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Handout / U.S. Air Force via Reuters file
An F-22 Raptor fighter jet flies in a training mission during Red Flag 12-3 over the Nevada Test and Training Range.
Updated at 8 p.m. ET: The Air Force this week directed F-22 pilots to stop wearing pressure suit vests during routine flights after tests determined the garments could contribute to ongoing oxygen deprivation problems, NBC News has learned.
A senior U.S. military official said that Air Force investigators “haven’t determined definitively that this is the smoking gun that everyone is looking for” but that “this is a significant development.”
During centrifuge testing at Brooks-City Base in Texas, the Air Force was able to recreate some of the hypoxia-like symptoms that pilots have experienced in the F-22, the official told NBC News.
The testers, from the 711th Human Performance Wing, determined that the upper pressure vests do not always deflate properly, making it hard for the pilots to breathe. When tests were done in a high G environment (high levels of acceleration), some pilots could not get their breath at all, the official said.
The official added that the Air Force will continue testing to ensure they “have this situation squared away.”
Lt. Col. Edward Sholtis, a spokesman for the Air Combat Command, said the upper pressure garment is not "the" cause of physiological incidents and that investigators also are looking at the layering of other Aircrew Flight Equipment as contributing to breathing difficulties.
Senator Mark Warner, D-Va., and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., said Wednesday in a joint statement that the F-22 problems are more widespread than earlier reported.
The Air Force told the lawmakers that through May 31 there were 26.43 hypoxia or hypoxia-like incidents per 100,000 flight hours among F-22 pilots -- a rate at least 10 times higher than any other Air Force aircraft, according to the statement.
They said the equipment test results revealed this week were the result of collaboration they recommended with a Navy dive team in Panama City, Fla.
F-22 troubles were widely publicized in a May “60 Minutes” appearance by Virginia Air National Guard Capt. Joshua Wilson and Maj. Jeremy Gordon, who refused to fly the fighter jet and claimed its oxygen system was poisoning them.
"The safety of these pilots and the communities over which they fly should be everyone's paramount concern," Warner said. "The F-22 program has cost $80 billion so far, but the most expensive fighter jet in the world is useless if we cannot ensure the safety of the pilots who fly it."
“As the nation with the strongest military and the brightest minds in the world, we must make certain that we provide our men and women in uniform with the best equipment possible,” Kinzinger said.
In May, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered the Air Force to restrict F-22 flights because of continuing problems with the Raptor's oxygen system. At least 22 pilots suffered from oxygen deprivation while in flight since April 2008.
Panetta ordered that all F-22 flights remain within a "proximate distance" of an airfield in case a pilot should suffer from a hypoxia event and be forced to land. Some F-22s are deployed to southwest Asia.
Panetta also ordered the Air Force to accelerate installment of a backup oxygen system in all F-22s, a process the Air Force does not expect to begin until December. The Air Force awarded a $19 million contract to Lockheed Martin Corp. to install a backup oxygen system in the F-22 Raptor that it makes.
The aircraft were grounded last year temporarily so the Air Force could study its oxygen system.
The Air Force reports that each of the aircraft costs $143 million. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, however, estimates that each F-22 cost taxpayers $412 million, if upgrades and research and development expenses are included.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has ordered all F-22 flights to remain near an airfield in case the pilot suffers from oxygen deprivation due to the aircraft's oxygen system. NBC's Brian Williams reports.
Courtney Kube is NBC News' Pentagon producer. NBC News' Libby Leist contributed to this report.
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This doesn`t address the symptoms experienced by the ground personnel...
from the reports it appear the the g suits are over infations , this aircraft is so far above anything in our arsenal. that are having very serious problems with the human factor.
Time for the drones. We have the technology, let's use it.
The Air Force reports that each of the aircraft costs $143 million. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, however, estimates that each F-22 cost taxpayers $412 million, if upgrades and research and development expenses are included.
WOW! It costs the U.S. Government $269 million more than MSRP. Not surprised.
Likely the GAO estimate includes the junkets to Vegas and Colombia.
How in God's green acre can we afford a bunch of planes that cost almost half a billion dollars each?!!!
Check the debt clock lately?
Agreed. A billion here, a billion there .... pretty soon yer talkin real money.
"How in God's green acre can we afford a bunch of planes that cost almost half a billion dollars each?!!!"
By making more of the parts and subsystems in China!
And there is a news story today about another crash of an Osprey, a crash prone debacle which scares the bejeebers out of the pilots and the transport personnel who have to ride in them.
The Pentagon twice tried to kill the Osprey program because of huge cost overruns and numerous fatal crashes during development and testing, but was overruled by the US Congress because the manufacturer cleverly contracted components to be built in almost all 50 states.
In short, the US Congress required the US Military to build an aircraft which it determined to be too costly. Almost $70 Million per unit vs. just $35 Million per unit for the CH-53 conventional heavy lift helicopter the Osprey will replace.
The Air Force and Marines determined that many US service personnel would die unnecessarily because of the Ospreys inability to auto-rotate to land in the event of engine failure, and now the US Navy is going to also have to replace the carrier deck finishes (at the cost of several hundred million more dollars) because the hot jet exhaust of the Osprey engines destroys the current carrier deck materials.
Our US Congress at work. As humorist Mark Twain opined "Washington, the grand old benevolent National Asylum for the helpless" and Congress, the only "distinctly native American criminal class."
beautifully said. Excellent information.
Some good info in your post Robert but may I add a few items. Firstly it's sadly common to lose some aircraft in fact the US and allies lose far less than some other countries. I see that over a period of years India lost 40% of its MiG-21 fleet of over 700 aircraft. That's considerable.
The present (production) version of the Osprey is far different than the craft which experienced a number of crashes. Firstly it was revolutionary technology with a number of bugs. That's what test pilots are for and sadly some are lost but not nearly as many as the 50's and 60's.
The carriers you speak of are Marine craft (though the Marines are officially part of the US Navy) and I'm saying this because some of the readers might confuse your comment as to mean Nimitz class carriers. The Marine carriers are much smaller. Deck coatings are cyclically replaced in any event although they might wear much faster with the Osprey but when the F/A-35-B comes into play the downward exhaust will be even greater so I assume the Marines have taken that into account and quite possibly they are upgrading deck surfaces to accommodate the F/A-35-B.
Cheers!
Time to accelerate that RPV research!
Just to keep things in perspective, JUST ONE ("1") of these turkeys sets us back about the same amount as the entire cost of the Republicans' favorite whipping boy, Solyndra.
But the difference here is that this is what the congress approved as a whole. Not just one person/party/group.
You mispelled "hole".
Hey it's 21th century..........and why do they need pilots?
very soon, the drones will take over. You are right.
Lag of commands getting to the drone from the operations center. They are unable to perform high speed acrobatic tasks. Those two reasons alone make it almost impossible for them to defend against manned attack aircraft. Unlike space we have wind and heat variations that can interrupt an aircraft in flight, only by having a pilot in command of the aircraft could those simple issues be dealt with fast enough to enable things like hooking a load with an H-60. That requires hovering and extremely fine maneuvering the keep the helicopter stable.
Drones will never be able to replace a manned aircraft. The human brain will always be superior to any computer we make.
These pressure contraptions are only effective on legs and arms. To put them on the chest ? hello ? are they nuts ? they are suffocating the guys......who is not using their brains in this military struggle ? Next they would have them around the neck......good grief.
Sounds like we are over taxing the pilot and the plane itself isn't the issue.
No they are not useless. They could be flown as long as the pilots do not exceed the limits where the pressure suits inflate. That's not as goofy as it sounds. A stealth fighter can fight from long range with missiles. Having a small radar signature means being able to fire before the enemy fighters get a lock on you. If you have to depend on close air combat and pressure suits for the maneuvering that takes place then you have already thrown stealth out the window and you are instead relying on the older non stealthy fighters we have that have stayed farther back for secondary defense.
They don't seem to know much of anythng, do they?
I may be all wet but this is what I learned in the college physics. Supersonic flight means the plane is moving faster than the sound can travel. The sound can travel only as fast as the air can move. So, when the plane is flying faster than the air can move, i.e. supersonic flight, the air and, in this case, oxygen cannot move through the tube (in which there is additional frictional force to slow down the oxygen flow) as fast and resulting in a so-called "standing wave." The result: No oxygen flow.
The Raptor's total unit cost is conservatively $300m/copy ($0.3b) including all developmental costs and support/MRP and parts inventories. NOW we are going to pay the primary contractor, Lockheed Martin, ANOTHER piddling $19m to fix THEIR problem! The fix is to install a BACKUP oxygen system and is NOT apparently intended to actually make the F-22 safe with the oxygen system supplied with the plane! Geez, where can I get a contract like that: I could have horrendous, outrageous, immoral cost over-runs, then deliver a plane that can kill it's pilots and MUST be flown under ridiculously debilitating restrictions making this weapon essentially worthless, and then I can get paid get paid up-front to TRY and apply a "backyard" fix to their engineered problem. Sign me up! Would anyone out there buy a car from these guys!?
Collegegraduate: the oxygen delivery system inside the planes' cockpit with the pilot is not subject to any supersonic turbulence or even any laminar air flow. The oxygen units in the cockpit are as protected as the pilot themselves. There is not relative air movement. The issue is almost solely related to very complex and very high g-forces acting on the tube delivery system, thus the suits and vests need to be checked out. I'm sure this is anything but a simple system to design. BUT the first supersonic plane was the Super Saber F-100A delivered to the Air Force in 1952. Since then we've operated multiply supersonic planes with pilot oxygen systems, a few: F4's, F104's, F14, F16, F18, and we have developed the F35. All these planes kept pushing the g-force limit (an excellent reason to develop drones!) so a design plan to address this overall g-force/oxygen delivery system problem in a plane like the ridiculously agile F22 Raptor should not have surprised anyone.....especially with the cost over-runs in the development area of the F22.