of their equipment lineup.
They have a very large facility in Lancaster, PA, and a number of folks that work there diligently to produce their products, many of which most of us are completely unaware of (e.g. not just night vision equipment).
There were a number of impressive developments that were shared, and, frankly, some of them we had to believe they were so cool. (For example, they have complete tube assembly that appears to be somewhere in the 1/3-1/2in in height area, an NV tube coupled to a CCD [digital camera], 16mm tubes, 18mm tubes, 16mm to 18mm tube converters, housing systems milled out of blocks of aluminum or magnesium, etc. etc…)
We also spent time in their NV showroom, where it simulates a number of conditions, to including the rapid flashing of weapons fire / general simulated battlefield conditions.
Some of you probably have seen my posts in the past where I’ve explained my experiences with a Phontonis Intens based AB Night Vision Mob3B system from, probably, 5-6 years ago. The biggest thing that I miss from that system was that the center resolution was 81lp/mm, with a FOM of ~2600/2800 for the two tubes. It was a great system, and especially when you include the ability to mitigate high light situations faster than the human eye. Most importantly, the clarity of the center resolution of the system. (I‘m very sensitive to that for whatever reason.)
We actually spent some time comparing competing vendor’s NV technology, and it was very interesting to see how even in VERY [almost non-exisitant] lighting conditions the Photonis equipment did better with definition. My assumption is that the amount of scintillation in the GaAs tubes in near complete darkness impacts the ability to see definition in specific lighting conditions; that the Photonis tubes excel in conditions that would normally cause visual distortion, such as extreme high light and near complete darkness. (In near complete darkness if you use a small light sources, it seems the Phontonis tubes provide a dark image, but one with usable definition of objects - Which in todays demonstration were a bunch of what appeared to be 1951 USAF Resolution Test Charts at various intervals, as you could not seem them well with comparable technology of the SAME FOM and general specs; Phontonis has clearly created a tool that work exceedingly well in conditions where other vendor’s NV tubes exhibt trade offs in performance.)
Now, I DO have an RNVG with L3 40:1 90+lp/mm tubes (e.g. INSANELY expensive) to compare this with. However, while they are VERY good, they do not deal well with ANY sort of higher light conditions. Basically, they’re just too sensitive in some regards. The Photonis stuff holds its own very well, and it took a CRAZY amount of money to get an L3 system with the kind of clarity you see in a typical Echo/4G Photonis system, which would probably be about half the price currently.
Larry’s demonstration was impressive.
As some of you know, one of my chief issues has been attempting to get a hold of devices made using the Intens/Intens+/4G/4G+. Larry was quite frank about the market situation with the war in Ukraine and the general disposition of tubes as a result; Effectively, you should be able to get what you want, but it may take time to come in depending.
He also indicated that they had some updates coming out to their product line.
Again, I want to thank him for his and Photonis’ time today.
Larry is also a retired Navy Captain (e.g. Colonel for the other services). As such, thank you for your service Swabbie
