WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th July, 2021) A US House Armed Services subcommittee is demanding that the Defense Department investigates breathing problems for pilots flying the troubled and controversial F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, The Hill reported on Wednesday.
The US House Armed Services Committee's Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces has inserted language into the 2022 National Defense Appropriations Act (NDAA) to review the F-35's breathing system for its pilots, the report said.
The language was inserted after a NASA study released earlier this year expressed�concern on the issue, committee aides told reporters on a background call on Wednesday, the report said.
The NASA study investigated why F-15 and F-18 pilots had experienced breathing issues and its researchers also found that the F-35's breathing system delivered an unpredictable amount of air flow at the beginning, middle and end of each breath and that it changed from breath-to-breath, the report also said.
Armed Services Committee staffers failed to get active cooperation on the issue from the Defense Department's own F-35 office that works with both the US Air Force and the jet's prime contractor Lockheed Martin, the report added.
The subcommittee's portion of the NDAA now requires the Defense Department to investigate and assess the problem and to implement corrective actions for it, according to the report.
