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F-22 fighter pilots from the Virginia Air National Guard’s 192nd Fighter Wing at Joint Base Langley-Eustis told CBS News they do not believe that the F-22 is currently safe to fly. Appearing on the May 6 edition of the 60 Minutes television broadcast, Maj. Jeremy Gordon and Capt. Josh Wilson said their concern stems from the still-unresolved issue with the aircraft’s in-flight oxygen supply that has affected Raptor pilots’ mental acuity and physiological performance in several dozen instances over the past several years. “I am not comfortable flying the F-22 right now,” Gordon, a Raptor pilot of six years, told 60 Minutes. However, the Air Force maintains that the F-22 is safe to fly and it’s sparing no effort to resolve the oxygen issue. “Though we have not yet resolved the root cause of some physiological events, we have mitigated the risk of F-22 flight operations to a level where we can safely operate the F-22 while we continue the investigation to identify the root cause,” Air Force headquarters spokesman Lt. Col. John Dorrian told the Daily Report May 7. Click here to read our full coverage.
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.