Modafinil - the time-shifting drug

With the right pilot aboard, the Nighthawk is a formidable weapon - a precision-strike aircraft with exceptional combat capabilities particularly suited for penetrating high-threat airspace with its stealth and speed and hitting critical targets with surgical accuracy using laser-guided weapons.

During Operation Desert Storm the Nighthawk flew approximately 1,300 sorties scoring direct hits on 1,600 high-value targets in Iraq. At US$45 million each, the Nighthawk is one of America's most effective weapons. When the United States declares war on you, the chances are the Nighthawk will be the first to tell you hostilities have begun. It was the ONLY U.S. or coalition aircraft to strike targets in downtown Baghdad and it led the first Allied air strike on Yugoslavia in March, 1999.

Our test group was the people who fly these aircraft - people who push the limits of human performance day-today using one of the most expensive and sophisticated aircraft on the planet. For the records, the F117-A is built by Lockheed Aeronautical Systems, is powered by two General Electric F404 non-afterburning engines is 19.4 metres long, 3.9 metres high, weighs 23,625 kilograms and has a wingspan of 13.2 metres.

The Laboratory and simulator tests studied the effects of being awake for 40 hours on alertness and flight performance.

The tests were repeated every five hours to help track the pilots' level of fatigue by monitoring body and brain activities. One test is a one-hour flight simulator mission. Researchers looked at the aviators' ability to monitor flight gauges and calculate basic mathematical equations. They also monitored eye movements and changes in pupil size.

While no one crashed or even came close to crashing, researchers said flight precision most noticeably changed between 33 hours and 38 hours into the test.

Armed with this initial data, the scientists returned to Holloman a few months later for the modafinil study.

Scientists said that while the pilots were on the medication, their performance "significantly improved," especially after 25 hours without sleep. The pilots also sustained brain activity at almost normal levels despite their sleeplessness.

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