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

May 6, 2012 4:00 PM

Two military pilots won't fly the F-22 Raptor, the Air Force's most sophisticated fighter plane, because they say a lack of oxygen during flight is causing disorientation and worse. Lesley Stahl reports.

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

60 Minutes OverTimeThe F-22 pilots who talked: Why they did it

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by edburman July 8, 2012 8:57 AM EDT
It is not the error which defines the charachter of the individual, or the organization, but at the end of the day it is how the error is resolved which defines the character.
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by DawsonJamesF June 4, 2012 11:13 PM EDT
My father, award 4 distinguished flying crosses, never indicated that he was loosing oxygen, never felt unsafe, or never felt like a test rat. The air force should protect its F22pilots and fix this problem!
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by nathan&jaclyn May 17, 2012 4:18 PM EDT
I wonder if these pilots are suffering from nigrogen narcosis? I am not sure if the altitude and speed these airplanes fly would cause enough pressure that the body would absorb nigrogen differently than at sea level. If it does the pilots could be suffering from "nigrogen haze". Deep sea divers combat this with helium. The pilots might talk a little funny, but at least they would know what they were doing.
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by wmwmurray May 15, 2012 4:36 PM EDT
Fighter Aircraft are a calculated risk -- about one fatality per 50,000 flight hours for most of these -- as opposed to commercial aircraft such as the 777 which might have a fatality once per 2-3Million flight hours. Inspite of their tremendous cost these OBOGS are competitively bid to often the less rigorous military development standards rather than the commercial standards used by Boeing or Airbus, and note the backup system must be manually deployed, unlike an airliner which is semi-automatic -- As the Military moves to use more commercial standards, such as DO-178C, and DO-254 in development of it's systems this may change in the future, and there may be things like an automatic deployment of the backup, and monitoring of blood oxygen levels in real time -- The present systems are 30 year old technology that really has not had a "clean slate" systems engineering look using 2012 technology and 2012 systems engineering processes -- There just have not been the resources
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by harley4142 May 13, 2012 2:43 PM EDT
I worked on developing the engines at Pratt & Whitney before being laid off and we were mighty proud of what we did.

i'm glad that is not part of the problem and I hope they can figure out what's wrong to keep our boys flying safely.
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by kctechie777 May 11, 2012 9:06 AM EDT
Google "Hypoxia Aspartame" Evidently there is some concern that the methanol in Aspartame(Diet soda, etc) can cause hypoxia at high altitudes. I wonder if the Air Force has study this. Just a thought.
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by doofus-slapper May 11, 2012 8:28 AM EDT
Around the world there must be chemical weapons experts rolling on the floor laughing at us. They know of our investment in the F-22 weapon system. And they know that on or over a battlefield, the only guaranteed breath of fresh air is what you bring with you.
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by rkpomeroy May 10, 2012 2:25 PM EDT
After watching the show, I tossed out the comment that what is making the pilots sick is so-called singlet oxygen (1O2). (Normal oxygen is triplet oxygen: 3O2.) I have considered the idea in more detail and believe it may well be the cause of the "hypoxia" experienced by some pilots flying F-22 fighter jets. Singlet oxygen is a high energy form of oxygen that is difficult to form, but unlike most excited molecules it has a relatively long lifetime once produced (Wikipedia states a lifetime of over an hour [1]). Singlet oxygen is extremely damaging to cells; it is thought to be involved in aging and skin cancer. [1] Singlet oxygen would therefore not only account for the disorientation pilots experience, but also their "Raptor Cough." The long term effects of inhalation of singlet oxygen are alarming.
How is 1O2 formed? From the show air is super heated by the engine and then oxygen-enriched by a "chemical process." The latter probably involves removing nitrogen by effusion through a ceramic. The ceramic or another part of the oxygen generator may contain (paramagnetic) iron impurities which could catalyze the conversion of 3O2 to 1O2 and its production will be variable and depend on the particular OBUGS unit.
Unless you are looking for it 1O2 would be extremely difficult to detect. This because it readily reverts back to 3O2 and thus disappears into the bulk 3O2. Analysis by gas chromatography or mass spectrometry will thus be useless. On the other hand, carbon monoxide (CO) and ozone (O3), see previous posts, would readily be detected by these techniques. Attempting to trap 1O2 on a charcoal filter will likewise be fruitless. The energetic singlet oxygen could cause partial disintegration of the charcoal filter, with concomitant formation of 3O2, accounting the inhaled particles in the lungs of pilots.
Roland Pomeroy
Professor Emeritus (Inorganic Chemistry)
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singlet_oxygen
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by GailDona May 10, 2012 10:23 AM EDT
Weekend Warriors... how many hours are they pulling??? What do the fulltime dedicated Pilots say???
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by Clem15 May 9, 2012 9:38 PM EDT
The Distinguish Flying Cross is NOT the highest award for bravery that the Air Force can bestow upon it's members.

That award is the Air Force Cross.
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