The night of Friday is upon us. I am currently at the East Coast Night Shoot (ECNS) so look forward to coverage of that in my next article. But for today we get to take a look at a somewhat unknown Advanced Thermal Weapon Sight (ATWS) by FLIR. Thanks to Alex Pelc for lending this to me for this review.
FLIR ATWS T60
The FLIR ATWS T60 is a thermal clip on designed for the US MIltiary to be mounted on issued M4s with "standard sights". At the time this was the Trijicon ACOG TA31. Above I ahve a Browe BCO which is similar to the ACOG. It is a 4x32 scope.
The ATWS T60 is an uncooled 640x480 VOx Microbolometer. It has a 7ºH and 14ºH FOV. Brightess and contrast are automatic. The main power switch is postioned at the back near the top for easy access for your support hand. (Not designed for left handed users).
Pull the knob toward you and rotate it clockwise to 0.5, this is the wider 14º FOV. Keep rotating to 1 and that is the zoomed in image which gives you a narrower 7º FOV.
On the left side of the T60 are the rest of the controls. There is a good sized knob for adusting focus.
Close to the bottom, near your top rail, are the controls for NUC and changing polarity between Black Hot and White Hot.
The is a small port to the left of the NUC button is for analog video out.
The ATWS T60 is powered by 4x CR123. However I do not like the way FLIR designed it. It uses a proprietary battery caddy. If you lose it or it breaks, there is no way to run the T60. Maybe if someone designs and 3D prints a new one you could keep using it, but that isnt an option for many.
The battery compartment door is hinged and held in place with a large knurled nut on a threaded rod. Once you loosen the nut, you can swing the rod out of the way and the battery door will swing forwards.
In order to remove the battery caddy there is a low profile plastic tab. This seems like it would tear off if you are too rough with it. And then getting the battery tray out is very difficult.
The battery caddy is unidirectional.
You have to split the caddy open to change out batteries. I suppose if you have multiple battery caddies you could swap them out rather than have to change individual batteries. The ATWS T60 has a run time of 5 hours of continuous use with the 4x CR123.
The lens cap of the T60 is like a bikini cover and it is retained on the objective lens.
To prevent the lens cover from slipping off and down over the lens, there is a ridge machined on the top of the objective lens. It acts like a speed bump and rides in the gap under the lens cover.
What I found most interesting about the T60 is the integrated aiming laser. It looks like a Steiner style laser. It has a remote tape switch port at the front which I find very convenient for running shorter tap switches like a ModButton. However if you do not have a tap switch, there is no way to activate the laser. I suppose it is not the end of the world if you cannot use the laser on a thermal weapon sight. The laser is just nice to use to point to people what you are looking at with the thermal.
You cannot adjust the laser.
The sticker looks exacrtly like the ones on other Steiner lasers.
This ATWS has a red VIS laser and it has a high and low mode. Low is eyesafe. There was a safety screw to prevent the user from swtiching to high mode which can damage eyeballs. According to a PDF for the T60, the IR versions have 0.5mw/30mw lasers. I suspect the VIS would then be 5mwon low and 30+mw on high.
Just like my old FLIR T50 ACTS thermal weapon sight, the T60 has an RMR foot print machined into it so you can direct mount a Trijicon RMR and have a tall red dot.
ATWS T60 In Media
I posted photos of the T60 on my Instagram @Solscud007 and someone commented that it looks like the Hybrid Thermal sight in Call of Duty Ghosts. I googled it and found this image.
There are some liberties taken by Infinity Ward and Activision. It is normal for them to alter a design as to avoid violating intellectual property of the itme they are copying for their game. Look at the image below. The occular lens is massive. Having watched some videos about this optic in Call of Duty Ghosts, it is pure fiction.
The Hybrid Thermal sight in the came has a flip to side mount that when flipped over, it reveals a reflex dot sight. Almost like an enlarged C-More red dot. However this wouldnt work since the large lens would block the objective lens of the thermal. Thermal sensors cannot see through glass.
The photo previous to the one above shows the Hybrid Thermal sight on what looks like a Bizon. Well I have a Stizon kit on my PSA AKV and so life imitates art. I mounted the T60 to the AKV Stizon.
Final Thoughts On The FLIR ATWS T60
The T60 is an interesting thermal clip on. It is much better than the T50 I used to have. Although it lacks the ability to manual control brightness and gain like the T50. The onboard laser is better since it can take a remote switch. The T50 only had a button you could press on the side of the optic, which was a bit annoying.
Since the top of the T60 can mount RMR compatible optics, I mounted the INFITAC Fast Mini for a wider FOV thermal scanner to detect. Once I detect something of interest then I will look through the T60.
My friend Alex Pelc is currently selling this optic. If you are interested, reach out to him pelcalex1 (a) gmail (dot) com.
If you want to read the PDF data sheet for the T60, click on the file below.