Abstract: Night vision pilotage systems (NVPS) are used to assist helicopter pilots to realize taking off, landing and hedgehopping at night by providing the highdefinition and largearea images. Based on the engineering application requirements and the state of art of the NVPS, the design methods of the NVPS are studied by analyzing and calculating some important issues, such as the design of adaptability to environment, the selection of photoelectric sensors and the design of control systems. The analysis and calculation results confirm the feasibility of the design, and the design shows that it is suitable when it applied in the engineering.