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Originally posted by edog11
Also, someone said there were problems with the Oxygen system. It turns out that it was a faulty valve inside the pilots vests and not the F-22's OBOGS (link)
What is most disturbing about the performance of radar-guided missile is that the vast majority of kills (69, 73, or 95%) were initiated and made effective visual range, as shown in Table 4. The acquisition of weapons systems such as the F-4 and AIM-7 missiles were designed to kill the enemy with missile strikes BVR accurate.
Unfortunately, the doctrine and practice real job do not match (even in Israel), due to the constraints above the IFF. However, even when the deficiencies were overcome and the IFF BVR shots were performed, only four of 61 were successful. This translates into a probability "kill" (kill probability) or PK only 6.6%!
There are only four withdrawals BVR documented throughout the history of aerial combat even before Operation Desert Storm. This revelation is surprising because throughout the Cold War era, the platforms of radar-guided missiles were touted as the transformation that would fundamentally change the air combat. This would consist of air combat missile platforms (fighters complex, heavy and expensive), armed with radar-guided missiles, destroying the enemy beyond visual range.
The USAF's position is that the level of contaminants found in the life-support system is within acceptable tolerance limits. But the source says the service has not accounted for environmental conditions, which might cause seals to leak within the bleed air system structure. Those leaked chemicals could then be entering into the Raptor's engine bleed air system.
Once the bleed air system is compromised it affects everything downstream including the on-board oxygen generation system (OBOGS), the cockpit cooling/heating system, defog, and cabin pressurization--particularly the diffuser behind the ejection seat. Moreover, because the potentially contaminated air is more likely not to be entering the cockpit via the pilot's breathing devices, the carbon filter the USAF was using to try root out potential toxins would not catch the problem. "In this scenario the design of the OBOGS should do a very good job of filtering out the contaminated bleed air [entering the pilot's mask]," the source says. "But bleed air has other ways of being introduced to the cockpit and the pilot. Testing of the carbon filter wouldn't necessarily find the toxins created in these situations because it seems that those things are all very hard to detect even when looking for them."
Nor does the USAF appear to have taken into account the toxicity of normally benign chemicals when they are heated to a certain point--such as when those substances are passing through the jet's bleed air system. The source uses the example of tricresyl phosphate, which is found in many lubricants on the flight line.
"If you take tricresyl phosphate (TCP) and tested it like the air force did in 1954--they found that the clouds formed at 600° Fahrenheit are much more toxic than the undecomposed material," he says. "A 1995 air force study found oils containing TCP when heated at high temp changed the compounds and increased the neurotoxicity."
That would account for Raptor maintainers getting sick on the ground-which the USAF's current conclusion does not account for. The USAF says those ground incidents are unrelated to pilots' physiological problems in the air.
According the service, the maintainers inhaled engine exhaust fumes from the flight line, but the symptoms they describe bear similarities to those experienced by the pilots.
Originally posted by Zaphod58
The current theory to THEM is that there is a leak in the bleed air system, brought about by altitude issues causing seals to fail, that is allowing toxins into the cockpit, NOT through the oxygen system, which is then absorbed into the body. This would explain why the charcoal filters didn't catch it when they were installed. (And is something that I sad a long time ago was my leading theory as to what was going on.) This would also explain why ground crews have started complaining about similar symptoms as the pilots, even though all they do is work on the aircraft on the ground, and never fly in it.
Originally posted by rebellender
from my limited in the Know, this thing is a flying turd over 50,000 ft. it becomes slow and unresponsive, hence its vulnerability. I think the platform is designed for Mach 5 but doesnt have the engines.
Unmanned aircraft preform beyond the limits of human ability, welcome to the New Age