
http://aviationweek.com/defense/one-sta ... a-headache
One-Star Tapped To Solve USAF’s Hypoxia Headache
Jan 18, 2018
Lara Seligman
The U.S. Air Force has stood up a team to investigate the unexplained physiological episodes happening across the service’s fighter aircraft, after reports of hypoxia forced the service to ground portions of the A-10 Warthog, F-35A and T-6 Texan II trainer fleets last year. Brig. Gen. Bobbi Doorenbos, who was tapped to lead the effort late last year, said the decision to stand up a team to address the incidents at the headquarters level is a sign the Air Force recognizes the importance of the problem. In addition to the incidents on the A-10, F-35A and T-6, Air Force pilots have reported varying rates of hypoxia-like cockpit episodes on the F-22 Raptor, the F-16 Fighting Falcon and F-15 Eagle in recent years. The goal of the Unexplained Physiological Episode (UPE) integration team is to provide an enterprise-wide look at these incidents and ultimately recommend actions to reduce and, someday, prevent PEs altogether, Doorenbos told Aviation Week during her first interview in the role. “We’ve got a lot of great expertise throughout the Air Force, and we’re really just trying to harness it and integrate it in a way that allows us to take the lessons learned and apply them, maybe more quickly so we can get to solutions more rapidly as an integrated effort across the Air Force,” Doorenbos said Jan. 18 at the Pentagon. “The bottom line is aircrew safety and making sure they have confidence in their systems.” The team is in its very early stages—in fact, Doorenbos is still waiting for Lt. Gen. Chris Nowland, deputy chief of staff for operations, to approve its charter. Once the charter is signed, the first step will be to begin gathering fleet by fleet to figure out if previous recommendations have been properly implemented. Doorenbos’ team will take lessons learned from previous PE investigations, such as in the F-22 and T-6 community, and make sure they are implemented at a higher level, she said. Col. William Mueller, who leads the Air Force’s pilot-physician program, cited a spike in PEs in the F-15 fleet a few years ago as an example. At the time, then-Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh put together a team to investigate the spike. The team did not find a “silver bullet,” but rather focused on tweaking maintenance procedures related to cockpit pressurization, and educating aircrew and maintainers on both the mechanics of the aircraft oxygen system and the physiological effects of the environment. The result of the investigation is that the rate of UPEs on the F-15 fleet went from 10-12 a year to just one in 2017, Mueller stressed.
Doorenbos plans to work closely with her counterpart in the U.S. Navy—Rear Adm. Sara Joyner, who is leading the Navy’s PE investigation—as well as industry and academia to get to the bottom of the problem. She also stressed the importance of communicating with Air Force and Department of Defense leadership, Congress, and the pilots themselves. “Understanding your system goes a long way toward making sure that you have confidence in your system and so teaching people some specifics about the oxygen systems and the life support systems that you have and how they operate and how they interact with your body I think goes a long way toward confidence building in pilots,” Doorenbos said. Traditionally pilots have been wary of coming forward with stories of PEs, for fear that they will be grounded. Doorenbos hopes that better education on PEs will motivate more pilots to report such incidents. “I think people feel more comfortable because they know that it’s not them, that perhaps there’s something going on with the system, and that in order for us to get to the bottom of what’s going on we actually need people to report it,” Doorenbos said.

One-Star Tapped To Solve USAF’s Hypoxia Headache
Jan 18, 2018
Lara Seligman
The U.S. Air Force has stood up a team to investigate the unexplained physiological episodes happening across the service’s fighter aircraft, after reports of hypoxia forced the service to ground portions of the A-10 Warthog, F-35A and T-6 Texan II trainer fleets last year. Brig. Gen. Bobbi Doorenbos, who was tapped to lead the effort late last year, said the decision to stand up a team to address the incidents at the headquarters level is a sign the Air Force recognizes the importance of the problem. In addition to the incidents on the A-10, F-35A and T-6, Air Force pilots have reported varying rates of hypoxia-like cockpit episodes on the F-22 Raptor, the F-16 Fighting Falcon and F-15 Eagle in recent years. The goal of the Unexplained Physiological Episode (UPE) integration team is to provide an enterprise-wide look at these incidents and ultimately recommend actions to reduce and, someday, prevent PEs altogether, Doorenbos told Aviation Week during her first interview in the role. “We’ve got a lot of great expertise throughout the Air Force, and we’re really just trying to harness it and integrate it in a way that allows us to take the lessons learned and apply them, maybe more quickly so we can get to solutions more rapidly as an integrated effort across the Air Force,” Doorenbos said Jan. 18 at the Pentagon. “The bottom line is aircrew safety and making sure they have confidence in their systems.” The team is in its very early stages—in fact, Doorenbos is still waiting for Lt. Gen. Chris Nowland, deputy chief of staff for operations, to approve its charter. Once the charter is signed, the first step will be to begin gathering fleet by fleet to figure out if previous recommendations have been properly implemented. Doorenbos’ team will take lessons learned from previous PE investigations, such as in the F-22 and T-6 community, and make sure they are implemented at a higher level, she said. Col. William Mueller, who leads the Air Force’s pilot-physician program, cited a spike in PEs in the F-15 fleet a few years ago as an example. At the time, then-Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh put together a team to investigate the spike. The team did not find a “silver bullet,” but rather focused on tweaking maintenance procedures related to cockpit pressurization, and educating aircrew and maintainers on both the mechanics of the aircraft oxygen system and the physiological effects of the environment. The result of the investigation is that the rate of UPEs on the F-15 fleet went from 10-12 a year to just one in 2017, Mueller stressed.
Doorenbos plans to work closely with her counterpart in the U.S. Navy—Rear Adm. Sara Joyner, who is leading the Navy’s PE investigation—as well as industry and academia to get to the bottom of the problem. She also stressed the importance of communicating with Air Force and Department of Defense leadership, Congress, and the pilots themselves. “Understanding your system goes a long way toward making sure that you have confidence in your system and so teaching people some specifics about the oxygen systems and the life support systems that you have and how they operate and how they interact with your body I think goes a long way toward confidence building in pilots,” Doorenbos said. Traditionally pilots have been wary of coming forward with stories of PEs, for fear that they will be grounded. Doorenbos hopes that better education on PEs will motivate more pilots to report such incidents. “I think people feel more comfortable because they know that it’s not them, that perhaps there’s something going on with the system, and that in order for us to get to the bottom of what’s going on we actually need people to report it,” Doorenbos said.
