It is an exceedingly rare privilege for anyone aside from highly trained military pilots to don the yellow pressure suit and fly along the very edge of outer space in the infamous U-2 spy plane. But I was one of…
This is an article our newest Featured Flight Doc, Lt Col Robert SOJU Ryu, authored when he was just a lowly Major and a resident back in 2019. In this piece, SOJU detailed his experience flying fast jets with the Ohio ANG…
How does one become a USAF Flight Surgeon you may ask? The recipe is simple. Step 1: Meet the appropriate licensing requirements to practice medicine. Step 2. Join the USAF as a commissioned officer. Step 3. Complete the USAF Aerospace…
I’ve always found it paradoxical that incredibly high tech organizations like the Department of Defense and government space agencies seem to lag far behind in common mass technologies. If you’ve ever flown in an F-16 and seen their cockpit displays,…
Phiz Biz (a clever play on Physiology Business) is a monthly newsletter produced by the USAF Aerospace and Operational Physiology Flight at Peterson AFB in Colorado. The team started this tradition back in 2008 and continues to consistently publish it to…
LASER exposure continues to be an increasingly frequent problem in both military and civilian aviation. Typically, these exposures arise from people pointing green commercial LASERs directly at flying aircraft. The FAA has been tracking the number of LASER incidents since…
A separate post written as a resource for pilots and aircrew on LASER exposure/eye injury can be found here. The crux of aerospace medicine is the identification of medical conditions that lead to sudden and unanticipated incapacitation of the…
This article discusses an awesome opportunity specifically designed for USAF flight surgeons to gain a firmer understanding on fighter and combat aircraft operations. This course is a good use of time for any military flight surgeon, but is an absolute…
I was recently in Estonia for a NATO military training exercise. Flying in the back seat of an F-16D (two seater), I was ‘gently’ reminded of the importance of human factors in flight and the constant, inherent danger in combat aviation.…
On a recent flight in a Block 40 F-16 with our squadron’s weapons officer I was introduced to the new pilot-activated recovery system (PARS). Starting at about 20,000 feet (FL 200) we rolled inverted and started a rapid 30 degree…
