Aircraft canopy

A canopy's shape is a compromise designed to minimize aerodynamic drag, while maximizing visibility for pilots and other crewmembers.

Through World War I most aircraft had no canopy, although they often had a small windshield to deflect the prop wash and wind from hitting the pilot in the face.

Some one-off canopies are made in a similar fashion, but since a mould would be too time-consuming to make, the acrylic is heated and vacuum formed until it approximates the shape the builder is seeking.

Its primary aspect is the addition of an indium-tin-oxide layer to the gold tinted cockpit canopy, which is reflective to radar frequencies.

[citation needed] The Malcolm Hood is a type of aircraft canopy originally developed for the Supermarine Spitfire.

Its concept proved valuable for other aircraft such as the North American Aviation P-51B & C Mustangs as retrofit items, and standard on later versions of the Vought F4U Corsair, and somewhat emulated on the later models of the Luftwaffe's Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter.

A bulged hood replaced the Vought Corsair's "birdcage" framed canopy from the 689th production F4U-1 to provide better all-round field of view.

A type of canopy used as part of a synthetic cockpit where the pilot would not have direct sight of the outside world, but through an array of cameras.

The British Aerospace P.125 was to use the have not glass cockpit arrangement that would increase stealth characteristics and would block out the potential soviet threat of dazzling laser weapons.