AP: Air Force foresaw F-22 woes but nixed fixes as too costly

(AP) KADENA AIR BASE, Japan -- Years before F-22 pilots began getting dizzy in the cockpit, before one struggled to breathe as he tried to pull out of a fatal crash, before two more went on television to say the plane was so unsafe they refused to fly it, a small circle of U.S. Air Force experts knew something was wrong with the prized stealth fighter jet.

Coughing among pilots and fears that contaminants were leaking into their breathing apparatus led the experts to suspect flaws in the oxygen-supply system of the F-22 Raptor, especially in extreme high-altitude conditions in which the $190 million aircraft is without equal. They formed a working group a decade ago to deal with the problem, creating an informal but unique brain trust.

Internal documents and emails obtained by The Associated Press show they proposed a range of solutions by 2005, including adjustments to the flow of oxygen into pilot's masks. But that key recommendation was rejected by military officials reluctant to add costs to a program that was already well over budget.

"This initiative has not been funded,'' read the minutes of their final meeting in 2007.

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Minutes of the working group's meetings, PowerPoint presentations and emails among its members reveal a missed opportunity for the Air Force to improve pilot safety in the 187-plane F-22 fleet before a series of high-profile problems damaged the image of an aircraft that was already being assailed in Congress as too costly. Its production was halted last spring and the aircraft has never been used in combat.

Among the problems reported after the working group's warnings:

In 2008, pilots began reporting a sharp increase in hypoxia-like problems, forcing the Air Force to finally acknowledge concerns about the F-22's oxygen supply system.

Two years later, the oxygen system contributed to a fatal crash. Though pilot error ultimately was deemed to be the cause, the fleet was grounded for four months in 2011. New restrictions were imposed in May, after two F-22 pilots went on the CBS program "60 Minutes'' to express their continued misgivings.

The Air Force says the F-22 is safe to fly a dozen of the jets began a six-month deployment to Japan in July but flight restrictions that remain in place will keep it out of the high-altitude situations where pilots' breathing is under the most stress.

"60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Kroft reported on the F-22's problems in May. To see the report, click on the video at left.

One of the working group's proposed fixes, a backup oxygen system, is expected to be in place by the end of the year. And the Air Force, which blamed the oxygen shortage on a faulty valve in the pilots' vests, says a fix to that problem is also in the works. The working group also proposed changes in warning systems to alert pilots to system failures and urged enhanced tracking of potential health hazards to pilots and ground crew caused by the materials used to bolster the aircraft's stealth two more issues the Air Force investigations would later focus on.

More broadly, the Air Force now concedes that, while its own experts were tackling the F-22's issues, it was too aggressive in cutting back on life-support programs intended to ensure pilots' safety. It is now in the process of rebuilding them.

The F-22's gradual return to regular flight operations follows an exhaustive investigation over the past year by the Air Force, NASA, experts from Lockheed Martin, which produces the aircraft, and other industry officials.

But the documents obtained by AP show many of the concerns raised in that investigation had already been outlined by the working group that was formed in 2002, when the fighter was still in its early production and delivery stage.

It called itself RAW-G, for Raptor Aeromedical Working Group, and brought together dozens of experts in life support, avionics, physiology and systems safety, along with F-22 aircrew and maintainers.

The group was founded by members of the F-22 community who were concerned about how the unique demands of the aircraft could affect pilots. The fighter can evade radar and fly faster than sound without using afterburners, capabilities unmatched by any other country. It also flies higher than its predecessors and has a self-contained oxygen generation system to protect pilots from chemical or biological attack.

According to the Air Force, RAW-G was created at the suggestion of Daniel Wyman, then a flight surgeon on Florida's Tyndall Air Force Base, where the first F-22 squadron was being deployed. Wyman is now a brigadier general and the Air Combat Command surgeon general.

By the time RAW-G got going, some pilots were already experiencing a problem called "Raptor cough'' fits of chest pain and coughing dating back to 2000 that stem from the collapse of overworked air sacs in the lungs.

The group concluded that the F-22's On-Board Oxygen Generation System or OBOGS was giving pilots too much oxygen, causing the coughing. The more often and higher the pilots flew after being oxygen-saturated, group members believed, the more vulnerable pilots affected by the condition would be to other physiological incidents.

RAW-G recommended more tests and that the F-22's oxygen delivery system be adjusted through a digital controller and a software upgrade.

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[davidjones11]

Another example of billions for defense on systems that never worked as advertise, yet NO money for the Health Care of the American people. Remember President Dwight Eisenhower gave the nation a dire warning about what he described as a threat to democratic government. He called it the military-industrial complex, a formidable union of defense contractors and the armed forces. We are paying the price for it now. The only people who come out a winner are the shareholders & the military-industrial complex. We the taxpayers are the cash cow that they love to milk. Why should they care -- its not their money. Meanwhile, the poor get poorer, middle class gets the shaft , people lose their jobs & their health care. The flip side is that the shareholders get dividends and CEO's get millions in bonus payments. And the only thing you don't hear yet from the pretenders to the POTUS is what Marie Antoinette once said before she lost her head -- "Let them eat cake..." And they want to spend more $$$$ for defense and close down the EPA, Social Security, Dept. of Educ., NOAA, and about 1/3 of other governmental departments. Nice way to add to the unemployment role.

[marine1957]

"Penny-wise and pound foolish" - typical mentality of our government.
1-million-dollar solutions deemed too expensive by politicians are paid several times over by the 5-million-dollar cost of studies, and then the original 1-million-dollar solutions are finally being implemented for a total cost of 6-million-dollars!
Those politicians should have been made to fly in the flawed aircraft until a fix had been fully implemented.

[alphaa10000]

This result is proof we spend more money on our political battles than military competence.

The $5 million spent represents a struggle for control of an embarrassing issue, and handled at the expense of pilots.

As still more evidence of a political, not technical problem, the definition and resolution of the problem began a decade ago.

[formerlyluvnut]

by takacrat September 27, 2012 1:04 PM EDT
F-18
----------------

Nah; it's sweet but, nah.

[smartalecq]

it's expensive because a F-22 screw or spring cost $10,000. military projects are over-inflated. this is how we are going to loose to china. we can build better planes; but they can make it a tenth of the cost.

it's the same problem with healthcare. the hospitals and providers charges you $200 for a piece of cotton or $500 for medicine.

I think, insurance companies has setup a system of inflating prices; so people can't afford healthcare without buying their product.

how? the hospital bills 3 times the cost of the medical procedure. but, insurance companies would only pay 1/3 of that price. if you pay cash, you pay 3 times the actual cost. insurance companies who hold the power in this relationship, pressures hospitals and providers to bill this way.

tip: when paying cash for a medical procedure, tell them that you are paying cash and would like to bargain down the price to 1/3 of the bill. they will give it to you.

[john92021]

my friend had a heart attack with no insurance. His bill was $150,000. He settled for $25,000. I have found that a doctor procedure (paid in cash)will cost you about the 20% that it costs with insurance.

[formerlyluvnut]

As far as I am concerned nothing will ever top the F15. Awesome, just awesome.

[takacrat]

F-18

[john92021]

In the meantime, the F-22s in Japan must fly under 44,000 feet so that the flawed vests will not be required, and are on a 30-minute "tether,'' meaning they must be within 30 minutes of an emergency landing site.

that's like saying we drive the Ferrari around the block at 40 MPH and have had no problems. If you can't use it, what good is it?

[alphaa10000]

bmallen3 said, "Hey genius, under war conditions all restrictions are off. 30 minutes equates to about 300 miles, not exactly much of a restriction for just training flights..."
--------

But that means combat merely removes the restrictions, it does not resolve the problem, does it?

So, in your own words, "Why bother and comment...?"

[alpinequeen]

Reminiscent of the 1947 Arthur Miller play, All My Sons, about defective parts sold to the U.S. Army Air Corps, which was based on a true story.

[Observer1051]

For more than 4 decades it has been KNOWN that the pilot is the weakest link in these fighter aircraft. (Passing out issues, G-force issues, etc...) And yet, during the development of this aircraft (and I suspect others), it would appear that these issues were overlooked. ALL AT TAXPAYERS EXPENSE!
As a TAX PAYER, I am all FOR the development of the fastest, highest, safest, and best aircraft in the world, but I also expect those responsible for developing them do so WISELY! It seems that was not done with this aircraft! It is a shame, if not criminal that people have died as a result of this basic FAILURE...

[jscott418-21618367473133020464]

Another waste of taxpayer dollars. Build a flawed plane that pilots don't want to fly and then proceed to not spend the money to fix them. Typical example of how government does not get how important it is to spend tax payer money wisely. In any government military spending is non productive for a economy. It does not do anything but create government funded jobs that may help the people that benefit from those paychecks. But its not a product that makes money. Now if we built planes that we not only used but we also sold them to other Countries with a profit. Then it would be a more productive investment. Russia learned a long time ago that too much military spending destroys your economy and creates big deficits in government.

[karek40]

The hierarchy of decision making within those organizations controlled by the government is; 1. Political 2. Fiscal 3. Technical one and two always trump three. Simple fact. When (as in this case) the technical becomes an embarrassment (it becomes political) then the funds will be there to correct the technical problem. There are numerous historical cases to validate the hierarchy from the origination of the CAA (FAA) to many events in Vietnam.