It’s like being Jewish in Nazi Germany and knowing about the gas chambers or being in Banking and knowing abut derivatives and credit default swaps. You’re all in.

US military equipment like the US medical system is the most expensive in the world, but not the best nor the most effective. But millions of Iranians will join thousands of US military if death machines are unleashed.

UAR pilots have become the most recent guinea pigs for the latest cutting edge military boondoggle. The ongoing problems of which Gen. Savage speaks come from someone who doesn’t have to suffer the consequences of his own empty bravado.

Since the whole idea with the Raptor is to spend money, can’t the Air Force just take delivery and park them somewhere in the Arizona desert, not even trying to fly them?  There must be some bureaucratic way to still give the pilot flight pay as if they were flying them (wink, wink).

Isn;t it true that they haven’t been used in any of our many recent and current war zones (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya), so when would they be used?

In my opinion, really personal, it is possible to say that the reason might have come from the pilots themselves. I mean their minds. I think there are three reasons for that. First, Cockpits are really tiny space just fit to one or two. Second, pilots hang their lives on the flying metals. That situation won’t be easy every time put their feet in the sky. Third, we are easily controlled by mind. So, what if they lost their faith in the machines and the matters got on their nerves?? I will save my words.

Lockheed-Martin needs to fire some people, if they can’t figure this one out.

If a “one-size-fits-all” plane is maneuvering with suspect computer control (identified in the last article on the topic), hypoxia could easily be from the maneuvers forcing the blood away from the brain.  Because of a previous oxygen malfunction, though, they’re ignoring the biology, as far as I can tell from the Air Force Times article.

Should anybody be in a position to investigate, it may be useful to correlate the severity of the symptoms with the height and weight of the pilot.

The Israelis figured out decades ago that women are often better fighter pilots because, on average, they’re shorter and have more fatty tissue, so they can make tighter turns without passing out.  We limit our pilots to the size of the cockpit.

That assumes we actually need this platypus-design in an age where the air campaign isn’t exactly common or successful.  Me, I’d just as soon stop spending all this time and money killing people overseas for the crime of living in the same town as a “terror suspect.”

Who built it? A team won contracts along the way.
ProPublica - key fact is missing. Please add the company info.

Hi Starry—

Lockheed-Martin built the jet, with Boeing as their primary subcontractor. The Air Command Center spokesman told me that industry technicians are part of the monitoring team looking into this problem.

The jets aren’t being built any more—the last ones were made last year.

@Mike Jorgensonn, the pilots need to make a certain amount of flight hours in order to be allowed to fly the plane, its probably less expensive to take this risk then to loose all the pilots… (old link: http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/6-76974.aspx#startofcomments [and im not even sure if links are allowed :( ]

quote from link: “In order to remain current in the F-22, a pilot must each month fly a certain number of sorties, as well as make landings, perform basic fighter maneuvers, practice air combat maneuvering and tactical intercepts, among a host of other skills, said one former F-22 pilot.
If a pilot hasn’t flown at all in 210 days, he must go through the entire training course again, although a special requalification syllabus is being worked up to shorten the time involved, said officials.”

I just love the AF General quoted as saying he needs to have the planes fly to diagnose the problem.  Some of these cockpits could be gas changers.  All this stuff can be modeled.  But the ole hard-metal flybys need to do everything they can see.  I don’t blame the pilots for refusing to fly.  You can be those guys never get the fat jobs at Lock Mart, eh?

Just wait til F35 gets to this stage.

Can we court martial all of the flags and career employees who are responsible for these two fighter plane fiascos, eh?

Hypoxia like?  You either have sufficient oxygen or you don’t.  There are ways to find a leak, whether it is fluid or gas.  I maintained Naval aircraft flight instrument and electrical systems both active and reserve and was around liquid oxygen (LOX) systems, as we provided the wiring to the LOX indicator.  If we were able to find leaks in the pitot static altitude / Mach airspeed indicating systems using air, they should be able to use a similar technique troubleshooting their problem.

why are we ,as a nation,behaving so poorly..?..i believe that our inherited wealth/influence system of late (a consequence of loopholes and historically low corporate, capital gain and estate taxes )  has replaced a merit and results based model which rewarded skill&commonsense; and thus we are saddled   with very poor decisions and the subsequent and unacceptable results…This situation,unless challenged, will squander what wealth isn’t stolen outright and only end when the nation collapses outright…goodnight.

We continue to produce cold war weapons systems just to keep Boeing and Lockheed in business. 
JSF a trillion dollars!!!
Now we are about to start another stupid war.

As a pilot myself I can think of at least 20 items to investigate. Also how they fit together, reaction to G loads, the environment, talking, installation, rubbing or impinging on each other and the other airplane structures and components, etc. Are any of the components a new design or from a different manufacturer? What is common between the affected pilots and the aircraft? Same aircraft for any of the incidents? Had any of the pilots been taking any over the counter meds, or had colds, allergies, structural defects or unique structures compared to the unaffected pilots?

Let Pentagon and LM meetings be held in these cockpits.  Bet they would get fixed real quick.

Rascal old fighter pilot I’m surprised the air force directed the pilots to fly the aircraft when the problem has no solid answers. Losing another jet would be irresponsible and reprehensible. The political pressure from Congress. The white house and Boeing can not be overlooked.  Limiting q air to air fighter to below 15000 feet is rediculous for thousands of reason.  I read with sad ironey about the pilot being blamed for the loss of the aircraft. Yes we are trained to recognize hypoxia. However depending on the altitude. Malt liar and manuvers he may not have had time. Look out Iran. Were sending in the most advanced fighters in the world. Low altitude so every.farmer with a gun can shoot at you

I am speaking as the widow of a retired career AF PILOT. 

When the military and retired community is facing increased costs for TRICARE, TFL and MEDICINES these unconscionable costs for equipment that doesn’t work are horrible for us to accept.  I know my husband would have agreed with many of the comments made by others regarding this article.

The government needs to STOP spending billions of American dollars that they are stealing from the American people to kill our pilots and other people around the world.  Not 1 single cent more for military, expensive planes and wars and killing.  Enough already, have the stupid politicians learned Nothing from history?  Americans should make friends with exchange cultural programs and exchanged students, Wars and killing only make the world hate Americans.  Better to be loved.  Nina Diamante

Most of the “people” commenting here are in their late 40’s to early 60’s and many are zionist “jews” who are not even patriotic about the U.S. but rather would want her to go to war.

“The Israelis figured out decades ago that women are often better fighter pilots because, on average, they’re shorter and have more fatty tissue, so they can make tighter turns without passing out.  We limit our pilots to the size of the cockpit.”

That’s why there are all of THREE female Israeli combat pilots. Most couldn’t pass the physicals.

You’re right, Tom.  I neglected that the study didn’t produce the results they expected.  But there was a push in that direction for a few years.  My mistake for not checking out the follow-up, regardless.

I have a feeling that our current stock of piloted jet-fighters will soon be obsolete. With no on-board pilot to black out from lack of oxygen and/or excess G-forces, remotely piloted craft seem to have the potential to replace manned fighter aircraft within a few years.

It must be comforting to the Iranian pilots to know that US’ F-22’s are now cruising the skies of the Persian Gulf spreading the well wishes of the genocidal Great Satan~> and its imperialistic criminal policies on the people of the Middle East. (Lybia, Syria and Lebanon?)  Now, all we need to do is to get Israeli pilots into the F-35 another ‘lemon’ left to suck billions out of the US economy, just to provide ‘make-work’ jobs in the many states where the politicians ‘buddies’ have set up operations to manufacture the thousands of componensts for this rubiks cube with wings.