Lack of oxygen for the decision makers

There is a lot going on with the discussion over on ARES about how nasty things can be for a pilot at extreme altitudes.

Part of it I blame on the DOD in general and not just the service chiefs. There was a time when flight medicine research and aerospace engineering in-general was well funded. After the end of the Cold War, those kinds of resources were trimmed and pushed on to the contractor. This allowed for a situation with a de-skilled service trying to peer review contractor claims.

Pencil-whipped.

In the absence of non-groupthinking engineers, p-suits and canned oxygen is looking pretty tasty right about now.

All this, gives the impression that the DOD has stopped learning or stopped wanting to learn. It didn’t used to be that way.

(F-104 pilot with a pressure suit)

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