60 Minutes: Is the Air Force's F-22 fighter jet making pilots sick?

Definently the OV-10 or some sort of varient...how about the OV-1 Mohawk? Havent heard much about that little beast, except its little stint in Vietnam...
 
Lockheed launches Twitter PR campaign for F-22 during 60 minutes episode.

Lockheed Martin has launched an offensive to combat complaints from pilots who have refused to fly its F-22s over concerns about oxygen deprivation while in the cockpit.

The company took its campaign to the skies - er, Twitter - to try to combat growing negative publicity about its Raptors.

The Air Force has been looking into about a dozen unexplained incidents related to hypoxia, or oxygen deficiency, with pilots but has been unable to pinpoint the cause, Air Combat Command has said.

Pilots began experiencing problems about four years ago.

“For some reason, the onboard oxygen generating system and the environmental control system that feeds it may be inputting some contaminant,” Gen. Gregory Martin, a retired Air Force veteran, told CNN affiliate WAVY in Virginia.

For a while, the problem was the subject of only a spattering of media reports, but Lockheed Martin went on the offensive (or defensive, depending whom you ask) by launching a Twitter campaign praising the fleet as "60 Minutes" aired a segment on the problems with the Raptors and interviewed decorated pilots who were refusing to fly them.

Gen. Mike Hostage of Air Combat Command recently spoke about the issue, which has plagued the fleet since problems with the F-22s' oxygen supply system were reported in 2008.

The jets have been grounded to examine the problem, but in September 2011, the Raptors were again cleared and allowed to fly. In January 2011, the jets were limited to altitudes under 25,000 feet during an investigation into a November 2010 crash. Flying above that altitude could cause a pilot to black out from lack of oxygen and lose control.

The Air Force has made sure to add emergency oxygen deployment handles should a pilot encounter any issues.

"We are diligently pursuing a variety of hypotheses to try and understand and characterize the exact circumstances we've been experiencing," Hostage said.

As the "60 Minutes" feature aired, Lockheed Martin tweeted about the impressive speeds and missions that no other planes but the F-22s were able to claim. But it also got a few pithy responses to the public relations campaign.
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Story here:

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/0...er-offensive-to-defend-maligned-fighter-jets/
 
That was a great interview. If the unnecessarily complicated OBOGS system is poisoning its pilots (ironically installed on the unnecessarily complicated F-22 Raptor), TAKE THE DAMN THING OUT and replace it with a liquid oxygen system! Perhaps "Molecular Sieve Technology" isn't the best solution for high G/high altitude flight.

What's that USAF? You don't want to have to stockpile freon to clean the LOX system? TOO BAD! Your pilot's lives are more important than some BS cost/weight saving measures.

f_35obogs_642.gif
 
trafficinsight said:
melt em all down and build an endless supply of F-16's and A-10's ;)
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Comments like these get thrown around in a lot of Raptor discussions -- it's unfortunately that people don't understand that designs like the Viper, Eagle, etc, are all ready 30+ years old and are out-gunned hopelessly against peer air-to-air and (especially) surface-to-air systems that are all ready deployed to numerous red and gray states globally.

No reasonable number of Eagles and Vipers can replace the capability of the Raptor, even if they were to be constructed with better avionics and weapons.

Raptor certainly has had it's share of problems, but IMHO it's well worth it because of what it can do. It is a generational leap over the capability of anything else in the world.
 
If the OBOGS is faulty then change it back to LOX. Making the emergency oxygen handle easier to find is just putting a bandaid on a much bigger problem. The Jeff Haney accident in Alaska is tragic and should have never happened. The coverup of the causes is downright criminal and done to so politicians and the aircraft mfr can save face. It would be nice to see all the pilots stand down. 200 pilots refusing to fly would make one hell of statement.
 
Bandit_Driver said:
If the OBOGS is faulty then change it back to LOX. Making the emergency oxygen handle easier to find is just putting a bandaid on a much bigger problem. The Jeff Haney accident in Alaska is tragic and should have never happened. The coverup of the causes is downright criminal and done to so politicians and the aircraft mfr can save face. It would be nice to see all the pilots stand down. 200 pilots refusing to fly would make one hell of statement.
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Did you watch the full interview, and get to the part where he mentions the "Raptor cough"? Apparently if you get a bunch of F-22 pilots together in the same room it sounds pretty dramatic. Besides Jeff Haney (which the report neglected to mention), there was apparently another instance at Elmendorf AFB where an F-22 scraped its undercarriage on treetops on final approach, and the pilot had no memory of the incident.

The silly thing about all this is that I think people are smart enough to understand that every component on a new aircraft design is not made by the same company. There are dozens or even hundreds of sub-contractors providing different parts and systems, that the aircraft manufacturer has to fit together so that they work correctly. Hacker15e brings up a good point that the F-22 itself is a solid and capable aircraft. The OBOGS isn't even made by Lockheed, it's made by Honeywell! Unless Lockheed did something screwy with the implementation of their OBOGS system to cause it to not work as intended, then the system itself is fundamentally flawed and the liability rests on Honeywell.

Shame on the Blue Suiter's for this coverup! A pulse oximeter, a leaky charcoal filter (that's actually making things worse) and an easier to access emergency oxygen ring is not enough. If this were truly a "scientific" data collection mission then there would be an "independent variable" - something that changed so it could be compared with what it was like before. At the very least they should pull the OBOGS from half the jets and replace them with LOX systems, and compare the two... but even that is negligent and puts too many people at risk to verify an already known problem.

I agree, the way this was handled was completely criminal! The higher ups need to be held accountable for this.
 
inigo88 said:
I agree, the way this was handled was completely criminal! The higher ups need to be held accountable for this.
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Fat chance. The same general group of "higher ups" who fabricated, wrote, edited, and endorsed and rewarded the Jill Metzger story? And got away with it? Fat chance anyone in the higher echelon would be held accountable, unless their hands were literally caught in the cookie jar.
 
People have to realize that there's also a massive USAF cultural issue with the Raptor. The USAF has had to expend so much political and financial capital on the Raptor that it is important that it "looks good" from the outside. Every time there is a problem (like the famous "international date line" incident), it gives F-22 critics another opportunity to take pot-shots at the airplane. Raptor is a critical aircraft for the USAF to maintain capability into the next few decades, so the USAF's helicopter-parenting of it is completely understandable. There's a lot of "saving face" going on, fair or not, with how the USAF treats Raptor.

That being said, once it starts compromising safety, it's time to step back and look at the bigger picture.

Without knowing any of the inside details -- and I honestly know nothing other than what I've read and seen on 60 minutes -- it's rather telling that the USAF's initial reaction to these two pilots was to take disciplinary action, ground them, and threaten FEBs. I cannot decide weather it was very gutsy or completely stupid for these two pilots to appear on TV in uniform, but either way it sounds like something that needed to be said.
 
Believe it or not, there are benefits to OBOGS. For one, lengthy combat missions as of late in Afghanistan have more or less necessitated it. You can't fly a 7 hr on-call CAS flight with a bottle of LOX, at least without going off O2 for periods of time. The bottle in the Hornet (those that have LOX) is good for about 4-5 hrs of continuous use if I recall correctly. That's a lot of flying in the FL's without oxygen for aircraft that require their aircrew to wear the mask from takeoff to landing (at least per the regs). People can, have, and will continue to work around this problem, but OBOGS, when working correctly, is a viable solution.

As for the Raptor, having flown with them, and seen what they can do, suffice to say that they are without peers in this day and age. Easily the most impressive aircraft I have ever seen flying. I won't get into details, but they are every bit as awesome as their supporters claim them to be. They will get this problem solved eventually, though it is unfortunate that it occured in the first place.
 
Hacker15e said:
People have to realize that there's also a massive USAF cultural issue with the Raptor. The USAF has had to expend so much political and financial capital on the Raptor that it is important that it "looks good" from the outside. Every time there is a problem (like the famous "international date line" incident), it gives F-22 critics another opportunity to take pot-shots at the airplane. Raptor is a critical aircraft for the USAF to maintain capability into the next few decades, so the USAF's helicopter-parenting of it is completely understandable. There's a lot of "saving face" going on, fair or not, with how the USAF treats Raptor.

That being said, once it starts compromising safety, it's time to step back and look at the bigger picture.
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Seems the AF learned from the Marines and their putting all their financial eggs into the V-22, then dealing with the myriad of accidents, deaths, and the squadron commander maintenance logs pencil whipping and coverup that were caught on tape recording.

Without knowing any of the inside details -- and I honestly know nothing other than what I've read and seen on 60 minutes -- it's rather telling that the USAF's initial reaction to these two pilots was to take disciplinary action, ground them, and threaten FEBs. I cannot decide weather it was very gutsy or completely stupid for these two pilots to appear on TV in uniform, but either way it sounds like something that needed to be said.
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So these guys get threatened an FEB for doing an interview? I thought FEBs were the result of flying or accident related (or even medical) review; not as disciplinary measures for non-flight related events? I can't remember having seen one used as such for something akin to doing an interview that the AF didn't like. Guess an LOR or such wouldn't stick........

The Cardinals and Bishops of the Church of the Air Force, don't like the dogma being questioned.
 
Hacker15e said:
People have to realize that there's also a massive USAF cultural issue with the Raptor. The USAF has had to expend so much political and financial capital on the Raptor that it is important that it "looks good" from the outside. Every time there is a problem (like the famous "international date line" incident), it gives F-22 critics another opportunity to take pot-shots at the airplane. Raptor is a critical aircraft for the USAF to maintain capability into the next few decades, so the USAF's helicopter-parenting of it is completely understandable. There's a lot of "saving face" going on, fair or not, with how the USAF treats Raptor.

That being said, once it starts compromising safety, it's time to step back and look at the bigger picture.

Without knowing any of the inside details -- and I honestly know nothing other than what I've read and seen on 60 minutes -- it's rather telling that the USAF's initial reaction to these two pilots was to take disciplinary action, ground them, and threaten FEBs. I cannot decide weather it was very gutsy or completely stupid for these two pilots to appear on TV in uniform, but either way it sounds like something that needed to be said.
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First, I would like to thank those who defend our country in the Armed Services (no matter what branch) and the risks that they take. It is much appreciated.

Secondly, can you expand more on the 'international date line' incident?

Thirdly, (as a disclaimer I have NO experience with the Air Force), but from a political move, I think it was smart of the pilots to do what they did. If the Air Force goes after them I am sure 60 Minutes/CBS News is going to go to bat for these guys and make it a very public experience for the Air Force and probably make the Air Force higher ups look really stupid for doing that. Then I am sure some politician(s) will jump to defend these guys for what they are doing.
 
Hacker15e said:
Comments like these get thrown around in a lot of Raptor discussions -- it's unfortunately that people don't understand that designs like the Viper, Eagle, etc, are all ready 30+ years old and are out-gunned hopelessly against peer air-to-air and (especially) surface-to-air systems that are all ready deployed to numerous red and gray states globally.

No reasonable number of Eagles and Vipers can replace the capability of the Raptor, even if they were to be constructed with better avionics and weapons.

Raptor certainly has had it's share of problems, but IMHO it's well worth it because of what it can do. It is a generational leap over the capability of anything else in the world.
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This is what I hear from the few buddies who have gone up against them. Our resident T&E guy who has flown numerous missions against it and has fought the likes of the Typhoon, Rafael, etc and like he says, they are good but not in the same league as Raptor good. That's all we would have, a 4.5 gen Viper, Eagle if we upgraded them.
 
What is the possibility of outfitting a LOX system with something like a rebreather, similar to what divers wear. That may be what OBOGS is but I don't really know. If you have a LOX system and then can scrub the carbon back out of breathed O2 why not do it.
 
Hacker15e said:
Comments like these get thrown around in a lot of Raptor discussions -- it's unfortunately that people don't understand that designs like the Viper, Eagle, etc, are all ready 30+ years old and are out-gunned hopelessly against peer air-to-air and (especially) surface-to-air systems that are all ready deployed to numerous red and gray states globally.

No reasonable number of Eagles and Vipers can replace the capability of the Raptor, even if they were to be constructed with better avionics and weapons.

Raptor certainly has had it's share of problems, but IMHO it's well worth it because of what it can do. It is a generational leap over the capability of anything else in the world.
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It's mainly a joke. Whatever advances the F-22 has, though, I think it's not worth what we pay for it, but I'm sure it's the fact that we've ordered so few that drives the cost up, causing us to buy less, which drives the cost up, ad bankruptium.

So on second thought... fill the skies with em ;)

Only after they fix the oxygen system though.
 
I think you have commend these guys for having the brass set to do what they feel is the correct thing to do, even if it means their career. They also have a congressman's support in this so the USAF may already have problems disaplining them. The one pilot was grounded by the flight surgeon. It also says something that entire squadrons are refusing to fly the jet. I have no idea why they didn't mention the Jeff Haney accident.

How in the heck did the emergency O2 system get approved in the first place. I saw a special on it and I can't imagine trying to find it in the dark with NVG's on and a artic survial suit.

I agree with others how said to start changning out parts in the system until you find the problem. The problem is either in the bleed system or in the chemical process. I wonder what chemcials they are finding in the pilots blood. You think that would tell them where in the system it could be coming from.
 
I get the feeling from the 60-Minute interview that the issue is more than just the Oxygen system/OBOGS malfunctioning/contamination... COMMON SENSE PEOPLE.

There's so many highly classified technology on that bird. I'll leave it at that. Other military airplanes have an OBOGS system. Even the F/A-18 Super Hornet. The raptor is a totally different advanced animal. We'll never figure it out. The pilots can't tell all, but said what they could. They are brave. I wish them the best.

P.s. I do support the need for the raptor. It's capabilities alone is DETERRENCE and leverage.
 
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