Go Pills?

[Country Wild]

OK mil guys please give us some insight to this: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/index.html

 

[Eagleflip]

There is a good thread on this in the General section.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Pistlpetet]

Under EXTREME circumstances flight surgeons can give pilots drugs to extend their duty day, and max flight time. Like I said, this would be under serious conditions, in which the risk outweighed the benifit gained from possibly saving lives

 

[Toro]

Under EXTREME circumstances flight surgeons can give pilots drugs...under serious conditions, in which the risk outweighed the benifit gained from possibly saving lives

Not true. Pilots are given Dexedrine (Amphetamine "Go" pills) for situations where the duration of a sortie would cause an excessive amount of fatigue. It has nothing to do with a mission risk level; we were issued the Dexedrine for a recent deployment back to the states where our planned flight time was 10 hours. The flight was nothing more than a climb to altitude, smack the autopilot and jump onto the tanker every couple hours, but sitting in the cramped cockpit for ten hours will start to wear on you. We were issued the pills, but nobody had to take them - each pilot determined whether they were needed.

Now, to jump back to this 20/20 article. In case you haven't learned it yet, always take everything the media says with a grain of salt. I won't say that this article is complete and utter crap, but it's fairly high on the BS meter. A couple counterpoints-

Yet, a 20/20 investigation has found, the amphetamines, the speed pills, are now standard issue to U.S. Air Force combat pilots
Now standard? No, it's not new, it's been going on for decades. It's just that 20/20 has only recently found about it and decided to sensationalize the whole thing for their ratings.

the Air Force gave them $30 million F-16 fighter jets, laser-guided precision munitions, state-of-the-art technology, and something that came as a complete surprise — amphetamines
A surprise to who? Certainly not the pilots - the use of Dexedrine is explained during FTU and they are given a sample (while not flying) to make sure that they don't have any side effects.

Schmidt, trained as a top gun fighter pilot...
What? Last time I checked, Air Force didn't train "top gun" fighter pilots. Nothing to do with the drugs, just pointing out the sensationalist nature of 20/20.

It was then, under the full influence of the amphetamine pills, that the two pilots spotted weapons fire near the Kandahar air base
"Under the full influence!" Sensationalism. See above

"People who get strung out on amphetamines are usually crazy. They're paranoid, they stop eating. … Their judgment is impaired and they do very bad things. … They are among the sickest of all drug addicts."
Well then it's a good thing these guys weren't addicts. Once again, sensationalism. Gimme a break - if you drink too much you are an alcoholic, but I'm sure these guys enjoy the occasional brew. They weren't popping these pills like addicts, they took a couple for long missions.

An investigation put the blame on the two U.S. pilots for being too quick to open fire under the rules of engagement they were supposed to follow, behavior that experts say is typical of someone on speed or amphetamines.

Yeah, or behavior of someone who thinks they're being shot at.

This story sounds like the pilots are looking for a scapegoat. Nobody can force you to take the pills. If they thought they could fly a 10 hour mission at night over Afghanistan without using the pills, they didn't have to take them. They are issued before the mission and whether you take them is up to you. If these guys are saying they had no choice but to take the pills, that's crap. The problem in this situation was not with the pills, it was with the breakdown in communication between the Canadian and US Forces and rules of engagement specified regarding self defense.

 

[Pistlpetet]

Guess my Pill answer was not the Air Force answer. As far as the Army goes, I have never heard of anyone getting any pills, not even urban legend tales.

On another topic pertaining to this particular accident. I read that these guys claimed to be able to identify the supposed enemy troops on the ground using NVGs. I find that extremely hard to believe, especially operating at the speed and altitude that they most likely were.

I have over 600 NVG hours, operate 0-500 AGL <100Kts, and could never get the detail that these guys were claiming.

Toro, On the TOP GUN thing. One of these pilots use to be a Navy pilot, and Top Gun Instructor Pilot. I concur with you on the cause.

The publicizing of friendly fire accidents is always tragic. Combat will always produce these sort of accidents, but I think the military has vastly improved the amount of control measures, training, and equipment to hopefully minimize these sort of accidents in the future.