I don't agree with a number of posts dismissing HUD under smoke in cockpit conditions. The HUD equipped aircraft that I fly was tested with a smoke generator in the cockpit generating so much smoke that the test pilot could not see his hand in front of his face. He could still read the HUD.
I suspect that this possibly has something to do with the frequency of the light projected. The HUD projector is not like a normal projector. If you put a sheet of white paper onto the combiner at night there will be no image displayed on the sheet. I'm guessing that the light is not dispersed all that much by the smoke and still gets to the combiner
Where is the projector on your type Beez? Ours is above and behind our head. If we go much further forward than normal the image ends up on the back of our head instead of on the combiner.
I'll have to look into whether the light frequency of the projected image can penetrate smoke.
On further thought, we would have to choose between the HUD or EVAS. The HUD combiner would prevent EVAS from properly inflating. I would choose EVAS because I know it works.
Best,
GC