USN grounds all T-45s
 

US Navy grounds T-45 training jet fleet following Fox News report | Fox News

I'm torn on this story. Fox points out; probably quite correctly, that additional attention has been brought to this issue because 1Lt Michael Pence flies that plane. Don't interpret this incorrectly, I'm 100% in favor of safely operating our airplane fleets. My issue is would this have been done without a high profile student in training? My guess is no -- reference (1) each F-22 mishap where O2 contamination disabled the pilot and the USAF blamed the pilot for the subsequent crash as well as the follow-on treatment of the 2 whistle-blowers who went to their congressmen and the media in the wake of the F-22's O2 problems.

Anybody who thinks we're a classless society is willingly fooling themselves. I don't doubt it's possible to move from class to class, but there are classes none the less.

EDIT:

BTW, in the name of full disclosure I am not intimately familiar with the treatment the whistle blowers received after their media appearance. I knew one of the guys in a previous life and through mutual friends I was told he was involuntarily removed from the F-22. If somebody has more accurate information I would appreciate a correction to my statement.

I'm sure 1Lt Pence being there didn't hurt...but I believe that a majority of the flight instructors refusing to fly anymore had more to do with it than a high profile student. When your instructors refusing to fly due to safety concerns makes national news it kind of backs you into a corner and forces you to do something. Had there been another mishap after instructors refused to fly, the Navy would not have had a leg to stand on.

Another factor that more than likely had a greater impact was the need for pilots in the fleet. Once enough pilots refused to fly, pilot production numbers would start falling and create a choke point in the training pipeline. At a certain point it would be in the best interest of the Navy to stop flying so they can find and fix the problem than it would be to limp along with the few pilots willing to still fly from pilot production standpoint. With up to 100 pilots not flying, odds are they reached that point.

We are totally a society with classes, but I don't think Pence was the driving factor in this case....it didn't hurt that he was there though. I wish I could have been in on the conversations when the COs had to call and say they were cancelling the flight schedule because their instructors were not willing to fly...and it was going to make national news.

I agree. Pence's kid had zero to do with this. It is a big deal to the Navy when orange and white stops flying. Sounds a lot like some instructors went to the press when they (rightfully) felt their concerns were not getting the proper attention from CNATRA and NAVAIR. These guys did the honorable thing and stopped flying in the name of a genuine safety concern.

Integrity with a capital I, Bravo Zulu.

The IPs walking out is the story... Pence being there just gave it some legs.

Hope to see some leadership firings over this starting with CNATRA. Good on those boys.

I agree. Well done gentlemen and ladies if applicable.

Yes. Discussed this with flags privy to the situation. Pence was not even part of the discussion. Icing on the media cake.

Some disturbing incidents.
Not to mention the regularity with which they occur.

To be correct the T45's are not grounded. It's a safety standown for 3 days.

You aren't correct.

Navy's T-45 Fleet Indefinitely Grounded After Pilot Strike | Military.com

Hopefully OBOGS can get re-engineered with some serious improvements. F-18, F-22, and now T-45 have a history of issues. Poisoning warriors is bad press, but its even worse for combat effectiveness.

F-22 guys did a similar "stand down" for a while, and largely kept it out of media. Eventually word does get out...

Knock on wood, 1000 hours flown on the T-6A poisoning free, though I won't know until many years later if the thing dusted me with carcinogenics imperceptible to my body's allergic reaction threshold. Brings a perverse new meaning to the thank you for my service platitude....

These days I'm back to the relative inconvenience of flying behind the good ol leaking LOX in the mighty Talon, leaving me stranded off station 6-9 times a year, unless I get the OG waiver on the repo flight below 10. And you know what? I love it. The devil I know is much preferable to the one I don't.

Hope they figure out what's going on with the -45 OBOGS so they can get back up to hackin' da mish. everybody stay safe out there.

I'd be very interested to hear from some folks in Kingsville or Meridian on how all of this went down. While I applaud the IPs for taking a stand, the way they went about it, organizing a 'sick out' in a military squadron is just not right. Where were the COs and/or Commodore in this? Why go VFR direct to Fox News and undercut the air boss? Did the IPs talk directly with CNATRA before they did this or did they just take it on their own accord to ORM out as a group? I get that safety comes first and I'm not advocating anything less, I just think there were/are other ways of dealing with this issue to get the visibility it needs (if it's not already in work). Those of us who fly Hornets/Supers know that the Hypoxia/ECS/Pressurization issues are at the top of the list for safety concerns/priorities. To say they are not not, is just flat wrong. If its not being done fast enough, again, I get it and would opine that there are a number of other avenues and ways to get after this problem with leadership to include the air boss (actual) rather than VFR direct to Fox News who only reported what they wanted and put out a TON of misinformation to the public, just my $.02.

Chief of Naval Operations: ""I think what we had more than anything else was a breakdown in communication. And those teams are on-site now working through each of the training wings, they are resolving the differences in perspective and the differences in communication." That's it! What we have here is a............"failure to communicate".

BDGERJMN,

While I agree going to the media is a terrible choice, it seems that the CoC completely let them down.

Did CNAF know about this? The IPs... the experts in the field... DID push these issues up the CoC... and they got stonewalled.

Where?

The IP cadre filed safety reports until the cows came home. They briefed their commanders and the Commodore. Apparently, the info was forwarded to Corpus. It sure sounds like this steaming pile lays at the feet of CNATRA. How does he get briefed on all of these incidents, and yet he doesn't run the plethora of fleet-safety information further up the chain?

Kind of interesting how now this is CNATRA's #1 priority. Too bad it wasn't 6 months ago. It took a beating to make it so.

I don't know Admiral Bull, but from those I do know that know him, their description matches well to what has happened.

If my conclusions are correct, then CNAF needs to send CNATRA packing.

Everything Huggy said. They did the last thing they could to fix this issue. The T-45 OBOGS incidents were becoming much more frequent and much more serious than any Hornet OBOGS issue. Being privvy to some inside information on the issue, it's a **** storm of epic proportions and if the working theory turns out to be true CNATRA should not only be fired but stripped of everything for not acting.

No one went to the news, it gained traction mainly because the VPs son is there.

We lost people to the OBOGS issue in the Hornet community you'll remember. :(

I'm not keeping track since I left, but did the T-45 community have Class As associated with OBOGS?

Also - when I left - they were just implementing the 'Air Quality' caution annunciator in the Hornet fleet (I don't remember what the ann was actually - maybe air concentration?). Did that not happen or not work?

My post wasn't intended to point fingers at all, simply stating that I disagreed with the way the instructor cadre went about it, and asking some tough questions. What's done is done and it's time to move forward. As a CO, I understand both sides of the leadership coin, those COs and Commodores were/are definitely in a tough position and I'm not in their shoes; I don't envy their position. I hope that through all of this, the culprit is found and these airplanes/systems can be fixed and get back to training the future in Naval Aviation.

USMC - there is an OBOGS DEGD caution on the DDI which you are familiar with. A CABIN (on lower right cautions panel, not DDI) caution was installed as part of the Cabin Pressurization Warning System (A-D AFC 466, E/F ECP 6217) and put in place in Legacy/Super hornets to let aircrew know the cabin altitude is above 21000' +/- 1100'. I can't speak to the OBOGs/CABIN PRESS cautions in the T-45.

What didn't you like about the way the instructors went about it? I didn't see any USN O-3s on the news. They refused to fly the plane, Lt Pence is there, the news got a hold of it.

Because I don't feel that organizing a 'sick out' in a military squadron then interviewing with Fox News was the appropriate way to do it. As I stated, I personally feel there were other avenues of approach, again my opinion. You didn't see any O-3s on Fox News because they were unnamed sources quoted in the article and on TV. Pence being there was ancillary and helped the media with some sound bites, not the thrust of the story.

What do you propose they should have done...keep flying until another class A or someone dies? I'm not being inflammatory, but genuinely interested.

I don't know the full story, but it sounds as if many of their calls for help and change went unanswered. Sometimes the nuclear option is the only way to get stuff done. The fact that they were able to get buy in by the entire pilot cadre, says alot! How many of them voiced their concern and we're told to pound sand or shut up and color, my guess is quite a few. Leadership can't rock the boat AND get that next promotion!

I do agree that the media should be an absolute LAST resort but maybe it was needed to get the right eyes on the issue. Writing your congressman, better yet, having a squadron full of pilots showing up to a congressman's office might have been a good idea as well. That would send a pretty big message that there is something wrong. The fact is that nothing will make, crap get done and make a commander sweat, more than a congressman breathing down their neck.

This decision had to have weighed heavily on these guys mind and I'm sure it was a very hard decision. I applaud these officers for having the balls and the integrity to take a stand and do what's right for their students, themselves and Naval Aviation.

I don't know what to think, because I'm not privy to all of the deets.

A also think a "labor action" is a very slippery slope in the military context. I can envision a scenario where it might be appropriate but it's a pretty unlikely scenario.

It's entirely possible CANTRA screwed up, but where was all the intermediate management (DH, XO, CO, CMDR)? If it got to this point it seems to me the CO/CMDR should have been sufficiently informed to call a stand-down and then go see the boss to force the issue...they have a doctrinal mandate to do that sort of thing, rank-and-file JO's do not.

If the IP's truly exhausted all recourse before they went on strike then the whole CoC (at least above DH) is badly broken.

Might get the problem fixed, might even save lives but what are the ramifications for good order and discipline going forward?

I don't take your response as inflammatory, and I think this discussion is good and can definitely be had without flame spraying anyone.

No I'm not advocating anyone fly a jet they don't feel safe flying in a training environment and certainly not advocating folks fly until a Class A occurs. Bottom line, they didn't have consensus from the entire ready room, that's one of the issues I have with this. Some instructors continued to fly, while others organized the 'sick out'. If the CO's and the Commodore truly supported this effort as was reported by the media and anecdotally from folks within the Training Squadrons, then why didn't they ground the jets themselves, they own them. Why didn't the COs or Commodore tell CNATRA, "boss my guys aren't flying and here's why, I'm grounding the jets". If CNATRA's response was 'shut up and color' as was reported, bad on him for taking that approach. If that was the approach and it went unanswered, a simple note stating the jets are down until a fix is in place from the Commodore to the CNAF COS CC'ing CNATRA gets some attention and likely the same result. The Commodore could have requested an all hands call with the air boss to air the issue in an open forum, was that done? I don't know, but knowing the CNAF leadership as I do, I doubt the current air boss would have turned that down.

I agree that taking a stand and setting an example is good. In this case though, we just showed to a new crop of Naval Aviators getting set to go to the RAG and on to the Fleet that an organized 'sick out' was the preferred course of action while talking to the press 'off the record'. I don't agree that's the best example.

Obviously there are many opinions out there, mine is just one and who's to say its right. As I was reminded by a JO a few days ago, we're dealing with a different generation of young leaders; he was referring to millennials and stated that leadership needs to handle them differently. Jury is out on that one...perhaps the way we do business will change as a result of a new generation?

Was it a "sick out"? Or was it use of an ORM matrix and when the finally tally was reached certain IP's said, "Nope - risk is too great"

Neither here nor there, I guess. The end result was the same.

I hear ya, and I know guys that had incidents. The T-45 however had these guys too scared to fly it. Guys being dragged out of cockpits, debilitating health issues, and at least one succesful ejection on stud/IP before they passed out... at low altitude. Histotoxic hypoxia, being poisoned by the system supposed to keep you alive.

These guys tried to work within the confines of the system, the system didn't work, and I don't blame them one bit for refusing to fly when that was their last option.

'Aviator's Breathing Oxygen' is by mil-spec definition 99.5% oxygen and is essentially the same for the civilian world. Apparently this OBOGS system works by progressively filtering out nitrogen gas which increases the concentration of oxygen. This system then adjusts the percent of oxygen delivered to the pilot as a function of cockpit altitude. In the Honeywell system a cockpit with a pressure altitude of 15,000 feet would deliver filtered air with between 40% to 60% oxygen to the pilot. A cockpit at a pressure altitude of 35,000 feet would have an acceptable range of between 92% and 100% oxygen. Doesn't take much to ask what happens if the regulator doesn't adjust the oxygen percentage increase with increases in cockpit altitude, or if even a worn system would be capable of delivering 92% at altitude. I don't see how they got away from the 99.5% oxygen purity standard to begin with.

There's a difference between 99.5% O2 and 99.5% "purity".

The former would be 99.5% O2 and 0.5% N2, argon, and a few other gases (commonly know as "air"). Perfectly breathable and safe.

The later would imply 0.5% "non-air" contamination, which would probably be bad (ie CO, hydrocarbons, etc).

Semantics.

The problem with OBOGS (and "Fume Events" in the airliner world) are they do indeed work by reducing the amount of Nitrogen...from bleed air.

If the first-stage bearing in the engine compressor has a bad oil seal, jet turbine oil will be part of the bleed. On to the OBOGS it flows: Nitrogen gets removed; Oxygen and "trace gasses" such as CO2, Argon, Helium...and vaporized turbine oil...remain.

Jet turbine oils contain Tri-Cresyl Phosphate. It seems to be universally applied to turbine oils, and both stabilizes the viscosity at high temperatures, as well as makes it less flammable.

Unfortunately, Tri-Cresyl Phosphate works in the human body like many Phosphates do: as a nerve agent. It disrupts neuro-transmitters, and in high enough doses, causes death. Low doses can cause blindness, confusion, and other neurological symptoms.'

It can be easily absorbed through the skin; I would assume the lungs are more so. Every can of turbine oil I have handled carried a warning about TCP.

The military loves OBOGS because it saves weight and requires no logistical train like LOX does. As I understand it, the F-22 quietly got a small pressurized Oxygen bottle after the Alaska accident....but the brass fought it, as it cost money to install, took up critical space, and added weight.

Great post.

This brass is amongst us, I won't out the gentleman but the following anecdote is 100% true. On a separate FB group we were discussing how AGCAS had just saved its 1st pilot on a US F-16 (it had likely previously saved a UAE pilot). We were all talking about how great it was and a former F-16 OG/CC steps in and bemoans that we should've gotten an AESA RADAR instead of the AGCAS. In the very same discussion where the AGCAS had just saved a pilot's life. I think the quote was something along the lines of how everybody who thinks saving a pilot vs combat capability (ed note: that will probably never be used...) are a bunch of candy asses. He defended his undefendable position for a while until he realized absolutely nobody agreed with him and he just went away. Said individual works for my company and will likely end up on the 4th floor where he will continue to not GAS about the people who work for him. That is military "leadership".

Pence
 

Anyone consider this: Lt Pence is well aware of the OBOGs problem. Maybe one of his bro's got hypoxic. The IPs are furious at their cowardly chain of command doing nothing to fix the problem. The environment in the squadron is toxic. One evening Lt Pence makes a call, "Dad, you're not gonna believe this sh*t...." After 10 minutes, " Is mom there? Hi mom, I love you too. What was I talking to Dad about? Get this crap Mom..."

BOOM!

That may be HIS leadership style - but I certainly would not say that is military "leadership". I saw some GREAT leadership in the military. We flew in the Hornet community for at least a decade with known OBOGS issues too and I felt that the leadership knew of, and were actively working to fix the problem - and as I said in an earlier post - we lost people and planes because of it.

Someone earlier mentioned that maybe the ORM matrix was finally max'ed out and put over the top. I can see that. The Hornet community certainly ORM'ed the crap out of it and I was personally comfortable with the mitigation put into place. Same with the LEX problems the fleet had which were severe enough to actually issue a fleet wide red-stripe!

I work with a guy that knows CNATRA very well. Although he is obviously a very confident person having achieved his position in life - he says that he also DOES care for the welfare and safety of his people. Some accusations have been made on this cite and others against his character using third and fourth hand knowledge of the situation. I personally have no knowledge of his character so will withhold judgment on such things but I did get this little tidbit in the email earlier this morning after having a conversation about this issue with my co-worker.

Quote:

---

One thing worth mentioning, not necessarily in defense of Dell but interesting, his son just finished at Kingsville and is currently in the RAG at Lemoore. So while all this was going on, he had his son flying T-45s.

---

At least his isn't hypocritical in that regard.

What a tough situation all around. I sincerely hope that it is resolved and they can get back to the business of training to take the fight to our enemies around the world. The threat isn't going away.

'FIGHT'S ON!'

Well, here is USAF leadership. One must believe it's all the way from the top. If you don't want to read the entire article: Capt Jeff Haney may have become incapacitated by the F-22 OBOGS, the plane crashed and killed him, and the USAF blamed Capt Haney for the mishap. There is zero definitive proof whether this is classic spatial D or incapacitation due to OBOGS. The Pentagon audited the results and disagreed with the USAF. The USAF refused to accept the Pentagon findings. They care far more about their cash cow F-22 program than the lives of their pilots. It is systemic. Generals demand costly weapon systems, generals retire, generals get hired by the defense contractors they so greedily assisted while they were "leading" in the military. Of course there are exceptions, but isn't it sad that the exceptions are the good guys, and not the other way around?

EDIT: Oops, forgot the link...
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/dead-2...ry?id=18490248

From the Washington Examiner Saturday, April 15, 2017:

"The Navy will resume its T-45C flights on Monday after the training jets were grounded due to pilot protest and problems with oxygen systems, the commander of Naval Air Forces announced.

However, the service has still not found the root cause or a solution to the oxygen system issues that caused a boycott by hundreds of instructor pilots, including Vice President Mike Pence's son, Vice Adm. Mike Shoemaker said in a released statement.

The Navy will instead limited T-45C training flights for sailors and Marines to below 10,000 feet using a mask that circumvents the aircraft's on-board oxygen generator system."

So, they are going to bottled oxygen? It would seem the crew has to be using 'aviators breathing oxygen' below 10,000 feet because the engine compressor air used for air conditioning and pressurization is not known to be safe either at this point. Curious.

I assume they're just breathing ambient air (legal below 10K), but wearing a bypassed mask for training purposes.

Bleed air isn't what's bad, it's what the OBOGS system is producing. Cabin air should be fine.

The design of the pressurization system is puzzling to me. The aircraft does not begin to pressurize until 5,000 feet MSL and the maximum differential of 4 psi is not reached until the aircraft reaches 40,000 feet. Most systems you would dial in field elevation +500 feet on the controller and then the planned cruising altitude so you could have max differential no matter what the final altitude. Basically in the existing system a T-45 at 25,000 feet would have a 15,000 foot cockpit. Under a system where the pilot sets the pressurization altitude and final desired altitude he would have a 10,000 foot cockpit, even with the small 4 psi differential.

I didn't know much about pressurization systems when I was with an F-4S squadron (even before flight school), but I've never flown a tactical trainer or aircraft which has a pressurization system which you describe. The aircraft I currently fly has such a system, but I'd be very interested if anyone can ID a tactical aircraft with such a system
.

You can certainly do an automatic system that would be better than what is outlined here. There is no reason to schedule the pressurization to become the maximum differential at 40,000 feet. You could pressurize at 8,000 feet (10.9 psi) and maintain an 8,000 foot cabin (by slowly increasing the differential) to 20,000 feet (6.9 psi) at which point the maximum differential of 4 psi is reached. Above 20,000 the cabin climbs at the rate of the aircraft. Point being at 20,000 feet with an 8,000 cabin you don't need the OBOGS system at all. I believe the T-38 has a similar schedule but will have to dig it out.

Yes, T-38 and T-6, and the B-52 all have fixed cabin pressure schedules circa 8k cabin, that cap out at 18-25K aircraft altitude, then the cabin increases from there to maintain max differential. No lie, the T-6 T.O. lists the max cabin differential altitude intercept point at no kidding 18,069 ft. LOL Who said engineers don't have crewdog sophomoric humor.

Tac airplanes don't have schedule controllers, though the Buff has a pressure differential 2-position selector, in order to dial down the cabin differential for combat due to AAA/SAM blast overpressure risks; wishful thinking really and most people didn't bother with it.

At any rate, sure, the entire flight's regime on most trainers does not require oxygen immediately available, but you can't just treat it like a crew airliner and go flying around without it on full time (critical phases of flight, which for trainers it's a euphemism for ALWAYS ON) or immediately available (as defined by hanging from your helmet by one bayonet). The highly dynamic nature of the profile, along with the rapid decompression issues, mid air collision risk of formation flying, and having an unqualified member as part of the crew on a full time basis, makes it an operational necessity to have oxygen on your manpleaser 100% of the time, even for what amounts toa 1.0-1.3 ASD sortie. Never mind the logistics of an uncontrolled flight ejection event. So it's not as simple as writing off oxygen requirements via cabin pressurization. These canopies shatter, bird strikes, et al with significant frequency compared to the civil transport pressurized aircraft fleet. Apples and mangos.

Right now, I bet what they're doing is simply flying around with the aircraft oxygen hose disconnected from the CRU-60 (or whatever the squids call that fitting) attachment. Nothing changes from the CRU-60 port to the pilot's face. That way you can breathe cockpit air without any hardware diaphragm restriction, which below 10k is perfectly legal. The CRU-60 still retains the secondary line to the emergency 10-15 minute emergency bottle from the ejection seat, so no hardware changes or complications are added to this interim situation.

To recap, T-6s and 45s are OBOGS, 38s are LOX.

My point was that with a pressurization schedule like the T-38 the pilot at aircraft altitudes of up to 25,000 would just initially unbuckle his mask if he felt he was getting poisoned by the OBOGS air as he would have a 10,000, or lower, cabin. With the current T-45 pressurization system schedule if the pilot unlatches his mask at anything over 15,000 feet the cabin is already over 10,000 feet.

As I understand it the Navy intends to fly these aircraft now limited to 15,000 feet with the aircraft cabin at 10,000 feet.

At this point in this train wreck I don't think anything less than 99.5% pure 'aviators breathing oxygen' coming into the pilots mask at all times upon demand is acceptable. Whether the pilots wear the mask at all times, or when the aircraft is above 10,000 feet, or when the cabin is above 10,000 feet, is something that can be hashed out. Certainly proposing disconnecting the hose and inhaling cabin air through the end is pathetic. The fact that they are dancing around and not saying that, or anything else, in plain English says a lot.