Hypoxia Hearing

Inside the Air Force reports this morning that NASA officials who conducted an independent analysis of the F-22 Raptor's life support systems this summer have concluded that the Air Force's proposed corrective actions to a series of hypoxia-like incidents are positive and worthwhile improvements to the aircraft, but have warned the service against continuing to accept a "normalization of deviance" in the F-22's performance. Further:

NASA's Engineering Safety Center (NESC) performed an independent assessment of the F-22 beginning in late April, and that group's final report was submitted to Air Combat Command (ACC) on Aug. 31, according to Clinton Cragg, the center's principal engineer and the lead on the study group. The NESC final report agreed with the Air Force on the likely causes of breathing problems in the Raptor cockpit -- namely a flaw with the F-22's upper pressure garment and several contributors related to high concentrations of oxygen at low altitudes -- but urged the Air Force to consider a number of more wide-ranging, systemic issues with the F-22 program.

Cragg, along with ACC Director of Operations Maj. Gen. Charlie Lyon and Gregory Martin, a retired Air Force general and the chair of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board's aircraft oxygen generation study, testified before the House Armed Services tactical air and land subcommittee on Sept. 13.

In his prepared testimony, Cragg wrote that the Air Force, like many organizations before it, has come to accept a handful of mild irritants associated with the F-22 as "normal," when in fact they should have been addressed early on. He cited an issue with a particular part on the space shuttle as an example of NASA going through the same process, and the NESC expressed satisfaction that as part of its oxygen generation study, the Air Force is now paying more attention to these issues.

"The F-22 pilot community has come to expect a number of physiological phenomena as a 'normal' part of flying the Raptor," Cragg wrote. "These include the difficulty in breathing, the 'Raptor cough,' excessive fatigue, headaches, and delayed ear block. Differences in pilot breathing in the F-22 from other platforms was widely known and accepted as a normal part of flying the advanced aircraft. The acceptance of these phenomena as 'normal' could be seen as 'normalization of deviance.'"

One member of Congress who has a good understanding of science is committee member Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), who chairs the tactical air and land forces subcommittee. In his prepared statement yesterday, he said:

I know from personal experience as a scientist working these issues before I came to Congress that the Air Force faced a difficult problem in determining the root cause of these F-22 pilot hypoxia-like events because in either the case of insufficient oxygen quantity or poor oxygen quality, the symptoms to the pilot are largely the same. Hypoxia, or lack of oxygen, produces the same symptoms in humans that would result from toxic exposure, or hypocapnia, also known as hyperventilation.

Click here to read the full ITAF story, and here to view the testimony from the hearing.