USAF Drugging Pilots

[FastCargo]

Not just fighters...

Eagleflip,

You make some very good points...all of which I agree with. In addition, bomber guys, especially the B-2 guys, may be on station for 30+ hours. If y'all remember, during the Kosovo and Afganistan conflights, B-2s were 'reaching out and touching' the bad guys from Missouri and back! Imagine all the survival equipment Eagleflip mentioned (minus the Gs and Gsuits). Now imagine that 15 hours INTO your flight, after at least 2 air refuelings, NOW you start the hard part of your mission. Oh yeah, afterward, now you have to drone back, with 2 more air refuelings, and then try to land. Let's be realistic here folks...you are going to need something to help during the critical parts of the mission.
People seem to make it sound like they are forcing this stuff down guys throats like lab rats...trying to OD or get them addicted to the stuff. Typical media overblowning the actual situation. Yes, the USAF is probably proscribing the use of 'go' pills. But jeez people, think about it...what commander is going to want his folks permanently hyped or addicted. When I was flying the B-1, we received briefs on using 'go' pills, but issued specifically by the flt doc, for a specific mission, for a specific situation within the mission. VERY much controlled to prevent or at least minimize loss of combat effectiveness.

Out for now...gotta drink my caffiene and Nutrasweet laced Diet Coke....

FastCargo

 

[Eagleflip]

Ah-HA!

Sorry about adding to this long list of posts, but I just found this on the ABC news site:

But that's not what Schmidt and Umbach said they found when they arrived at their post in Kuwait. According to their defense lawyers, the two pilots were told by superiors they could be found unfit to fly the mission unless they took the pills.

Dave Beck, Umbach's civilian attorney, said, "They will be marked, they will be known. Their careers will basically be over."

Beck said, "What's happened in this case is that blame has been fixed at the lowest level, the pilots.

Capt. Matt Skobel, Umbach's military lawyer, said pilots need the pills in order to complete their difficult missions. "These missions were at the limit of the pilots' physical and mental endurance. And these pills were required to allow them to do it," Skobel said. .

Ahhhh...so the plot thickens. This is an issue with the Defense attorneys!

 

[A Squared]

Hmmm,

what I find surprising about this is that it seems to be a surprise to so many. Maybe I'm unusual in that I know pilots who have served in combat in a number of different conflits, and they all have spoken of the go pills. (several have mentioned "stop" pills too, downers to help come down from a mission and get some sleep.)

 

[SentryIP]

Pills

Eagleflip,

Excellent and insightful posts. When I flew during the Gulf War, I wish I had go-pills. Our missions were 16 hours long with a 6-hour show for mission planning, briefings (weather, intell, SAR, tactics/threats, formation, air refueling), and target study. We were over target after being awake for about 13 hours. I dreaded the flight back to base more than the bomb runs.

 

[AlbieF15]

I flew 11+ hours in an Eagle, both with and without "go pills". The pills made it easier to land--trust me!

The go pills were given ONLY after a flight doc had given you a controlled dosage over a weekend, and then observed you the following Monday. The idea is you don't want to pop once of these in a jet never having tested its effect on your body first.

20/20 said pilots could just "sign out" the pills whenever they wanted. So could we! We could six our FOUR pills before our trans-oceanic crossing. No other pills would be offered to us again until our next ocean crossing a month later. The idea that pilots had a walking pharmacy in the flight doc was pure hype and hyperbole.

I sling no spears at the F-16 pilots who made a decision to employ force and unfortunately "fratted" some Canadian soldiers. Like Eagleflip...I wasn't there and cannot say what did or did not cause the mishap. However--this reeks of defense lawyers grasping at straws to show the the pilots were somehow not responsible.

As a former Forward Air Controller, I can tell you Fratricide causes much more damage than the simple loss of lives and combat resources when blue force is misapplied against friendlies. The pyschological toll on the force is enormous, and many times the breakdown of trust between services or allied nations causes so much friction that ulitmately combat effectiveness is compromised. Nobody wants to prevent frat more than the US Air Force--trust me on this! Many times to ROE is so restrictive that it puts aircrew into increased harms way to insure 100% positive enemy ID is acheived prior to employing ordnance.

FYI--that bluesuit...General Leaf...he's the real deal. He flew combat missions over Bosnia in the F16, and he's got a son in the Air Force. (I flew him in an aero club plane up to Maxwell AFB from Tyndall a few years ago after he spoke at his son's graduation dinner from ABM school. And no...not at AF expense--he paid for the cost of the plane). Like or dislike the man, I think to dismiss him as a "company man" ignores some facts. He has flown close air support and air interdiction missions in combat. He had some very restrictive ROE. He admits he used his "pilot judgement" and deliberately flew lower than the min altitude (breaking ROE) when attacking a convoy that was advancing towards a UN position. So...he may come off as "another talking cranium" on TV, but the fact is he's been there/done that in combat. If he says "go pills" helped his performance in that operation, then I"d believe him before I believed defense attorneys and Barbara Walters.

You want to talk about a real crisis? Why can a doctor work a 36 hour shift in an ER when doing an intership? That's what I'd worry about as an average American...not fighter pilots on speed.

 

[Delta3]

Come on, let's just spend 0.00000000000001 of our GDP and hire one or two more pilots instead of having to deal with the aftermath of having drugged up pilots.

 

[TDTURBO]

Delta,

That is exactly what I was thinking! That would be the logical thing to do, so I'm sure the military never thought of it.

 

[surplus1]

Eagleflip, FastCargo, AlbieF15

Gentlemen, thank you all for your explanations and comments. Especially you Eagleflip for the insight and knowledge you have provided.

I accept you at your word and I understand what you all have said. Based on the presumed accuracy and sincerity of your remarks, I withdraw my immediate objections and will defer to the judgement of your experience and that of our military commanders.

I thank each of you and all our airmen for what they have done and are doing. I pray that the necessities of their extremely difficult jobs will not operate to harm them when the time comes that they are replaced by younger men also willing to make great sacrifices for our country, its people and their families.

My father before me fought in a war to free us from all wars. My older brothers and the husbands of my sisters fought in yet another, for the same reason. I did my own turn when the time came. I lost one of my nephews in 'Nam, not to enemy fire (he survived the physical enemy wounds) but succumned to the drugs that he learned to depend on there and the aftermath of that debacle. He is alive, but that is all. Now I'm watching my grandsons and great nephews as it becomes their turn to defend our way of life. I have only one regret and it is that all the time and effort has not seemed to make much of a difference. Yes, we have retained our freedoms, but we have not learned to avoid the tragedy that is war. I can only pray that one day we will.

Thank you again for helping me to understand this issue. I'm still not sure its the only way we can do this. I'd sooner see us do what it takes to shorten the missions and not expose our airmen in this way. However, I do have a better understanding now. While I don't really approve of the chosen "solution", I can accept the dictates of circumstance. Meanwhile, I'll hope that we can find a better way to build the mouse trap.

In the final analysis, men must not become robots fueled by drugs. My thinking is that drugs should be used to cure the ill and not to extend our mission capabilities. When the requirements of the mission cannot be met without exceeding human limitations to the point of requiring repeated narcotic stimulants, something is wrong. Perhaps it is time to rethink our mssion planning. I leave that to those that know how for it is way above my pay grade.

 

[Rush Limbaugh]

I have personally never taken a go pill outside of the flight doc weekend test. I find it hilarious that people are just now being "outraged" by something the military has been doing for years and has been misreported in the press.

I have flown 12+ hour sorties in single seat fighters wearing all the crap that Eagleflip described except the combat edge vest since it should have been named "training edge", but that's another discussion. I never took a go pill because I never thought I needed it and according to 20/20, my career should be over. But guess what, nobody gives a crap if you take them or not.

Ambien on the other hand is awesome and I have yet to turn one of those back in to the flight doc.

 

[AlbieF15]

Ok...not trying to argue here, but I want to clarify a point Eagleflip and I tried to make...

The AF doesn't threaten your job if you don't take these pills. I'm about 95% sure that was defense attorney hype. Unless there has been a big change in the ops world since I left in 98.....I scoff.
If I was being threatened with manslaughter charges and hard time in Leavenworth, I'd probably look for any mitigating circumstances that indicated I was under extra duress. I'm sure those guys' attorneys are doing just that with this case.

Second....for Delta3....extra pilots don't help the issue. The idea is not that you have to "pilot push" guys to fly after not getting 8 hours of rest. The problem is that when you cross the ocean on a deployment, or launch a bombing mission from 8,000 miles away, extra pilots can't help you! You can have 20 pilots in the back of a KC-10 as you fly from Langley AFB to Dahran, Saudi Arabia...but not one of them is doing the F15 pilot (or F16, A10, etc.) a d@mn bit of good the single seat fighter flying on the wing. You just have to gut it out. As for "better mission planning" suggested by surplus1, show me a better way how to get 24 fighters from the east coast to the middle east in 15 hours. Guys who make that flight sometimes see the sun go down 3 times! Your circadian cycle and your brain just sort of freak out after they see 2 sunsets and you are still flying.

As for Afganistan--look at a map. Note we had no landing rights in Iran and no fighters allowed in Pakistan. India, China, and the former USSR "stans" also did not have US fighters operational in their territories. So...that implies a looooong flight from somewhere. If you want to drop bombs on the Taliban, that means a long days work for someone. Even the "closest" fighters, the Navy carrier based jets, had some long missions. I don't know how the Navy does business, but I'm sure if landing on a 10,000 runway after a long mission is tough, then putting a Tomcat or Hornet back on the deck after a 6-7 hour mission is just brutal. In any case--I think saying that a few extra pilots or a little more work on mission planning ignore the realities that being able to employ weapons around the globe still require a heck of lot of grit, determination, and courage from the human in the loop. It also requires a certain amount of mental alertness, and if a chemical can aid that alertness and and thus save lives and protect combat assets, then it ultimately using those chemicals is in the national interest.

Those pills might make 4 am at the AOC a little easier on us, too.

 

[Toro]

*Sigh* 20/20 does it again.

When I watch reports from 20/20, Dateline, or news shows of the like that have nothing to do with military issues, I'm usually intrigued and think "Wow, that's a really messed up situation they're brining to light." Then I see something like this report and think "WTFO? That's an absolute load of bull."

Pilots using amphetamines is nothing new, and it isn't some pill-popping free for all. AlbieF15 and EagleFlip did a great job of explaining how and why they are used. Just to add on and re-emphasize a couple points that seemed to have been incorrectly reported or blown out of proportion.

1 - The pills are not dispensed freely like candy; they are distributed by a flight surgeon in accordance with the requirements of the the mission. If the duration of a mission may require dexedrine (the go-pill), then generally everyone flying the mission will be issued the drug. Whether they use it is up to them. I've never heard of anyone being forced to take it, but the fact is that on many missions where it is dispensed, you'd be foolish not to take it.

2 - Everyone is 'checked out' in using the drugs. Before using the drug operationally, every aviator is issued the drugs by a flight surgeon for sample use. After they've taken it, they return to the doc and provide details of how the drug affected them. If they have adverse reactions to it, they may not be issued the drug.

I'm not going to get into a discussion on the friendly fire incident that killed the troops except to say that if you read a detailed account of what happened, you'll see that mission planning and coordination was a key factor, not drugs.

 

[Draginass]

"USAF Drugging Pilots" . . . . . indeed.

Stick to your RJDC tirade.

 

[surplus1]

"USAF Drugging Pilots" . . . . . indeed.

Stick to your RJDC tirade.

Can't you be objective about anything? If you have something relevant to say about this then say it, like Eaglefilip and the others did. Otherwise, just be quiet and listen.

The practice may well be justified as the Gentlemen responding have shown. Neverthless, they are feeding the pilots drugs to mitigate the fatigue and the stress, whether taken voluntarily or involuntarily. I was wrong about the why as well as the justification and have acknowledged that. I was not wrong about the what.

When I was in the service, Officers were Gentlemen by Act of Congress. Some were gentlemen before the Act, others became gentlemen due to the ACT but, there were always those that were never gentlemen, despite the Act. Which are you?

 

[CCDiscoB]

Go Pills

I'm glad to see forums like this one changing minds of people who learned the "facts" from TV. Unfortunately, how many Mr. and Mrs. Joe Americas will now think less about their Air Force. It's disheartening to read the reaction from the civilian pilots on this board. I would hope that our fellow pilots try to learn both sides of an accusation before spouting-off with ridiculous comments like:

..It was totally convincing..

..being forced to take them to keep your job..

..wouldn't it be ironic if some of the pilots using this stuff were flying missions in support of drug interdiction?..

..What I do not understand is why the US Air Force finds it necessary to drug our combat pilots. Since I was not born in the drug generation, I don't subscribe to the drug culture. I've seen too many young lives ruined by the use of so-called "recreational drugs"...

That last one was the worst one. You guys make it sound like we're on heroin or cocaine. Do you guys drink coffee during long flights? Well we can't. We can't even stand up to stretch our legs. The “go pills” are no stronger than a cup of coffee, if even. I actually ate chocolate covered coffee beans during my ocean crossings. Those are a lot stronger than any go pill. AlbieF15 is right, after a 10+ hour mission, your eyes are playing tricks on you on final. Those Afghanistan missions were all over 10 hours.

Please withhold comment until you've been over the Atlantic, in your 8th hour, at night, in the weather while flying formation. Been there, not fun. Coffee please....

 

[B-J-J Fighter]

Pills are GOOD!