U.S. Air Force Shifts Focus To Maintaining ‘Human Weapon System’07 Feb 2018 Lara Seligman"A small group of airmen is hoping to prove that a greater focus on caring for fighter pilots’ physical and mental needs can build a force of aviators that not only performs better in the cockpit, but also stays in the U.S. Air Force for the long term. As the Air Force faces a growing exodus of experienced fighter pilots, senior leaders are looking for creative ways to recruit and retain aviators. Capt. Bryan Anderson, a flight doctor at Luke AFB, Arizona, believes he and his team have found a solution that both recognizes the toll flying a fighter takes on a pilots’ body and mind, and provides the preventive care aviators need to succeed.
“We do all this maintenance on the jet, the F-35s, the F-16s, whether it’s weekly, monthly, hourly or annually,” Anderson said in an interview here. “But really, there is not a whole lot of maintenance we do on the human weapon system.”
‘Human Performance Team’ includes a mix of flight surgeons, physical therapists, strength coaches and psychologists colocated with the squadron
Pilots at Luke AFB are already seeing a marked improvement
U.S. Air Force leaders are looking at inserting a line item in the fiscal 2019 budget blueprint to continue funding the effort...
...Pilots here are already seeing the results of the HPT’s efforts.
Maj. Mark Warner, an F-35 pilot, had his first bad back spasm in early 2007 when he first began training to fly the F-16. Even though the episodes reoccurred every three months, usually followed by a two-week period of extreme pain and limited motion, he never told anyone. “The last thing I wanted to do was to be eliminated from training or take a three-month setback, so I’d just gut through it,” Warner says. “I think eventually it just gave out.” Warner had a massive disc herniation in February 2016. Unable to ignore the problem any longer, he started physical therapy, and finally got an MRI in May. When the doctors saw his scans, they told him he needed to have surgery immediately. He was out of flying for almost a year, until February 2017, and still does not feel 100%....
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Maj. Anthony Zelasko, an F-35 pilot, has also been working with Baumann for the past few months. He began experiencing neck pain, numbness in his forearm and tingling fingers as a young F-16 pilot. He had gotten referrals for physical therapy, but it was difficult to take time out of his busy schedule for an appointment....
...In the end, the Air Force isn’t going to win the pilot retention battle by upping salaries or adding bonuses, Leonard stresses. What if, instead, the service could take that money and invest it upfront into building a culture of taking care of its airmen? “It’s this idea that we take care of folks preventively. We do this with our machines, so an F-16, every 400 hr. we put it into phased maintenance, we pull off all the panels, we make sure it is operating well,” says Leonard. “Can we do the same thing with our people?”"
Source: http://aviationweek.com/combat-aircraft ... pon-system