After nearly three months of investigation, students at the Naval Air Station in Meridian will resume flying the T-45 Goshawk after engineers found a way to circumnavigate problems with the oxygen system.

Navy officials briefly suspended all flights in early April and then limited flights to instructor pilots for the last two months. Now, with improved monitoring, sensors and more, students will return to the sky by the end of the summer.

Vice Admiral Mike Shoemaker, commander in the Naval Air Forces, and Rear Admiral James S. Bynum, the new chief of Naval Air Training, visited students and instructor pilots Thursday to share the news. 

“We still don’t have a technical solution or understanding of the contaminants but we’re working very hard,” Shoemaker said. “I think the things that we have done to understand the system and improve its performance are enough to give us the confidence to get us back to flying.”  

The Navy recently published its comprehensive review of physiological episodes, such as shortness of breath, that pilots previously experienced due to contaminants in the On Board Oxygen Generating System (OBOGS).

“The system operates much better with cooler and drier air. All the other airplanes in the fleet that use OBOGS or systems like them all have some component in the system that eliminates moisture. So that was missing in the T-45,” Shoemaker said. 

Shoemaker said tests were being conducted to determine if the new moisture eliminating component would impact the airflow. Additional testing included heat exchangers and sensors while engineers developed a new monitoring system to measure the pressure and concentration of oxygen.

“If we have another physiological episode we’ll certainly collect on it (with this),” Shoemaker said.

Throughout July and August, students and instructor pilots will resume flights using modified masks the Navy implemented earlier this year.

“So I’d say early July for the instructors and by the end of July probably starting flying with our students,” Shoemaker said. “It probably won’t look like normal production here in Meridian until early October, September as we get that first class back out to an aircraft carrier.”

One of the recommendations of the Navy’s comprehensive review was bringing in a more senior flight officer as the chief of training. Shoemaker introduced Bynum and together the two will visit the three stations – Meridian, Kingsville, Texas and Pensacola, Florida – and said they would improve communication in the chain of command.

“I know that together we’re going to work hard to overcome these challenges and get back on to executing our mission. As Admiral Shoemaker and I have gone around the bases it’s been kind of my opportunity to share my vision for naval air training with the leadership and instructor pilots as well as the students,” Bynum said.

“Equally as important to me is to hear their concerns and, frankly, their good ideas about how we might be able to do this better. So I know as we move forward armed and informed with their input and their innovative ideas that we’ll be quickly returning to generating and training the best naval aviators in the fleet.”

Bynum said he’d like to focus on the transmission of communications as well as listening to even the lowest-ranking student.

“We have an obligation to communicate all the way down the chain to the youngest student naval aviator and then listen to make sure that the feedback lets us know that they’ve heard the message we’ve sent,” Bynum said. “Likewise, we need to listen to that youngest naval aviator and make sure that we’re informed about their concerns and issues so that we can offer them the confidence in their leadership, the confidence in the equipment that they fly (and) that they understand how to go about and be efficient in executing their mission and more importantly move forward as a fleet.”

Shoemaker said that the Navy has partnered with several organizations to coordinate engineers and address OBOGS challenges. 

“But across our force, we’ve seen similar things with F-18s and (others but) not to the level of the T-45s. The filters that we’re using right now seem to be (working), the performance in the fleet is much improved,” Shoemaker said. “So I’m encouraged by that.”

Shoemaker said students and instructor pilots seemed excited to get back to flying and resuming their coursework.

“I told the young aviators and the students here today this will remain our number one priority for naval aviation until we have found the solution,” Shoemaker said.