Aeromedical Consultation Service Keeping Aircrews Flight Ready

  • Published
  • By Jay Marquart
  • 711 HPW/XP
Brooks City-Base, TX --  A continual challenge facing the Air Force is finding the right personnel to fly its aircraft. Equally challenging is keeping aircrews at ready-to-fly status once they are selected and trained. A host of circumstances can crop up to ground aircrew members, and every time this happens, the Air Force loses significant capability.

One unit doing much to ensure aircrews stay flight ready is the Aerospace Medicine Consultative Division - better known as the Aeromedical Consultation Service or "ACS" - Brooks City-Base, Texas. Organized under the Aerospace Medicine Department, United States Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, ACS consists of over 60 skilled aerospace medicine experts dedicated to making ACS the world's leader in aeromedical consultation, research, and education.

ACS' consultative responsibility is a primary mission with many facets. Each year, along with performing initial medical exams for over 1,000 Air Force ROTC and Air National Guard pilot candidates, the group conducts aeromedical evaluations of up to 1,500 aircrew members currently disqualified from flight duty. The purpose is to make definitive recommendations about whether crew members should or shouldn't be flying, and the provisions under which they can return to the air. Although disqualifying conditions vary widely, ACS has the ability to handle each case thoroughly and professionally.

"We span practically any condition you can imagine," said Colonel Timothy Sowin, Chief of the Medical Staff, Aeromedical Consultation Service. "Ophthalmologic, cardiac, internal medicine, neurological, psychological or psychiatric, as well as just about anything else."

Because aircrew readiness is so important, ACS spares no effort to solve disqualifying conditions and boasts an impressive 87-percent return-to-flying rate among the aircrew members it examines. Still, flight safety is a major factor in every determination.

"Our philosophy in every return-to-fly decision is it needs to be safe, it needs to be fair, and it needs to be consistent," said Colonel John Gooch, ACS Chief of Ophthalmology.

ACS and its predecessor organizations have researched human performance in aviation and other stressful environments for nearly 100 years, amassing incredible data resources in the process. As a result, ACS is the principle agency for recommending updates to Air Force qualification standards and policy, advising the Air Staff, the USAF Surgeon General, and all MAJCOMs. The issues ACS consults on are far ranging - from flying with hypertension to aircrew selection for remotely piloted aircraft - and often lead to changes that increase readiness.

Other entities ACS consults with include the FAA, NTSB, NASA, and allies such as Singapore, England, and Japan. Colonel Gooch recently served as a consultant to the South Korean military on the issue of refractive eye surgery.

Much of ACS' capabilities result from its commitment to research. "ACS prides itself on making useful discoveries and providing input that will allow more people to fly," said Colonel Sowin.

In fact, ACS personnel have been instrumental in some of the biggest breakthroughs benefiting the Air Force today, for example, the aircrew spectacle program and night vision goggle technology. Other contributions include advances in cardiology and radiation protection for astronauts. Senior ACS staffers such as Doctors Thomas Tredici, William Kruyer, Douglas Ivan, and John Patterson have devoted their careers to studying aerospace medicine. To many in the field, they are legends.

"It's phenomenal what some of these folks have done," commented Colonel Gooch.

According to Colonel Sowin, the published works by many of these individuals, including whole textbooks and definitive articles, are just as phenomenal. "We have people on our staff with over 100 publications. Their research spans decades and their contributions are many."

This vast body of clinical work and research finds its way into ACS' third major responsibility - education - and the beneficiaries are USAFSAM students. ACS staffers serve as instructors in every course of an aeromedical nature, for example, the Aerospace Medicine Primary course and the Advance Aerospace Medicine for International Medical Officers course.

"We touch a lot of future flight surgeons and aerospace medical specialists," Sowin stated.

Like every USAFSAM unit, ACS faces major challenges resulting from the BRAC initiative. But as the deadline for moving to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base draws nearer, the group is addressing these with the same dedication it tackles flight disqualifiers in order to guarantee that its mission - keeping aircrews flying - continues uninterrupted.