A method for improving nighttime visual awareness of a pilot flying an aircraft carrying an air-to-air missile including one or more one gimbaled imaging sensor. The method includes providing a helmet for the pilot, a helmet tracking system for determining the attitude of the helmet relative to the aircraft, and a helmet-mounted display. The method also includes determining a current imaging sensor viewing direction of the imaging sensor of the air-to-air missile, sampling an image from the imaging sensor of the air-to-air missile and displaying the image on the helmet-mounted display. The determining and the displaying are performed so that the image displayed on the helmet-mounted display viewed by the pilot is spatially aligned with the scene viewed by the imaging sensor.