Air Force to Raptor pilots: Get used to coughing

The latest saga in the F-22 soap opera appears to have taken a new turn. The Air Force has told F-22 pilots to get used to coughing, and the ground crews that if they get sick around the aircraft, it's in their heads and they're fine.

The changes made to the flight suit, and the oxygen system won't do anything for the coughing, which actually has nothing to do with the OBOGs issue. The cough is actually caused by acceleration atelectasis, which is also sometimes seen in U-2 pilots.

As for the ground crews, the Air Force says it found no evidence they were really sick. The report says that none of the maintainer blood or urine samples showed anything unusual.

The Air Force has some bad news for the pilots of its F-22 Raptor stealth fighters: Your planes are going to make you feel crappy and there’s not much anyone can do about it. And the message to the maintainers of the radar-evading jet is even more depressing. Any illness they feel from working around the Raptor is apparently all in their heads, according to the Air Force.

Those admissions, buried in newly released Congressional records, represent the latest twist in the years-long saga of the F-22′s faulty oxygen system, which since at least 2008 has been choking pilots, leading to confusion, memory loss and blackouts — combined known as hypoxia — that may have contributed to at least one fatal crash. Ground crews have also reported growing sick while working around F-22s whose engines are running.

The Air Force claims its has a handle on the in-flight blackouts. All 180 or so F-22s are having faulty filters removed and new backup oxygen generators installed. There have also been changes to the G-suits pilots wear. But the Air Force says the alterations won’t do anything to fix the so-called “Raptor cough,” a chronic condition afflicting almost all F-22 pilots.

www.wired.com...

So if they crash or die in aerial combat because a cough or actual coughing fit at the wrong instant was a terminal one, that's just par for the course? Errr... I'm sure our enemies in the world take this news with far better humor than our own guys do.

How compassionate of them, after all. Lets start, right out the gate with a physical issue ..and that, among the fittest and most capable by definition. Oh what a wonderful thing the military seems to have become.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Since it doesn't have anything to do with the oxygen issue it already has, the Air Farce doesn't care about it. They just have to deal with it.

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If the "Raptor Cough" is caused by the speeds/altitudes the F-22 operates in, what can the Air Force do to fix it other than limit its flight envelope? It sounds harsh but there really isn't any other way to put it. "Get used to it"

And if the USAF can't physically find anything wrong with the crew after a multitude of tests is it that difficult to assume it actually WAS in their heads, considering there were only a handful of cases?

I live in Melbourne, Australia. We've got the Australian international airshow on this weekend with the raptor doing a full display. I can't wait! The raptors only doing two shows outside the states this year and thankfully they've chosen to do a display here. Ill post some pictures up after this weekend.

And sorry for the off topic post, I can't create my own threads at the moment.

“I’m not comfortable flying in the F-22 right now,” Maj. Jeremy Gordon, a pilot with the Virginia Air National Guard’s 192nd Fighter Wing, told CBS’ “60 Minutes” in a show aired Sunday.

... then don't

I'm sure there are more than a few folks in line behind you for the job.