Yep the F-22 yet ANOTHER GREAT Lockheed Martin Product, the USAF should have went w/ the F-23:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YF-23
“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.”
Considering the source this sounds incredibly fabricated to me.
Just make it an open cockpit and limit them to flying below 10K .. and mach 2 ..
These are ‘cutting edge’ craft .. highly technical .. shame to see it go to waste ..
Could be that the ground crew is working in a constant 1 G environment. I think we need the Government to step in with some rules to help with this.
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.