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The F-35 is getting slammed hard once again, this time due to the sudden grounding of 55 of the stealth jets based at Luke AFB following a series of in-flight life support issues. These issues included bouts of hypoxia and other incidents that made it hard for pilots to breathe. The truth of the matter is that the F-35—still a relatively new weapons system that remains deep in testing regardless of how the USAF portrays its status—is the least flagrant offender when it comes to operational aircraft that manifest these anomalies. But the fact that the prized jet is now...

EXCLUSIVE: More than 100 U.S. Navy instructor pilots are refusing to fly in protest of what they say is the refusal of top brass to adequately address an urgent problem with training jets’ oxygen system, multiple instructor pilots tell Fox News. ADVERTISEMENT The boycott started late last week and has effectively grounded hundreds of training flights. “The pilots don’t feel safe flying this aircraft,” one instructor pilot told Fox News. Among the hundreds of student pilots affected is Marine 1st Lt. Michael Pence, son of Vice President Pence – a factor that could put added pressure on the Pentagon to...

Air Force leaders provided an update on the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board study into the F-22 Raptor life support systems and flight operations during a briefing in the Pentagon March 29. Retired Gen. Gregory Martin, an aviator and a former commander of two major commands, chaired the nine member SAB team which studied the aircrafts' on-board oxygen generation systems and briefed its findings and recommendations in trying to determine a root cause for pilots experiencing unexplained physiological events with the F-22 Raptor. "From April 2008 until May 2011, the Air Force experienced 14 physiological incidents with the fleet of...

A US Air Force Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) panel investigating a series of hypoxia-like incidents afflicting pilots flying the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor has not discovered what is causing the problem, but service officials vow they will find the root cause. "I am convinced there is a root cause," says Maj Gen Charles Lyon, Air Combat Command's (ACC) director of operations. "I want everyone to know--particularly those who operate it and their families--we will not rest until we find that root cause." The USAF is continuing to test the F-22's life-support systems to try to determine what is still causing...

The Air Force and the Navy have combined research into a perplexing problem that may have vexed both services in the skies. The U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine and the Naval Medical Research Unit, next door to each other at Wright-Patterson, have linked research for hypoxia — incidents that may have caused a lack of oxygen to reach pilots during some flights in the Air Force’s F-22 Raptor stealth fighter and the Navy’s F-18, military leaders said. “We had what we believe was a common issue,” said Capt. Rita Simmons, executive officer of the Naval Medical Research Unit....