SU49/PAS 5 Night Vision Goggles

Its near impossible to find any information about these SU49 Night Vision Goggles, they were made by ITT Aerospace/Optical division and are dated in 1969. They came with a 1969 dated padded hard plastic case. These are what is know as Gen 1 night vision and need an external IR light source.

SOG were reported to have used these early NVG's along with the later SU50 model, both with the AN/PAS 8 aiming light that was mounted to a rifle. They were also sued by the 46th Special Forces Company in Thailand and the Son Tay prison raiders.

We would appreciate any information anyone has on these and anyone who has an SU50 or AN/PAS 8 Aiming light for sale please contact us.

PAS 6 Varo Metascope - Infrared Transistorized

The Metascope was an outdated technology at teh time of use by SOG butw as used during HALO missions to locate teams during night time infiltration. You can read a description of their use in this article.

During or just after W.W. II there were Sinper-Scopes M1 and M3 that were the near IR type and used a large IR filtered light source and IR image converter tube. Typically mounted on the .30 carbine. Probably the carbine because the range was 70 yards for the M1. They used vibrator power supples and the tube ran at about 4 kV. This is a near IR (not heat type IR) viewer and source. The source, MX-7987/PAS-6, is a two "D" cell flashlight with a reflector and 1.6" diameter IR filter.

The center off switch is momentary when pressed aginst the source and stary on when moved away from the source (ON)-OFF-ON. When you look directly into the filter with the light on you can barley see any light. The beam width of the source is very narrow when compared to the field of view of the SU-43. The range is greater than 150 feet, maybe more like 100 yards (to be determined). The IR viewer, SU-43/PAS-6, is made in a side by side tube arrangement. One tube holds the BA-1312/U Mercury battery (equivalent Radio Shack 23-901), High Voltage Power Supply and ON-OFF switch and the other tube holds in target side optics, IR converter tube and eye side optics. Both the target and eye side optics can be focused.

The viewer has a groove that accepts the two pins on the source so they can be assembled into a single unit. Although there are two ways to combine them only the way where both target ends point the same way makes sense. When indoors in the daytime the switch can be turned on and then off and it works for a number of minutes, but when outside on a sunny day the screen goes black after a few seconds after turning off the switch. You can hear a faint whine when the switch is on and the SU-43 is next to your ear.