A New Anti-G Valve for High-Performance Aircraft

摘要

The USAF School of Aerospace Medicine (USAFSAM) Crew Technology Division has developed an advanced anti-G valve for pressurizing the anti-G suit during exposures to acceleration. The anti-G valve presently in fighter aircraft has been determined to operate too slowly for rapid onset of G, potentially causing pilots of high-performance aircraft to black out, lose consciousness, and/or become fatigued. The time relationship to G-suit pressurization using the conventional anti-G valve was found to be sigmoidal, having two relatively slow pressurization phases--one early, and the other late--in the suit-inflation schedule. Elimination of these two slow phases were accomplished by: (a) preinflating the anti-G suit to 0.2 psi prior to an increase in G (called 'Ready Pressure'); and (b) increasing the capacity of air flow through the anti-G valve (called 'Hi-Flow'). The development of the Hi-Flow Ready Pressure (HFRP) anti-G valve by USAFSAM increased in the rate of G-suit pressurization threefold. This HFRP anti-G valve was tested on eight F-15 pilots, using the centrifuge at the Naval Air Development Center, Warminster, PA. A comparison of this experimental valve with the conventional anti-G valve (presently operational in the F-15 aircraft) resulted in a high degree of pilot acceptance, because the HFRP valve had better valve response, reduced valve error scores, and allowed the pilots to tolerate high-G exposures with less effort. (Author)