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Thread: Hypoxia problem in modern fighters

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    Angry Hypoxia problem in modern fighters

    F-18 and EA18G's affected too?...

    $#@!pit Hypoxia 'Number One Safety Issue' for Naval Aviation
    Aug 19, 2016 | The U.S. Navy has yet to solve a troubling pattern of hypoxia-like symptoms in the $#@!pit among pilots of F/A-18 Hornet variants and EA-18G Growler aircraft, and the head of naval aviation said this week that resolving the dangerous problem is his top safety priority.
    Vice Adm. Mike Shoemaker, the commander of Naval Air Forces, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies this week that Marine Corps and Navy aviation leaders were pushing forward with a multi-pronged approach that included better training for pilots and a close analysis of apparent problems with the onboard oxygen generation system. "Where cabin pressurization has issues, we've adjusted the warnings we get in the $#@!pit and adjusted the emergency procedures for how we respond to various scenarios," Shoemaker said. "We've been out to the fleet to talk about how to test, how the maintainers work and maintain those systems."

    Incidents of reported oxygen loss, $#@!pit depressurization and air contamination among Navy and Marine Corps pilots have steeply risen in recent years. Navy Times reported in May that 2015 had seen the highest number of these kind of reports in at least six years, with 103 reported Navy incidents and 12 reported Marine Corps incidents. Since 2009, the paper reported, there have been 424 hypoxia-related incidents reported by Navy pilots and 47 by Marine Corps pilots. Shoemaker suggested that the bump in reporting could actually be a function of heightened awareness, rather that more incidents occurring. "So guys are going back and saying, 'Look, there's nothing wrong with reporting this.' We need to make sure we understand all the failure modes. So I think we're doing a good job of that," he said.


    An F/A-18C Hornet pilot climbs into the $#@!pit of his aircraft in preparation for operations off the deck of the USS Enterprise.

    In the fleet, he said, pilots in training now spend time in aircraft simulators in which oxygen levels are gradually degraded so they can learn to identify the symptoms associated with hypoxia. Navy leaders have also spoken with pilots to draw attention to the problem and encourage them to make reports, he said. On the engineering side, NAVAIR personnel are working to better understand the onboard oxygen generation system and potential problems. "There are some contaminants in the system that we're still struggling with a little bit, but the engineers are figuring out ways to filter and identify that," Shoemaker said. Shoemaker said the Navy expected to introduce a new technology to the fleet soon that would "scrub" the air delivered to the $#@!pit and remove these kinds of contaminants. And to address cabin pressurization problems, he said, engineers have adjusted $#@!pit warnings and emergency response procedures to alert pilots to issues sooner and give them more time to respond.

    In July, executives with Cobham Plc., the maker of the Super Hornet's onboard oxygen generation system, told Military.com the company is also developing a system with input from the Air Force and Navy that would monitor pilots' breathing and other physical indicators to alert them to potential $#@!pit oxygen issues sooner. "We're putting a full court press on this," Shoemaker said of efforts to address the $#@!pit problems. "It is our number one safety issue. [But] with awareness across the fleet and the importance of just understanding emergency procedures and complying with those, I think it's manageable."

    http://www.military.com/daily-news/2...-aviation.html

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    Similar to F-22 problem...

    F-35s Grounded at Luke AFB After Pilots Report Hypoxia-Like Symptoms
    9 Jun 2017 | The Air Force has grounded all F-35 Joint Strike Fighters at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, after pilots complained of hypoxia-related issues, officials said Friday.
    "The 56th Fighter Wing at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, canceled local flying operations today for F-35A Lightning II aircraft due to a series of five incidents in which pilots have experienced hypoxia-like symptoms," Air Force spokesman Capt. Mark Graff said in an email. A total of 48 aircraft and 49 pilots are affected by the temporary stand-down, according to Maj. Rebecca Heyse, a spokeswoman for the base. "Flying operations are planned to resume Monday, June 12," she said in an email. The incident is "limited to Luke" at this time, meaning other bases aren't affected by the order, Graff said.

    Since May 2, five F-35A pilots have experienced "physiological incidents while flying," according to the statement from Heyse. In each case, the aircraft's backup oxygen system kicked in and the pilot followed the correct procedures to land safely, it stated. "In order to synchronize operations and maintenance efforts toward safe flying operations, we have canceled local F-35A flying," Brig. Gen. Brook Leonard, 56th Fighter Wing commander, said in the statement. "The Air Force takes these physiological incidents seriously, and our focus is on the safety and well-being of our pilots. We are taking the necessary steps to find the root cause of these incidents."


    Brig. Gen. Scott Pleus, the 56th Fighter Wing commander, lands the flagship F-35 Lightning ll at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz.

    The Air Force on Friday contacted other F-35 squadrons and international partners operating the aircraft to educate pilots on the incident, according to the statement from Graff. Graff didn't say whether B or C model variants, flown by the Navy and Marine Corps, have experienced similar problems. The issue of military pilots suffering hypoxia-like symptoms -- shortness of breath, confusion, wheezing -- isn't limited to the F-35 fleet. Pilots flying the F-22 Raptor fifth-generation stealth jet experienced hypoxia symptoms on various occasions between 2008 and 2012. One pilot died as a result, and one had a near-death scare, with dozens more pilots experiencing confusion and disorientation while flying, according to an ABC News investigation at the time.

    Then-Pentagon spokesman George Little said investigators found the cause to be a faulty valve in the high-pressure vest worn by the pilots at extreme altitude, which was restricting their ability to breathe. More recently, the Navy went so far as to equip the aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush with specialized equipment called a transportable recompression system, or hyperbaric chamber, amid a review of physiological episodes affecting pilots who flew the T-45 trainer and the F/A-18 Hornet. Graff couldn't say whether the F-35 and T-45 incidents are somehow connected.

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    Granny says dey need to fix dat a-fore somebody conks out inna $#@!pit...

    Air Force: No Clear Cause for F-35A Hypoxia-Related Problem
    16 Jun 2017 | The revelation comes one week after the service grounded all 55 F-35A Lightning IIs at Luke Air Force Base.
    The Air Force still hasn't determined what is causing pilots to experience oxygen deprivation symptoms at Luke Air Force Base, an official said Friday. The revelation comes one week after the service grounded all 55 F-35A Lightning IIs at the Arizona base and other previously undisclosed incidents have come to light. "We learned a lot from each other" over the past week, Brig. Gen. Brook Leonard, 56th Fighter Wing commander, told reporters during a call Friday, referencing ongoing maintenance and strategic initiatives the base has been working on since operations halted June 9. But "we did not find a specific cause that we could put our finger on and just fix and then all of a sudden return to flying with safe operations," said Leonard, an F-35 instructor pilot and former F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot.

    The 56th Fighter Wing halted operations for all F-35As last week after pilots complained of hypoxia-related issues. But the base hopes it can return its F-35s to flight by Tuesday, Leonard said. Engineers, maintainers and aeromedical specialists, including officials from the aircraft's manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, have been on the case, he said. Without giving specifics, Leonard said, "We did eliminate a lot of areas" of what the causes could be regarding the maintenance or aircrew management side of operations that could cause physiological incidents. "The solution is going to be a very multi-layered human and machine solution," he said. "We're progressing toward that." On Thursday, Air Force officials disclosed to Military.com that there have been 15 reported F-35A in-flight and ground physiological events since April 2, 2011, including the most recent events at Luke.


    Airman 1st Class Nkosi Jones 61st Aircraft Maintenance Unit weapons Airman, secures a panel while Staff Sgt. Martin De La Vara, 61st AMU crew chief, prepares to pull the chocks

    Leonard on Friday added that within that same timeframe, 23 cases have occurred across the Joint Strike Fighter fleet -- 15 Air Force models, three Marine Corps B models and five Navy C models. He said the other services' incidents occurred "some years back." In the 23 cases, 13 -- across all three models -- were discovered to have a root cause, the commander said. A defense official told Military.com on Friday those 13 were plagued by "pressure issues, contaminated oxygen and ground events." Ground events, for example, could be attributed to "lots of jets on a ramp, of which exhaust fumes may have played a role," the official said. The remaining 10 remain unexplained. "We may never arrive at a determination for some of these," the official said. As for recent events, which are limited to Luke, "Some are specific to the person," the defense official said. "How they were flying, at what altitude they were flying," among other variables could play a role, the official said.

    Leonard said the hypoxia-like symptoms at Luke were linked to pilots flying at a particular altitude, but would not disclose specifics. The general said the Air Force hasn't ruled out that the issue could be linked to the On-Board Oxygen Generating System, known as OBOGS. "We do think the OBOGS system is not as robust as it can be; however, according to all our testing, it meets the minimum standard," he said. There are plans to modify the system, made by Honeywell, Leonard said, but he would not give details. "While that could be weakness in the OBOGS system … we did not find that a causal across the five instances," he said. Of the recent incidents, four jets belong to the U.S. Air Force and one to an international partner, Leonard said. Australia, Norway and Italy are currently training alongside the service at the base.

    Avoiding Flight Envelopes

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    Solution to F-22 hypoxia problem?...

    Air Force Tests New System to Monitor for Hypoxia Problems
    September 18, 2017 — The Air Force is testing a breathing and $#@!pit environment monitoring system developed by Cobham to provide data to address the continuing problem of pilots developing hypoxia-like symptoms.
    The military “doesn’t know what’s at the root of the problem, and Cobham doesn’t either. Nobody does,” said Rob Schaeffer, business management developer for Cobham Mission Systems Division. But he said the Cobham system could help pinpoint the solution. At the Air Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber Conference on Monday, Schaeffer said the company had delivered eight of its inhalation monitors in June to the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine (USAFSAM) for testing. Another eight units of the exhalation monitors will be delivered to USAFSAM later this month. Schaeffer said the Navy has also shown interest in testing the systems.



    The inhalation sensor block is attached to a chest-mounted breathing regulator or integrated terminal block. The exhalation sensor can sit inside a vest pocket so as not to impede the pilot's field of regard.


    The latest from the U.K. defense company comes amid news that the Air Force plans to modify flight equipment for the F-35 such as the pilot vest and breathing mask, according to a report from Aviation Week. The Air Force has reduced the flight vest weight by 10 pounds to relieve chest pressure, and has moved to replace faulty exhalation valves found in the masks after testing, officials told AvWeek at the conference. Cobham’s system has inhalation and exhalation monitors that fit in a flight vest pocket. The inhalation monitor is designed to measure oxygen pressure, temperature, pressure within the breathing hose, humidity and other factors. The exhalation monitor checks oxygen pressure, expired carbon dioxide, and pressure within the mask, among other variables.


    In June, the Air Force grounded some of its F-35A Joint Strike Fighters following incidents in which pilots reported hypoxia-like symptoms while flying. The groundings renewed attention on hypoxia, a physical condition caused by oxygen deficiency that may result in temporary cognitive and physiological impairment and possible loss of consciousness. In recent years, hypoxia has also affected pilots of F-22 Raptor, F/A-18 Hornet and T-45 Goshawk aircraft. The problem gained national attention in 2010 after an F-22 crashed and the pilot was killed following a suspected loss of oxygen.


    https://www.defensetech.org/2017/09/...oxia-problems/

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    Angry

    Hypoxia starting to affect A-10's...

    A-10 Pilots Report Hypoxia-Like Incidents at Davis-Monthan AFB
    11 Jan 2018 - More than two dozen A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, didn't fly in late November after two pilots reported they experienced hypoxia-like symptoms while flying.
    In both incidents, which occurred the week of Nov. 27, "the aircraft's backup oxygen supply system operated as designed and the pilots followed the correct procedures to safely land the aircraft," said Capt. Joshua Benedetti, spokesman for the 355th Fighter Wing. Benedetti said one of the aircraft was equipped with the Onboard Oxygen Generation System, commonly known as OBOGS, while the other was equipped with the Liquid Oxygen System, or LOX. "An additional pilot reported a ground incident associated with the A-10's oxygen system that same week," he said. The Air Force "quickly determined the issue with the LOX-equipped aircraft was related to a malfunction with the cabin pressure and oxygen regulator. Those issues were fixed immediately," Benedetti said.

    To properly inspect the OBOGS-equipped aircraft -- 28 of the total 85 A-10s on base -- the service grounded those jets for about a week, he said. Despite those efforts, the service is still seeking answers to figure out how the incidents occurred. "At this point, we have not determined a root cause," Benedetti said. "During the course of the investigation, we have identified how we could better maintain the system by cleaning the water separator drain and associated piping with pressurized air, which may help prevent corrosion found in some of the piping. Additionally, we made the pilot preflight OBOGS procedure more prescriptive," he said.


    A U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt II sits beneath a sunshade at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz.

    While the 28 aircraft stood down operations, missions on base continued with the remaining 57 LOX-equipped aircraft. "We resumed flying with all LOX and OBOGS aircraft less than a week later, and there have been no incidents since," Benedetti said. He added, "The Air Force takes these physiological incidents seriously, and our focus is on the safety and well-being of our pilots." Officials at Davis-Monthan said they will continue to share information on the OBOGS aircraft with other A-10 units so proper precautions may be taken.

    In June, the 56th Fighter Wing at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, halted operations for all F-35As there after pilots complained of hypoxia-related issues. In succeeding days, the Air Force established initiatives to keep pilots safe and to avoid experiencing symptoms -- shortness of breath, confusion, wheezing -- in flight. Those initiatives include a backup oxygen system, wearable technology to monitor pilots' oxygen levels, and a restriction on how high pilots could take the craft. The F-35s at Luke resumed flight that same month. Currently a total of 61 F-35As are assigned to Luke. A root cause for those incidents has not been found.

    https://www.military.com/daily-news/...nthan-afb.html

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    I am not sure what is causing this. It has happened in several different planes.
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    Hypoxia problem shows up in prop trainer...

    T-6 Texan Trainers Grounded Again After Hypoxia Incidents
    1 Feb 2018 - The Air Force has ordered an indefinite operational pause for all T-6 Texan II trainer aircraft after reports of more hypoxia-related incidents.
    The 19th Air Force, under Air Education and Training Command, issued a guidance Wednesday to stand down operations after a cluster of unexplained physiological events occurred at Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi; Vance Air Force Base, Oklahoma; and Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, within the last week, officials said in a release. The pause began Feb. 1 to enable the service to examine "the root causes of the incidents, educate and listen to aircrew, develop and deliver mitigation solutions," the release said. "The safety of our instructors and student pilots is paramount and has been our priority and focus," said Maj. Gen. Patrick Doherty, 19th Air Force commander. "We're acting swiftly, making temporary, but necessary, changes to everyone's training, general awareness, checklist procedures, and [may] possibly modify aircrew flying equipment to mitigate risk to the aircrew while we tackle this issue head-on to safeguard everyone flying T-6s," Doherty said in the release.

    The news broke after the Facebook group, Air Force Amn/nco/snco -- which is popular within the Air Force but isn't officially run by the service -- obtained an email from Doherty, at first stating that solo flights for instructor and student pilots had been suspended "until further notice" over the growing concerns of unexplained physiological events. The 19th Air Force is responsible for training more than 30,000 U.S. and allied students annually in various specialties, including pilot training. According to the Air Force, instructor pilot training in the T-6A began at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, in 2000, while Joint Primary Pilot Training, or JPPT, began in October 2001 at Moody Air Force Base, Georgia. JPPT is currently held at Columbus AFB; Vance AFB; and Laughlin and Sheppard Air Force Bases in Texas, according to the service's T-6 factsheet. This is just the latest in a series of hypoxia-related incidents for the Air Force. The T-6A fleet at Vance's 71st Flying Training Wing was grounded in November after a handful of pilots observed hypoxia-like symptoms -- shortness of breath, confusion, wheezing -- in flight.


    The T-6A Texan II is a single-engine, two-seat primary trainer designed to train Joint Primary Pilot Training, or JPPT, students in basic flying skills common to U.S. Air Force and Navy pilots.

    More than 100 of the trainers were put on operational pause between Nov. 15 and Dec. 5. However, officials could not pinpoint the origin of the incidents. "No specific root cause for the physiological events was identified during two weeks of investigation by aviation, medical, functional and industry experts," according to an Air Force release at the time. "However, specific concerns were eliminated as possible causes, including maintenance and aircrew flight equipment procedures." In January, the service announced it had created a new investigative team to research and record ongoing hypoxia episodes in hopes of minimizing future incidents. Brig. Gen. Bobbi Jo Doorenbos, currently special assistant to the director of the Air National Guard, was named to head the "Unexplained Physiologic Events Integration Team." The AETC on Wednesday said officials are relying on the team to pinpoint the problem. "... Doorenbos is leading the team and will work closely with 19th Air Force, AETC, and other [major commands] to examine the causes of these incidents and ensure industry and enterprise-wide solutions are given high priority to find root causes and deliver solutions across all weapon systems," it said in a statement.

    Aside from the T-6, more than two dozen A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, didn't fly in late November after two pilots reported they experienced hypoxia symptoms. In June, the 56th Fighter Wing at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, halted operations for all F-35As there after pilots complained of hypoxia-related issues. In succeeding days, the Air Force established initiatives to keep pilots safe and to avoid experiencing symptoms in flight, and the F-35s were back in the air that same month. A root cause for all these incidents has not been determined. While physiological events aren't common, the service has said it has seen an increase in pilots reporting the hazardous events. "The probability that a pilot will experience a physiological event is less than 1 percent per year," Doorenbos said last month. "Still, we are aggressively addressing these events and communicating with aircrew so they remain confident in their aircraft and weapon systems," she said.

    https://www.military.com/daily-news/...incidents.html

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    F-35 program comes under scrutiny...

    Upgrades, Development to F-35 Jet Will Cost $1 Billion Per Year
    8 Mar 2018 - Lawmakers are apprehensive about the strategy known as continuous capability development and delivery.
    Will it cost $1 billion or more just to update the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter every year? That's the estimate from the F-35's Joint Program Office. During a House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee hearing Wednesday, lawmakers were apprehensive about the strategy known as continuous capability development and delivery, or C2D2. This strategy aims to do smaller, incremental updates instead of taking F-35s off the flightline to get months' worth of larger, packaged software and modernization upgrades needed to "keep up with the latest threats." Citing a recent report delivered to Congress regarding C2D2, Rep. Niki Tsongas, D-Mass., said costs "may be as high as $11 billion in development and $5.4 billion in procurement" between fiscal 2018 and fiscal 2024 to achieve all the requirements. "This potential cost of $16 billion is an astonishingly high amount and, as far as I am aware, greatly exceeds any cost figures previously provided to Congress," she said. "It is important to remember this is a software-intensive effort, and the last 17 years of F-35 software development have seen dramatic cost increases and significant delays," Tsongas continued. "If Congress agrees to support this effort at this cost and under the proposed management regime, it should only do so fully aware of the significant risks involved."


    Vice Adm. Mat Winter, director of the F-35 Joint Program Office, said the current cost estimate stands at roughly $10.8 billion for development, of which $3.7 billion will be shared by U.S. allies operating the F-35. The Pentagon would thus be responsible for only $7.2 billion over seven years. Tsongas also queried Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy officials on whether the proposal is reasonable for the fifth-generation stealth jet. "None of the services have a true comfort level until we have a ... cost of how this is going to happen scoped out," said Lt. Gen. Steven R. Rudder, the Marine Corps' deputy commandant for aviation. "But year by year, we're going to put money into C2D2 at the levels that Admiral Winter is requesting currently." Rudder testified alongside Winter; Air Force Lt. Gen Jerry D. Harris, deputy chief of staff for Plans, Programs and Requirements; and Rear Adm. Scott D. Conn, air warfare director for the office of the chief of Naval Operations. Conn agreed with Rudder, and Harris added there are "funds laid in [the Air Force's] plan," as well as plans to reduce sustainment costs long term. He did not specify budget numbers. C2D2 replaces what was once called Block 4 follow-on modernization, or the succeeding, repetitive mods to Block 4, the latest software modernization to upgrade the F-35's avionics and weapons delivery. Block 4 itself is slated for implementation sometime before the end of 2018. "We just want to be sure this is rooted in reality," Tsongas said. In a follow-up discussion with reporters, Winter laid out worst- and best-case cost scenarios.

    Going through all of the pre-planning and execution -- when developers and engineers are needed, at what point a certain batch of F-35 Lightning IIs can receive the work, among other factors -- Winter said once those calculations formally come together, $10.8 billion for development is roughly correct. "That estimate will most likely come down, but I don't guarantee anything," Winter said. "But we've also looked at, if all of that is correct, what are the modifications to the fleet aircraft, so the procurement elements of this, the software's going to be minuscule," he said, referring to the $5.4 billion figure Tsongas cited. "If I had all the hardware updates on the first year, it would be a less [of] a procurement cost because all of my new aircraft would already have it in there," Winter said. In his written prepared testimony for the hearing, Winter cited the Pentagon's lessons learned from upgrading the F-22 Raptor, but did not specify what modifications to the stealth jet have cost. At the Defense Department's order, Lockheed Martin Corp. stopped producing the F-22 in 2011. "Based on experience from the F-22, an eight-to-10-year span between technology refresh events will maintain viable warfighting capability throughout each cycle," he said in his testimony. The F-35's total cost has been projected at more than $1 trillion over a 50-year lifetime.

    https://www.military.com/daily-news/...lion-year.html
    See also:

    Lawmakers to Military: Don't Buy Another 'Money Pit' Like F-35
    7 Mar 2018 - Lawmakers put military officials on the spot to explain how to prevent programs from becoming "too big to fail."
    Members of the House Armed Services Committee met with acquisition chiefs from the Army, Navy and Air Force to assess how the services are using new congressional authorities to streamline the bureaucratic policies and procedures that often prevent combat systems from being fielded efficiently. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., asked what acquisition reform efforts are doing to prevent the services from becoming wedded to sacred-cow programs that are designed to do too much. "If we could go back to 1997, we would not build the F-35 the way we are currently building it. It is, at the moment, too big to fail," Smith said. "It's the only attack jet fighter we have; we've got to build it. We've got to make it work. "What would we do differently in the way we constructed that program, so that it didn't become the money pit that it has become?" he asked.

    William Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, said the service focused on starting with a capable base model and improving on it, rather than trying to create the perfect platform. There is a lot of discipline to spiral development, Roper said, "as opposed to just kicking off a large program where there are multiple difficult things to do, hoping that they will somehow all work out and in the end you'll get the system that you want." James F. "Hondo" Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, said the Navy has taken this approach with its submarine programs over the past two decades. "We have come up with a good submarine, and now we have got a very disciplined, rapid way to quickly get new technology onto those submarines," he said. That's a way that we have tried to approach it, so you have a good base platform with a lot of resiliency and margins, so you can quickly iterate to wherever the direction goes, because we won't know what we need on those platforms 10 years from now," Geurts said.


    Two U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning IIs, assigned to the 4th Fighter Squadron from Hill Air Force Base, Utah, conduct flight training operations over the Utah Test and Training Range on Feb 14, 2018.

    The Army's new acquisition reform effort involves the creation of "cross-functional teams" that will focus on rapid development of new platforms in the service's six new modernization priorities -- long-range precision fires; next-generation combat vehicle; future vertical lift; a mobile and expeditionary network; air and missile defense capabilities; and soldier lethality. The concept is designed to embrace rapid prototyping and involve warfighters at the beginning and keep them engaged throughout the process. HASC Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, questioned whether these CFTs will become part of the problem in the future. "Why aren't these cross-functional teams that the Army has set up just another layer of bureaucracy?" he asked Bruce Jette, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology.

    To Jette, the main problem with Army acquisition is there is no "tight linkage with the people that generate the requirement; the technology people who can bring the capabilities to the table that you want to think about as you are looking to the future; and the acquisition people who actually have to get into the field." "The idea of the cross-functional teams is to bring that entity together in one place for specific areas of critical importance," Jette said. "The biggest issue to me is, I see the value, and I want to see whether there is decay in the value over a long period of time," he said. "I don't think there is any intention with the senior leadership to allow that to happen." Lawmakers also wanted to know how the services, and Congress, will be able to measure if the acquisitions process improves over time. "It seems to me that a lot of what we talk about is process changes, and what we ought to be looking at is what is the output," Thornberry said. "Because it doesn't really matter if we write lots of laws and you all ... change the regulations -- if we don't have the best our country can produce getting to the warfighter faster, then all of this is for naught."

    In the past, program managers have been given credit for following acquisition processes to the "nth degree," Jette said. "We are going to be product-oriented," he said. "Accountability is not whether you follow the process in detail, but whether or not you generate a product." In most cases, the accountability and balance sheets are based on costs within the programs, Roper said. "What I predict we are going to see greater need for and demand for is to have time-based metrics -- tracking things like time to contract, time to complete development, time to field," he said. "Time to fail would be a great one, "Roper added, "if we want to quit having these large programs where the failure occurs 10 years after the start."

    https://www.military.com/daily-news/...-pit-f-35.html

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    Pilots 'Not Making Things Up,' Air Force Says of 'Hypoxia' Incidents...

    Pilots 'Not Making Things Up,' Air Force Says of 'Hypoxia' Incident
    12 Jul 2018 - The Air Force has ruled out pilots' mistaking symptoms in hypoxia incidents
    The Air Force has yet to find the cause for a surge of hypoxia-like incidents in a wide variety of aircraft but has ruled out the possibility that pilots could be mistaking symptoms in some cases. "We know for a fact what our pilots are experiencing in the airplanes -- our pilots are not making things up" when they report incidents, Air Force Lt. Gen. Mark C. Nowland, deputy chief of staff for operations, told Military.com after an aviation safety hearing last month before the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness. In an interview last week, Col. William Mueller, director of the Air Force-Pilot Physicians Program, backed up Nowland on the veracity of pilot reports of hypoxia-like symptoms, including shortness of breath, confusion and wheezing while in aircraft ranging from trainers to the most advanced fighters. "It's real stuff; people are not making this up," said Mueller, a pilot with a medical degree who also serves as career manager for Air Force medical officers who are qualified as pilots and flight surgeons.


    Mueller is working with a team of Air Force investigators, in coordination with the Navy and NASA, that is attempting to pinpoint causes for what the Air Force calls Unexplained Physiological Events (UPEs) experienced by pilots. Air Force officials, in studies and in congressional hearings, have outlined three possibilities: failures in the oxygen delivery system, contaminants in the system, and unusual levels of carbon dioxide. At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in April, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said, "We don't have the smoking gun yet" in the search for a root cause of the incidents, "and we're not going to stop until we find it." Although the cause remains a mystery, Goldfein said the service has gained valuable knowledge since a series of incidents in 2010 involving F-22 Raptors, the most advanced U.S. fighters.



    U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Darrian Caskey performs a seal check on the mask of 1st Lt. Alex Medina in the altitude hypobaric chamber for USAFSAM hypoxia demo training at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, April 26, 2017



    In November 2010, Air Force Capt. Jeff Haney was killed in the crash of his F-22 on a training mission in Alaska. The controversial Air Force investigation found that Haney suffered "severe restricted breathing" during the flight but still ruled that pilot error was the main cause of the crash. There were 11 other hypoxia-type incidents involving F-22s between 2008 and 2011, according to the Air Force, and much of the concern at the time was with the On-Board Oxygen Generation Systems, or OBOGS. It was developed in the 1980s as a source of limitless oxygen for pilots and a replacement for the canisters of compressed liquid or gaseous oxygen that had been used previously. The OBOGS was designed to draw air from the plane's engine compressor before combustion and run it through a series of scrubbers to remove nitrogen.


    Although the focus was on the OBOGS in the F-22 investigation, the Air Force later concluded the problem was with a valve controlling the pilot's pressure vest, which could allow the vest to inflate and restrict the pilot's ability to breathe. Since then, the service has worked with engineers, physiologists, contractors and operators of various types of aircraft to get a broader understanding of the problem, Goldfein said at the April hearing. In examining the F-22 incidents, the Air Force concluded the problem likely was not hypoxia, an oxygen deficiency, but rather hypocapnia, a condition of too little carbon dioxide in the blood that can be caused by hyperventilation, he said. In addition to hypoxia and hypocapnia, the Air Force also had to be concerned with hypercapnia, an excessive amount of carbon dioxide in the bloodstream, Mueller said in the interview with Military.com. "There are a lot of possible medical explanations," but none has been pinned down, he said.


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    What these various aircraft might all have in common is their oxygen supplies and the source, and whoever maintains them. I guess that's obvious.
    Last edited by Lummy; 07-14-2018 at 02:48 AM.

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