Navy instructor pilots refusing to fly

The Navy has cleared the T-45s to fly again, but are restricting them to below 10,000 feet. Pilots will wear their masks still, but are not required to use the OBOGS system except in an emergency.

Even at that altitude the Navy says they can complete 75% of the syllabus.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: hutch622

From what I understand of the term, histotoxic refers to an inability for cells to take up and use oxygen which is delivered to them, in spite of there being oxygen in abundance to use. You would normally get a situation like this, if the cell is incapable of taking on oxygen, because it has been blocked up with carbon dioxide or monoxide or something like that.

So, for example, you could have a decent amount of oxygen available, but if the cells that oxygen is trying to reach have been blocked up by the presence of carbon gases of various sorts, the oxygen will not be taken up, which causes obvious problems.

But that's still not an excuse. There's a carbon monoxide detector in my apartment that's smaller than my wallet, and I'm sure the military can come up with something even more miniaturized.

So we're back to overwhelming incompetence by our Air Force engineers.

a reply to: peskyhumans

No, we're up to a bleed air issue. I've dealt with them, and they're almost impossible to find on the ground. Detecting contaminants isn't the problem, the problem is fixing it and finding out where the leak is.

And in this case, they're Navy engineers.

originally posted by: Zaphod58


And in this case, they're Navy CIVILIAN engineers.

Fixed it for you.

They have pretty much eliminated Navy maintainers in the training squadrons. They have pretty much eliminated Navy personnel above the Organizational level.

Oh thank god. Lawmakers are launching an investigation into this. They'll certainly be able to figure it out where the engineers haven't been able to.

(Yes, that was sarcasm)

originally posted by: Zaphod58
Oh thank god. Lawmakers are launching an investigation into this. They'll certainly be able to figure it out where the engineers haven't been able to.

(Yes, that was sarcasm)

Perhaps the courts can order it to stop.

a reply to: Bedlam

If the lawmakers can't solve it, I'm sure that will work.

Kickstarter project?

The Carl Vinson lost an F/A-18. The pilot was recovered safely and unhurt.

While testing the new mask configuration, a flight of two T-45s was performing maneuvers at 10,000 feet and above 4Gs, to understand the limitations of the new configuration. One of the two pilots reported headache symptoms that improved as the aircraft descended.

As a result, the Navy has further restricted flights to 5,000 feet and no more than 2Gs.

aviationweek.com...

Despite several months, and completely tearing down the environmental system, the Navy is still completely clueless as to what the problem is. They haven't flown students since the grounding, and by the end if June, a total of 75 students still won't have moved on to new squadrons or joined the fleet.

www.flightglobal.com...

Wondering if its mask related?

a reply to: Blackfinger

They changed the mask and hookup, and immediately had the same problem under the first restrictions they put in place, so they put further restrictions in place.

Holy cow. CNATRA must be going nuts. They aren't filling the pipeline. In a short amount of time, they are going to have to extend the orders of pilots in fleet squadrons because there will be no nuggets to backfill when they roll out. Which will mean more deployments for the JOs. And those poor slobs are the ones flying the Hornets with this issue too.

I don't blame them though, the T-45 syllabus has a lot of solo flights and a new pilot just doesn't have the SA to be aware of when hypoxia is setting in. Would never want to jeopardize the life of a 23 year old student.

Relative to how hard this is: When I was instructing in the T-45, we were falling behind in getting student pilots through the ACM stage due to the weather in South Texas. In order to graduate the students, we had to go somewhere with good weather. Key West was full, so I was authorized to take about 20 jets, about 15 instructors and dozens of student pilots (and lots and lots of contract MX labor) to MacDill AFB in Tampa. For 2 weeks. We worked over the Gulf of Mexico. We got lots of good work done. The instructors busted their butts and flew a lot. But this was during OEF/OIF so the on-base quarters at MacDill were full from CentCom. So we stayed at a Marriott. Dozens of people for 2 weeks in a Marriott. Think of that expense.

And now, the entire pipeline is cut off. Seriously, this disruption will soon have a waterfall effect in the Billions. It's ridiculous to think they can't apply those Billions and find the solution to this. BOBs and WOWs, find the Red X.

a reply to: cosmania

They all pretty much agree that there's a drop dead date of September before this hits critical mass. By that point they'll have something like 150 pilots held up.

a reply to: Zaphod58

That's essentially 5 Hornet squadrons.

a reply to: cosmania

I hate to say it, but if they don't get this solved now, even if it means going back to LOX, NAVAIR will be years trying to recover, if it ever does.

Having been ops and a crew chief, not being able to find a problem on the ground that occurs often in flight... Is not unusual, it just sucks when it happens to something like the oxygen system.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: cosmania

even if it means going back to LOX

I'm an ex-helo guy. How hard would it be to go back to LOX?

a reply to: JIMC5499

Difficult, but not prohibitively. You should be able to pull the OBOGS generator and leave most of the plumbing in. You might even be able to use some of the same plumbing.