56th Fighter Wing cancels local flights

Put a pulse ox sensor on pilots and connect it to the backup oxygen system.
www.med-electronics.com...

If the pilots O2 levels drop to dangerous levels the backup oxygen system automatically kicks in and a cockpit alarm sounds.

This would be short term and combat fix till the real cause is found.

I wonder is its G related where something in the OXY system jams when the plane pulls Gees in a direction.
this may only show on some flights but not others.

a reply to: ANNED

The system in the F-18, every time there's a problem, alerts the pilots with a light. It allows them to activate the back up system that gives them ten minutes. In their case, every time they activate the backup bottle, the symptoms clear up.

In the T-45, they don't always get a light, and when they do activate the backup system, the symptoms don't clear up. As it is now, they're flying them, but they're not allowed to use the OBOGS, fly at high altitude, or land on a carrier.

I am left contemplating the psychology of the situation. That is, going back to the pilot.

Otherwise it is the underlying principal within the design of the oxygen systems and thus could effect all of them.

P

The JPO hopes to identify a root cause in the next few days. The grounding will continue for now, but it's believed to be a localized problem, as it's only affected pilots at Luke. All five events affected aircraft from different squadrons and production runs.

www.defensenews.com...

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: whywhynot

Because it's not a weakness. It's a random event that happens on an aircraft one flight, then not on another with the exact same aircraft. It's also, to a degree, related to the pilot himself.

Seriously? Not a weakness, 200 planes grounded. And I will ask again, why are we reading this in the media?

Link

F-35 jets grounded indefinitely at US Air Force base because of problems with pilots' oxygen supplies

a reply to: whywhynot

Two hundred planes grounded for five incidents in just over a month. Luke AFB probably flies 2-3000 sorties a month, easily counting all their aircraft, and several hundred F-35 sorties every month. And you think that five incidents out of that is a weakness? There hasn't been a single reported incident in any aircraft outside of Luke, in over 10 years of flying, and over 10,000 sorties. The only reason that Luke grounded them is because they want to find the cause and prevent it from becoming worse.

You want a weakness? A weakness is having seventy-two of these incidents every 100,000 hours the aircraft flies. Five isn't even a statistical blip. If the aircraft were flying vital missions, they wouldn't have grounded them. In fact, two just landed in Paris today for the Paris Air Show. And Hill is still flying every day, performing their missions as scheduled.

My other half brought up a very real possibility. With it being 5 pilots, and Luke being a training base, the pilots may have hyperventilated and not realized it.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Hyperventilating is a good thought to follow up on.

But what I can't get past is if I'm reading it correctly is the entire F35 fleet is grounded and we are advertising that to the word. Am I missing something.

Thanks for the responses.

a reply to: whywhynot

You're missing a lot. The ONLY F-35s that are grounded, as I said before, are aircraft based at Luke. Eglin, Nellis, Edwards, Hill, Yuma, Lemoore, Pax River, and Lockheed are all flying as normal, as is VMFA-121 in Japan. None of them have seen anything like the issue seen at Luke. As I said last night, two aircraft landed in Paris after heading across the Atlantic with no problems.

The only reason they grounded the aircraft at Luke is because they're student pilots, transitioning to the F-35. So they took the extra precaution of grounding them to prevent a mishap if a student suffered an event and didn't follow his checklists.

ETA: The total number of aircraft grounded is 48.

Interesting twist.

No problems for the Marines with the F-35 or the AV-8B despite using the same equipment as the T-45s.

news.usni.org...

a reply to: anzha

The F-15 and F-16 Block 40+ both use it too with no problems. The T-45 has a different problem than the others.

It's up to the Wing Commander when the aircraft return to flight, but they're hoping to return to flying status by this week. They're looking at pulse oxygen meters, as well as artificial altitude limits. All five events took place at similar altitudes.

Meanwhile, the engineering investigators are looking at everything from local maintenence procedures, to the software that runs the oxygen generators.

www.military.com...

ETA: Flight operations could begin Tuesday afternoon.

Flight operations will resume Wednesday, with five criteria:

Avoid the altitudes in which all five physiological events occurred.
Modify ground procedures to mitigate physiological risks to pilots.
Expand physiological training to increase understanding between pilot and medical communities.
Increase minimum levels for backup oxygen systems for each flight.
Offer pilots the option of wearing sensors during flight to collect airborne human performance data.

www.airforcetimes.com...

The ultimate cause hasn't been determined, but maintenance and aircrew flight equipment procedures were eliminated.

The Air Force has said that they're not certain that the incidents are actually hypoxia, but could be hypocapnia, which is excess oxygen in the blood, or another physiological event that has similar symptoms.

aviationweek.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

I appreciate them looking and working out many theories, but I find the Hypocapnia theory very weak. When we were breathing 100% O2, I never heard of this problem. Why would OBOGS be able to oversaturate the body with O2 more than pure O2?

a reply to: cosmania

It might have to do with OBOGS running at a higher pressure level or something. I'm not totally up to speed on the system, so I'm not sure.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Wasn't it experienced pilots that forced the issue?

a reply to: Caughtlurking

In this case, experienced pilots is a bit of a misnomer. Many of the pilots there are experienced, but are transitioning to the F-35 from other jets. They're used to being able to do certain things,and having certain limits. Now they're doing more than that, and taking in a lot more data. That's putting more stress on them until they get used to it.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Your pressure idea made me think maybe the pressure suits aren't working 100% or are causing an anomaly in the chest cavity. A bad batch shipped to that base? It's not like manufacturers haven't covered up life threatening defects in gear before.

a reply to: Caughtlurking

The JPO said the initial examination of the suits didn't show anything, but it's a real possibility. Testing for this sort of thing on the ground is like feeling around for that needle in the haystack, blindfolded, in the dark, while its raining.