That report is a scary read for anyone who has flown out of KNFL in the winter. It's a picture-perfect example of all the cliched "holes in the swiss cheese lining up." One after the other after the other. But for the grace of God . . .
-
Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?
Go here:
Edit Account Details and Profile
NEWS Big surprise, OBOGS back in the news.
- Thread starter EODDave
- Start date
1) Redesign the OBOGS system so that actuating the green ring automatically shuts off the OBOGS flow.
2) Connect the cockpit pressure gauge to the jet, so there is a DDI caution if the cabin pressure is off.
Those are 2 easy ones off the top of my head.
Swallow the company line if you want. No surprise there. The F-22 community got their OBOGS problem fixed real quick after 2 fatal crashes and a 60 Minutes story.
When you add all these things up, it leads to a risky situation:
- flying jets designed for 6,000 hours well past 8,000 hours (eventually to 10,000)
- first tour pilots getting <10 hours a month on average
- An ECS and OBOGS system that sucks
Maybe the time, money, and energy to fix OBOGS got spent on investigating women in combat arms, making a Hornet that could fly on bio-diesel, and building a $36 million MEF HQ building in Afghanistan that was never used (https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/special projects/SIGAR-15-57-SP.pdf).
Yeah, yeah... I get it. Different pots of money. Thats why leaders set priorities, and those priorities decide the allocation of scarce resources. And 6 years later you have no solution to the DCS and hypoxia solution.
That's a fine point, and it doesn't serve to reassure the aviators, but in terms of actually addressing the problem (vice the optics) ... what would YOU do?
Those are a couple of valid ideas. Do you know if NAVAIR has addressed/studied either of those options and the results?
Brett,
It's the "sensationalism" of the article that is getting people's attention. This has been "talked" about for years and has gone absolutely nowhere. This is going down the same road as the F-22. People trying to use the system for years and nothing gets done. The issue gets highlighted to the public and congress and the money starts flowing to fix the problem. That we are where we are now with this issue is complete bullshit. Like I read elsewhere, this country can send a man to the moon in less than 10 years from scratch. However, we can't fix OBOGs in over 10? W.T.F?
It's the "sensationalism" of the article that is getting people's attention. This has been "talked" about for years and has gone absolutely nowhere. This is going down the same road as the F-22. People trying to use the system for years and nothing gets done. The issue gets highlighted to the public and congress and the money starts flowing to fix the problem. That we are where we are now with this issue is complete bullshit. Like I read elsewhere, this country can send a man to the moon in less than 10 years from scratch. However, we can't fix OBOGs in over 10? W.T.F?
#2 is in the works, though its taking forever.
I want to be magnanimous, but it seems like they have had clowns in charge of the hypoxia/DCS response for years, or they let the engineers run wild with no supervision. They wasted valuable time testing out different pulse-oximeters that you would clip on your ear or finger and fly with. Kind of a stupid idea if you ask me, though I know sometimes big breakthroughs come from that stuff. Also, that only would identify when you experience symptoms, it wouldn't fix the underlying problems!
Guys have gotten DCS and gone to a pressure chamber without ever climbing above 6,000' on an FCLP hop. How is that possible? But don't worry, Admiral Nasty doesn't think its a big deal because he had to deal with it, and we are "raising awareness" among the fleet to the issues. What is this, a half-assed college liberal issue group? Raising awareness is the best we can do?!? OCCUPY HYPOXIA!
@dave - Like I've reiterated here several times, I share everyone's frustration with the pace of progress. It isn't going to satisfy everyone, but from the information that has been presented to me, NAVAIR's way forward sounds reasonable. Resourcing, from what we're being told, isn't a significant hurdle. It's an engineering problem with a solution. I respect your POV, but this story contributes nothing to the solution and won't generate any kind of public outcry, particularly with recycled quotes from 10 years ago. Navy Times is preaching to the choir here.
This is a very interesting discussion. When I was at NAMRL in the mid-1990s, we routinely saw reports from the fleet describing problems with OBOGS. I don't remember all the details of the reports, but they were concerning enough to occupy a fair amount of effort there for a few years while I was there. At the time, there was a pretty robust effort on the medical side and on the engineering side to try and mitigate the problem. We ruled out the use of pulse oximetry early on for a variety of reasons, and came to the conclusion that an engineering fix for OBOGS was the definitive solution. I'm surprised to hear that pulse ox was still being kicked around after 1999 or so. I guess somebody was really invested in that as a solution. I don't know what happened to all that information and corporate knowledge, but it may have been lost when NAMRL was totaled by hurricane Ivan, and the staff was scattered to the winds as well.
DCS at 6000 feet altitude would be very unusual. There's only a 1 psi difference between the pressure at sea level and the pressure at 6000 feet, which I don't think would be enough to precipitate DCS. Maybe one of the physiologists can chime in, but that information makes me wonder if something else isn't going on.
I'm really surprised to hear that we're still having problems with this system 20 years on.
R/
DCS at 6000 feet altitude would be very unusual. There's only a 1 psi difference between the pressure at sea level and the pressure at 6000 feet, which I don't think would be enough to precipitate DCS. Maybe one of the physiologists can chime in, but that information makes me wonder if something else isn't going on.
I'm really surprised to hear that we're still having problems with this system 20 years on.
R/
You sometimes see repeated cycling in cabin pressure which, from what I understand, can be just as big of a problem as a rapid decompression.
Every time I close the canopy and cycle the bleeds I'm spring loaded to open the canopy if the pressurization doesn't feel right. I started keeping it in the back of my mind after someone got over pressurized on deck to the point that the jet was down. It doesn't matter what altitude you're at, it's a pressurization system that can fail anywhere.
Agree that the effects of DCS can be present at lower altitudes if the cabin pressure is cycling really bad like it sometimes does, but I doubt that would be the case at 6k ft…….that just isn't really physics (cabin press isn't going to be less than ambient pressure). I could be wrong, but my impression was that the <10k ft discussion was hypoxia, specifically toxic hypoxia or whatever the clinical term for it is. The latest revelation to the fleet is that the cabin air is not really filtered in any meaningful way (engineers incorrectly assumed pilots would be on O2 from engine start to shut down). So not only is that working against you, but the ECS turbine also throws off fluorocarbons as it spins when it is hot. So really in general, a lot of nasty shit is getting pumped into the cockpit when you aren't wearing your mask. And of course anything bad in the OBOGS flow (which IS filtered of course, but not for everything) will also not be any better at 1k ft than it is at 40k ft. This background is my understanding of why the NATOPS procedure was changed. Again, this is coming 15th hand from the CI at my last NATOPS check, but it was consistent with the NAVAIR presentation.
The guy who got DCS on a FCLP hop was over pressurized on deck. Still, its a head scratcher. They drove his ass in a car for 6 hours from Lemoore up to Travis AFB, and he still had to get squeezed in the chamber. People are also getting DCS at weird altitudes, like below 18,000. The doctors and scientists say it shouldn't be happening, but it is.
They were evaluating pulse-oximeters as recently as 2014.
In a way, its the leadership of our own community who is to blame. The last few decades, we went for better combat systems 90% of the time rather than boring safety systems. Precision approach capability anyone? Nah bro, you got a tacan and a radio, that worked for us in the 60's. Oh, and an NDB. But don't worry, RNAV approaches are coming in 41X, unless it gets delayed.
They were evaluating pulse-oximeters as recently as 2014.
In a way, its the leadership of our own community who is to blame. The last few decades, we went for better combat systems 90% of the time rather than boring safety systems. Precision approach capability anyone? Nah bro, you got a tacan and a radio, that worked for us in the 60's. Oh, and an NDB. But don't worry, RNAV approaches are coming in 41X, unless it gets delayed.
In a way, its the leadership of our own community who is to blame. The last few decades, we went for better combat systems 90% of the time rather than boring safety systems. Precision approach capability anyone? Nah bro, you got a tacan and a radio, that worked for us in the 60's. Oh, and an NDB. But don't worry, RNAV approaches are coming in 41X, unless it gets delayed.
The lack of civilian ILS is completely baffling to me. Were we to actually have a bottom line and you were to calculate the cost of having the jets sit every time there is a low ceiling then the ILS would pay for itself many times over.
Unbelievable, incredible failure on management's part.
Our protocol at NUW is if a crewmember experiences any physiological event, they are evaluated upon landing, then if DCS is suspected, station SAR helo transports them immediately to a chamber.
Rhinos now have that capability with H10. It's in the jets now to play around with, but flight clearance is a few months away. You're 2-3 pushtiles away from direct to capability for world-wide DAFIF (more or less), airfield info (gear availability, RWY length), among other things. It's got a lot of potential.
I can't speak for the E/F folks, but Gs have civilian ILS capability. It goes in the ICLS rack, so you get one or the other. Currently, only the Exped VAQ squadrons have it.
This is really a nasty set of problems.
I can see DCS happening if the cockpit if significantly overpressurized at sea level, which would result in increased amounts of dissolved nitrogen in the circulation, which could then come out of solution at a lower altitude than expected. Do you know if that particular incident was investigated to see what the actual cabin pressure was and for how long prior to takeoff? Pushing additional nitrogen into the circulation is a time and pressure relationship that the dive guys have pretty much thought through.
I remember hearing the comments that OBOGS would be a significant improvement over LOX systems because aviators would be on the mask from start up to shut down,. Guess that isn't how it's working in the real world.
Do you know if anyone has sampled the air from the OBOGS and from the ECS during each phase of flight to see exactly what is in there and in what concentrations?
R/
I can see DCS happening if the cockpit if significantly overpressurized at sea level, which would result in increased amounts of dissolved nitrogen in the circulation, which could then come out of solution at a lower altitude than expected. Do you know if that particular incident was investigated to see what the actual cabin pressure was and for how long prior to takeoff? Pushing additional nitrogen into the circulation is a time and pressure relationship that the dive guys have pretty much thought through.
I remember hearing the comments that OBOGS would be a significant improvement over LOX systems because aviators would be on the mask from start up to shut down,. Guess that isn't how it's working in the real world.
Do you know if anyone has sampled the air from the OBOGS and from the ECS during each phase of flight to see exactly what is in there and in what concentrations?
R/
Not to mention the cost of maintaining the PAR, training controllers, and paying their salaries....ILS way better