RESEARCH PIONEER
Wright-Patt centrifuge, most advanced in world, to soon become operational.
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE
The world’s most advanced centrifuge — is scheduled to launch operations late this year, an event that promises to stamp Wright-Patterson Air Force Base as the center of gravity for aerospace medical research in the military.
“This is definitely the most stateof-the-art, advanced centrifuge in the world,” said Scott Fleming, centrifuge program manager for the 711th Human Performance Wing at the Air Force Research Laboratory.
Years behind schedule, the $34.4 million centrifuge will test the limits of thousands of military pilots over the next several decades.
This news organization was given an exclusive look at the project, which is the only one set to operate within the Department of Defense.
With an egg-shaped capsule on the end of a 31-foot long spinning arm, the giant centrifuge will push Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps pilots to learn how to endure gravity forces up to nine times a human’s body weight.
The centrifuge, four new research altitude chambers and a recently commissioned Navy disorientation research device — all within walking distance — are part of a $92 million array of projects authorities say will designate Wright-Patterson as the hub for research in aerospace physiology.
All three projects were built at Wright-Patt to consolidate aeromedical research for the Air Force and Navy in one place. The consolidation followed the 2005 base closure process, which moved operations to the Ohio base from San Antonio, Texas, and Pensacola, Fla.
Pushing the limit
The Air Force estimates that each year 1,000 or more fighter pilots, air crew, flight surgeons, aerospace physiologists and others will ride the centrifuge inside the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine.
Another 400 Navy and Marine Corps aviators will test their limits to G-tolerance on a shared time schedule with the Air Force, according to the Navy.
“This is a very extreme environment,” Fleming said. “The primary function of this is to teach pilots the anti-Gstraining maneuver in order to keep blood flowing in their body, specifically up to their brain, to keep them from ... passing out.”
Senior Airman Luciano Cattaneo has ridden inside the spinning device as a kind of test pilot for the project.
“It’s definitely painful,” said Cattaneo, 24, of Miami, Fla., and an aerospace and physiology technician at Wright-Patterson. “It’s very difficult to breathe just because when you are top of G’s, you literally feel like (you have) a gorilla sitting on your chest.”
The rider inside the capsule, or gondola, sits in an interchangeable cockpit, resembling an F-22 or F-35 or another plane.
The operator inside controls the pitch or roll of the capsule with a control stick — just like in a fighter jet. They look into a monitor that gives a virtual simulation of the sky.
“The whole cockpit configuration is completely realistic,” Cattaneo said. “This is essentially what you would see on an actual jet.”
‘Great challenge’
The Air Force says it’s safer to train air crews to withstand the crushing forces of gravity in a centrifuge instead of doing that training in multi-million dollar fighter jets.
Spatial disorientation causes about 20 percent of aerial mishaps that result in either a fatality or more than $2 million in damage, said Col. James M. Cantrell, chief of the aerospace physiology division of the 711th Human Performance Wing.
The Navy’s disorientation research device is one-of-akind technology that is also designed to research spatial disorientation in pilots, as well as motion sickness in sailors. The device houses a 270,000-pound moving part with a capsule that spins, gyrates and moves back and
forth along a spinning, horizontal track.
The centrifuge has the bone-crushing capacity to push from zero to 15 times the force of gravity in one second.
“The great challenge is as our aircraft have become more and more complex, they’ve gotten more and more capable,” said Col. William Mosle, the Human Systems Division chief at the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center. “It’s the interface between the human and the machine that is the challenge.
“The ability to have this kind of research capability — to be able to look at how much information a human being can take in while they are under the physiological strains and trying to actually complete a mission task — has never actually existed before at this level.”
Long delays
Delays have plagued the project, and Air Force officials say they expect to approach the contractor, Environmental Tectonics Corp. of Southampton, Pa., to go over the delays.
The company assembled the centrifuge, research altitude chambers and the disorientation research device.
“ETC is as committed as the Air Force is (to) fully delivering the capability of the system and they’ve been a good partner in that,” said Mosle. “There have been technical challenges. The system should have already delivered.”
An ETC representative said the company would not comment for this article.
The centrifuge was originally targeted to begin government testing in 2012.
The $38.3 million altitude chambers, which simulate altitude at 100,000 feet and temperatures that range from 67 degrees below zero to 150 degrees above, were supposed to be turned over to the Air Force as a “turnkey” operation in 2013, a prior company announcement said. The last of chambers arrived in 2014, but Wright-Patterson officials said testing on that likely won’t finish until next year.
The Navy’s $19.5 million disorientation research device was finally commissioned last June — five years beyond the delivery date.
Fleming said building three one-of-a-kind devices was no small task.
“This is a big job for anybody, and they’re a small business, less than 300 employees,” Fleming said of ETC. “It’s not trivial.”
Some of the project delays were due to the sheer size of the equipment being moved, installed and integrated in the massive system, officials say.
The high-tech centrifuge is driven by a 240,000pound, electric-powered, direct drive motor able to produce 4,700 horsepower. The 31-foot long arm weighs more than 30,000 pounds alone.
“The physical integration was very challenging for the size and the scope of the system,” Mosle said.
In one temporary setback, a shipping container with the giant motor inside was damaged in transit when it arrived at Wright-Patterson in 2011. Although no damage was found to the motor, it had to be sent to Cleveland for inspection, adding weeks to the final delivery.
The complexity of the computer software also took longer than originally anticipated to meet all the demands of the research program, and powering the centrifuge and the research altitude chambers on the same electrical system posed challenges as well.
“With great capability,” said Mosle, “there was a great deal of complexity.”
Although the original price tag has remained unchanged, under the contract with ETC, taxpayers are footing the bill for other costs, such as the $2 million a year paid since July 2011 to a separate company to lease an old centrifuge and research altitude chambers at Brooks City-Base, Texas. Brooks City closed as part of the 2005 base closure process.
Building centrifuge
The centrifuge itself required a major construction effort.
Crews dug a 50-feet-wide by 50-feet-long hole that was more than 30 feet deep and contains more than 1,000 cubic yards of concrete.
Six-inch wide, 14-foot long bolts anchor the massive motor to the concrete while giant cables with copper wires power the assembly.
The arm — six to 10-feet longer than other centrifuges —causes less of a “tumbling” and “dizzying sensation” that riders can experience in the inner ear, Fleming said.
As more tests are conducted on the centrifuge, and officials prepare for its long-awaited completion, they can’t help but marvel at what they are witnessing.
“I don’t know whether we’ll ever build something like this again,” Mosle said.