A number of pilots and engineers are not convinced that the US Air Force has found the root cause of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor's
oxygen woes despite the service officially naming the Combat Edge upper
pressure garment and its associated systems as the culprits.
"There's one thing I know for certain: The Combat Edge isn't the culprit," one F-22 pilot says. "But they're trying to show positive momentum."
On 24 July, USAF chief of staff Gen Norton Schwartz told reporters that the Combat Edge upper-pressure garment and its associated breathing regulator/anti-g (BRAG) valve, hoses and connectors are to blame for the a series of "hypoxia-like" incidents have plagued the service's F-22 fleet since 2008.
Schwartz added that the service must pay more attention to
man-machine interfaces. He further added that the USAF's physiology
expertise has atrophied over the course of the years.
Schwartz said that the service's experts did not fully understand the stresses on the human body at the altitudes and g-forces where the Raptor operates. Moreover, during the Raptor's original developmental and operational testing, important details were missed, Schwartz said.
But despite publicly disclosing what it believes to be the root cause of the Raptor's problems, the USAF says that it has not yet finished a written report that summarizes all the various tests, analysis and findings to support its conclusions.
Kevin Divers, a former USAF rated physiologist and F-22 flight test engineer, disputes Schwartz's assertions. Divers was the life support test-pilot vehicle interface officer responsible for testing and certifying both the original contractor furnished flight gear and the current flight gear on the Raptor fleet.
"To assume that important details were missed in the original developmental and operational testing is a very ignorant statement to make when I have approached the air force many times to give them insight into important details from that timeframe. If they had taken me up on my offer to help it should have made this whole investigation faster and cheaper for the USAF and the taxpayer" Divers says. "It is fair to say things were missed, but it isn't fair to give the Secretary of Defense and members of Congress the impression that the air force has used all of its available and capable resources to get to what I believe is a very flawed and misdirected conclusion. The USAF is still missing important details by ignoring those of us who believe in the airplane and know that we can help."
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"There's one thing I know for certain: The Combat Edge isn't the culprit," one F-22 pilot says. "But they're trying to show positive momentum."
On 24 July, USAF chief of staff Gen Norton Schwartz told reporters that the Combat Edge upper-pressure garment and its associated breathing regulator/anti-g (BRAG) valve, hoses and connectors are to blame for the a series of "hypoxia-like" incidents have plagued the service's F-22 fleet since 2008.
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Schwartz said that the service's experts did not fully understand the stresses on the human body at the altitudes and g-forces where the Raptor operates. Moreover, during the Raptor's original developmental and operational testing, important details were missed, Schwartz said.
But despite publicly disclosing what it believes to be the root cause of the Raptor's problems, the USAF says that it has not yet finished a written report that summarizes all the various tests, analysis and findings to support its conclusions.
Kevin Divers, a former USAF rated physiologist and F-22 flight test engineer, disputes Schwartz's assertions. Divers was the life support test-pilot vehicle interface officer responsible for testing and certifying both the original contractor furnished flight gear and the current flight gear on the Raptor fleet.
"To assume that important details were missed in the original developmental and operational testing is a very ignorant statement to make when I have approached the air force many times to give them insight into important details from that timeframe. If they had taken me up on my offer to help it should have made this whole investigation faster and cheaper for the USAF and the taxpayer" Divers says. "It is fair to say things were missed, but it isn't fair to give the Secretary of Defense and members of Congress the impression that the air force has used all of its available and capable resources to get to what I believe is a very flawed and misdirected conclusion. The USAF is still missing important details by ignoring those of us who believe in the airplane and know that we can help."
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