Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 13, 1993 TAG: 9305130300
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
THE first squad is briefed on its mission, a routine patrol to the river and back. Be on the alert, we're cautioned, they're out there somewhere.
OK, the 82nd Airborne, we're not, the night-vision goggles pressed against our eye-sockets notwithstanding.
For one thing, the 82nd Airborne probably wouldn't be making this much racket out in the brush.
Wow!
Oooh!
Look at that!
Then, too, the Army is no nature hike, and this is.
Call it Tom Clancy meets Mark Trail.
Call it the future.
ITT's search for new markets for its night-vision goggles in a post-Cold War world has brought the company here, to the 1,300 acres of woods and hills of the Explore Park in eastern Roanoke County.
To show off how the military's night-vision goggles can revolutionize even the gentle sport of enjoying the outdoors, ITT has banded together with Explore, the Science Museum of Western Virginia and the Mill Mountain Zoo to sponsor a series of high-tech night hikes this spring and summer.
The result must be the world's only nature hike in which the participants don't much mind if they don't see any wildlife - they're content just to "ooh" and "aah" while staring into even the most tangled underbrush.
OK, you've seen "Silence of the Lambs" and the scene where the goggle-equipped serial killer chases Jodie Foster through a darkened house. And you've seen "Patriot Games," where Harrison Ford blinds the night-goggled Irish terrorists sneaking up on him in the basement simply by turning on all the lights.
So you know generally how these gizmos work, without someone having to explain all the theory behind them. So we'll pass over Henrich Hertz' work in 1897 on photoemission, the process by which light reacts with matter and causes electrons to escape. And we won't dwell on gallium-arsenide photocathodes and phosphor screens and how every time a light wave strikes the photocathode it unleashes a shower of electrons that causes the phosphor screen to emit an eerie green light in the same pattern . . .
You'll settle for knowing that night-vision goggles work in the dark the same way heat pumps do in cold weather. In even the most frigid arctic blast, there's still some smidgen of heat that a heat pump will squeeze out to warm your house. Ditto, there's still some light on even the darkest night; the goggles will amplify it 30 to 40 times, whether you know the principles of photoemission or not.
Instead, what you really want to know is: What can you see through one of these things?
The answer: Just about everything. And more.
Except it's all in a shimmering, otherwordly phosphorous green. The woods look as if they're bathed in limelight from a hidden source, bright as noon on a planet with a green sun.
The depth of field is a little screwy. Watch out for that ditch! It looked to be a good six feet away, instead of under your big toe. But just stand still, scan through the woods, and if there's something out there, by gum, you'll see it.
Well, at least that's what we were told. Ginny Webb, Explore's education coordinator, assured the hikers she's seen some deer, some turkeys, even an osprey nesting down by the Roanoke River.
Unfortunately, we didn't see any of them. "To see any animals, we're going to have to go and sit in the field somewhere," said Heather Winkler, the Science Museum's program coordinator. "But with children along, that's not always possible."
One hiker, Vickie Damico of Roanoke, insisted she saw something moving up in the trees. "It was the size of the squirrel," she said. "It looked like a squirrel without a tail."
Is that possible? No one seemed to know and frankly, no one much cared.
A fleeting glimpse of an unidentified mammal paled next to the other marvels available.
Like the other hikers, for one thing.
Look up ahead.
Someone about 100 yards away lit a cigarette. To the unaided eye, the path was still dark and, for all anyone knew, empty. But in the goggles . . .
That cigarette looks like a torch.
The embers flared so brightly you could see the smoker's face.
Look up in the sky.
Wow!
Look at all those stars.
Look at all those stars, indeed.
What had been the black void between the familiar constellations now sparkled thick with stars, as if God had opened up a treasure-chest of diamonds. And that's not all. A few hikers saw the faint smudge-streaks of tiny meteorites that otherwise would have gone undetected.
The woods may have been empty, but the night sky was alive with activity no one else could see.
And for these hikers, that was thrill enough.
John and Thelma Dalmas, two veteran birders, came all the way from Lynchburg for a chance to peer through night-vision goggles. They didn't go away disappointed. "It was wonderful," Thelma Dalmas exclaimed over and over. "It's just astounding what you can see."
That's the reaction ITT is counting on once the civilians get their first look-see.
Roanoke's ITT plant has turned out 70,000 night-vision goggles for the military, and it just got a Pentagon order to make 40,000 more over the next five years. But with defense cutbacks darkening the long-term picture, ITT is hoping to find civilian markets for the goggles.
Soon, it'll start marketing a $2,500 version, called Night Mariner, aimed at boaters. "We're talking about boats costing $100,000 or more," said Norm Phillips, the ITT rep on hand to demonstrate the goggles. "There are 150,000 boats costing that much in the United States, although not many of them are on Smith Mountain Lake."
Yachts, schmats. Thelma Dalmas is already starting to think about what night-vision goggles will do for birding.
"Oh, they'd be wonderful for looking for owls."
She wants to come back again and try to spy some.
Night-vision hikes: May 21 and Aug. 13, the latter to coincide with the Perseid meteor shower. Others are being added through the summer. $4 per person. Call Heather Winkler at the Science Museum. 342-5718.
by CNB