To Save Money, Cut Off the Pilots' Oxygen

Disturbing piece from the AP today documenting the history of the breathing problems that have repeatedly grounded our showpiece F-22 fighters:

Years before F-22 pilots began getting dizzy in the cockpit, before one struggled to breathe as he tried to pull out of a fatal crash, before two more went on television to say the plane was so unsafe they refused to fly it, a small circle of U.S. Air Force experts knew something was wrong with the prized stealth fighter jet.

Coughing among pilots and fears that contaminants were leaking into their breathing apparatus led the experts to suspect flaws in the oxygen-supply system of the F-22 Raptor, especially in extreme high-altitude conditions in which the $190 million aircraft is without equal. They formed a working group a decade ago to deal with the problem, creating an informal but unique brain trust.

Internal documents and emails obtained by The Associated Press show they proposed a range of solutions by 2005, including adjustments to the flow of oxygen into pilot’s masks. But that key recommendation was rejected by military officials reluctant to add costs to a program that was already well over budget.

The fix recommended by the Raptor Aeromedical Working Group back in 2002 was to place a digital regulator in the oxygen generation system so the amount of oxygen reaching the pilot could be controlled, which they estimated would cost $100,000 per plane. Even if they were off by a factor of fifty, that would still have been cheaper than the mess we are in now -- but it was rejected as too expensive by the project leaders.

This is the end point, or reducto ad absurdum, of the US Air Force's obsession with building the coolest hardware. They were so determined to build every possible high tech refinement into these planes that the refused to spend the money needed to fix the pilot's oxygen supply. As if, you know, whether the pilots can breathe is just some minor technical point that can be glossed over and maybe fixed with a patch later. Faced with budget limitations, they have always opted to preserve their expensive weapons systems, even if that means cutting back on their human capital in areas like aviation health -- which is why they are now relying on experts from NASA to help fix their fighter planes.