An optical system for airborne Helmet Visor Display(HVD) is designed according to characteristics of the airborne helmet and requirements of man-machine engineering. The optical performance and distortion model are analyzed,and the distortion correction algorithm and software are presented to reduce the distortion of the designed optical system. Experimental results show that after correcting the distortion for the designed optical system,a high imaging quality is achieved,the MTF approaches 0.2 at the spatial frequency of 50lp/mm,and the full field of view distortion is less than 0.5％.The results meet the demands of airborne Helmet Visor Display(HVD).