Posted on 05/11/2012 10:53:04 AM PDT by JerseyanExile
Fresh on the heels of yesterday’s announcement by the Air Force that it thinks the hypoxia-like symptoms suffered by F-22 Raptor pilots may be caused by the jets high-altitude performance, reports are emerging that ground crew are also suffering from similar ailments when they stand near the jet while it’s engines are running. Interesting.
At least five ground maintainers complained of illness between September and December, Air Combat Command spokesman Lt. Col. Tadd Sholtis said in an Air Force Times article that hit the newsstands Monday. The maintainers grew sick after breathing in ambient air during ground engine runs, a congressional aide told Air Force Times.
I imagine that the service is looking at the rates of sickness for ground crew of other jets to make sure that the Raptor maintainers are actually suffering from something unique to the stealth jet. If they are, it seems to indicate that the problem is indeed related to contaminates emanating from the plane rather than a lack of oxygen getting to the pilots during flight. Just yesterday, one of the Air Force’s top acquisitions officials, Lt. Gen. Janet Wolfenbarger told Senators that the service suspects that the F-22’s On-Board Oxygen Generating Systems (OBOGS) are either feeding the pilots contaminated air or aren’t giving them enough air to breath. She added that the problem may be related to the extreme altitudes that Raptors routinely execute high-G maneuvers in. Needless to say, this latest news puts an interesting twist on that claim.
Apparently, F-22 ground crew have been issued canisters designed to take air samples whenever they feel the onset of hypoxia.
Space suits! LOL The thick orange ones the SR-71 pilots used.
All I know is the stealth stuff is supposedly really nasty. Lockheed had a bunch of employees at Groom Lake sue over it. They weren’t even working with it, but they worked near some pits where a bunch of the stuff had been buried. They had a variety of really strange ailments and illnesses. Lockheed argued they could not possibly been made ill by that stuff since it was buried.
We’ll never know what could have been proved because the government stepped in and made it very clear to Lockheed that none of this business was going to be discussed in open court nor allowed by the discovery process. So Lockheed settled with the workers.
Most oxygen generating systems work by separating air into oxygen and nitrogen. The oxygen (20%) goes to where it is needed and the nitrogen (80%) is exhausted as a waste stream. Problems arise when these systems aren’t used correctly. Like the little old lady who buys one because she needs oxygen. She doesn’t like the noise from the compressor, so she puts it in a closet; pretty soon all the oxygen is gone from the closet and she’s getting mostly nitrogen.
I wonder if these ground crew people are breathing in the 80% waste nitrogen exhaust.
I thought the F-22s were going to be hangar queens, but I’d figured it was because no one would be willing to risk losing a piece of hardware that expensive, not because they’d have things seriously wrong with them.
“Blackbird pilots never got sick since their life support systems were LOx and they flew with zero-G suits.” The high-altitude suits were partial pressure suits, thus requiring a rubber diaphragm around the wearer’s face. I believe they were on O2 long before they left those little vans. So no chance of breathing any aircraft exhaust. We had 6 Habu’s at KAB, when I was stationed on the Rock, 73-75.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.