>> You know we've got to come with a better system,
a better way to make sure
that these pilots are getting the oxygen and the protection
that they need to go fly.
>> If you're low on oxygen, basically sometimes get euphoric
or you'll get sleepy or you'll kind of pass out.
And obviously if you have
to fly the airplane that's not a good scenario.
>> The Navy and the Air Force has been experiencing problems
with oxygen levels and content, and pilots blacking out.
>> You know you have aircraft data.
You have some, you don't have a lot.
But what you don't have is any instrumentation
on the pilot and their breathing.
And so what we were really focused on was really trying
to identify the root cause in the pilot.
Remember, physiological episodes happen in people not aircraft.
So if you don't have the pilot instrumented,
then you're really not going to be able
to help resolve the problems.
>> Crew assignments, I'll be in the jet,
you guy will be in the control room.
Jack will be talking on the radio.
>> I'll be on the radio.
>> The use of this project is going to go for a long time.
Because it's going to establish a fundamental data set
on how pilots breathe in a tactical environment.
[ Inaudible ]
>> High performance type aircraft like fighter jets,
over the years they've become more and more advanced.
They can fly with higher g's, they fly faster,
they fly at higher angles of attack.
With all of those increases, physiological effects
on pilots has increased dramatically.
>> Every pilot is going to be different
on how they react to something.
Cause they want to kind of baseline what you're like before
and what you're like after.
>> So how do we gather the data?
How does it go through this process
from the aircraft all the way through to arrive
at the analyst's desk?
And what do they do with it?
>> And one of the first things we have to do is we have to look
and see what kind of flight they're doing.
If they're doing a Navy configuration flight
or an Air Force configuration flight.
>> We'll take spirometry, which is basically looking
at lung capacity at the time.
We do that like an hour before the flight,
just right after we strap into the cockpit.
And then when we come back we'll do that again in the cockpit,
and then after we've been out for about an hour.
>> The red 97 is monitoring their pulse,
their oxygen saturation in their blood.
Its also monitoring how fast they're breathing.
>> And that should be it.
>> Pilot wears a VigilOX system made by Cobham.
With the VigilOX system, it measures a lot of key parameters
that are used for important
for understanding what the pilot is breathing
in and breathing out.
>> Put this side in first.
>> In order to capture all the data that we want,
the pilots are flying different profiles.
Some are just high-altitude flights,
where you're flying 40 to 50,000 feet.
Other ones are more aerobatic, that's where they're
up there doing spins and turns and dives.
>> And then, and we correlate that type of flight
and how it changes you know, kind of your lung capacity
or those kinds of things.
So that's what the scientists are looking for.
>> We embarked on this with the idea that we have a lot
of complex test methods that we're developing.
And at the end of this, one of our goals originally is we want
to be able to develop test methods that are useful
to the Air Force and to the Navy in the sense
that they can be used in a repeatable, consistent way
that provide really quality data.
That then we can compare our results with the Navy's results,
and the Air Force's results.
>> So I think this will help make sure
that the designs we have are set for what the pilot needs.
Cause if we don't really know what the pilot needs very well,
we can't design to that.
And previous systems I think just had a lot of margin
to be able to accept different needs from a pilot.
But now that we've gotten you know, closer to designing those
to basically just what they need, we really need
to know what the pilots actually need in order to be safe.