Oxygen Losses Ground Stealth Fighters, Again

[n2doc]

By David Axe October 21, 2011 | 5:35 pm | Categories: Air Force


F-22 Raptor stealth fighters at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia have been grounded after a pilot experienced oxygen loss mid-flight. It’s the second stand-down this year for the U.S. military’s most sophisticated dogfighter, and a foreboding sign for the Pentagon as it struggles to modernize its aerial armada.

Problems with the on-board oxygen system have vexed the $150-million-a-copy F-22 for more than a year. On May 3, the Air Force locked down the entire Raptor fleet while it investigated reports of pilot blackouts and disorientation — problems that might have contributed to a fatal F-22 crash in Alaska in November.

Investigators suspected a design flaw in the Raptor’s oxygen generator that was allowing high levels of unbreathable nitrogen to leak into the pilot’s air supply. But they could never pin down the precise flaw, and last month the Air Force brass ordered the 170 F-22s — accounting for nearly half of the Pentagon’s air-superiority force — back into the air. “We now have enough insight from recent studies and investigations that a return to flight is prudent and appropriate,” said Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force chief of staff.

As added insurance, Raptor squadrons installed an extra air filter on the radar-evading jets built by Lockheed Martin. But the filter appears not to have solved the problem, if the Virginia incident is any indication.


more

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/stealth-fighters-grounded/

These POS need to be scrapped.

[More_liberal_than_mo]

1. I've got a problem with

the use of the term "unbreathable nitrogen". I know that the article says that but it's incorrect to state it that way. Nitrogen comprises over 78 percent of the air we breathe at sea level anyway. It's an inert gas that neither harms or benefits us. It is breathable and causes no harm by itself. It's the lack of oxygen that is the problem.

[Ezlivin]

2. Don't worry: It's nothing a few billion dollars can't fix

And the DoD has an unlimited supply of money.

[Rex]

3. Yikes! Not something you want on a fly-by-wire machine.

So what was it that the F-16 and F-15 couldn't keep up with that we wasted money on this new boondoggle? China making something far superior?