Just wanted to say I do the exact same thing. Just really started to swim again and have been meeting up with a masters group. For me, I am feeling like my stroke gets off as I get fatiqued and I end up not being able to get a good breath or enough air. I am hoping over time it comes together, but I feel your struggle. Also, I can't flip straight to begin with :-|

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Your core muscles are getting fatigued.

If you think about it, flipturn is essentially a sit-up combined with a Twist after you pushed back off the wall.

If you need to, slow down, and focus on them.

That said, are you trying to swim competitively? If not, the less time you spend gliding Off the Wall, the more time you actually spend swimming, which will reflect more in your Open Water swimming.

Breathing wise it's a bit more difficult to do flip turns. When my sets start to get hard and the breathing is affecting my ability to swim, I switch to a more controlled open turn. Now my open turns are quick and not an excuse to get a few extra breaths at the wall. It's just easier to control at my skill level and helps with the breathing. I'm not competing in a pool, so I am not going to focus on the flip turn efficiency. I've gotten A LOT better over the last 2 years and can easily swim an easy 4000 with flip turns. But not at my hard pace. I am still getting better at it, but not nearly as quickly as I would if I focused on it more. But I just see no need to focus on it.

Ditto to that. Flip turns are all about core strength, especially the longer you go. Your core is the first thing to show fatigue.

I think this is the likely culprit. When your lungs are screaming for air, it is hard not to try to get an extra breath in before the wall -- and a breath a soon as possible off the wall. This throws the timing off both going into the turn and coming out.

If you keep after it, this should resolve itself. For one, you will tend to be able to get a little more comfortable controlling the urge to breath (and a little mind over matter can help you get over the hump). Also, the more you do flip turns correctly, the "muscle memory" will better help you do them well under duress. And slowing down a little when you get uncomfortable (so you don't build up quite as much CO2) might be an interim fix until you get everything under control.

And one more thing. The dying to get air feeling may be a symptom of other breathing issues. If you are not doing it already, try switching to breathing every other arm pull (i.e., either every right arm pull or every left arm pull -- might be a good idea to alternate between the two by length of the pool or by interval, etc.). Also, the exhale is equally important as the inhale for breathing. I am notorious for not starting my exhale until I start to turn my head to inhale -- that is too late to finish the exhale and get a good inhale. Next time you swim, focus on when you start your exhale. Are you giving yourself enough time to get all the CO2 out. Also, the out to the flags on the turns may be contributing to building up the CO2 (your body's mechanism for screaming at you to breath is based on CO2 concentration in your lungs) -- while past the flags is a good aspiration for being a competitive pool swimmer, there is no real equivalent in open water. Anyway, in the underwater phase after a turn, the same exhalation point applies. Start exhaling -- it actually gets tamps down the urgency to breath a little and gets you ready for a full inhale.

Good luck

You don't want your workout to become all about the turns. I suggest you do them for the first half of your workout until your form starts to fade, or do them at one end of the pool. I think you'll find practice makes perfect on this one- after enough repetitions flip turns will become second nature and you will do them for your full workout without really noticing it.

That's the strange thing, for the beginning I'm fine and then the wheels fall off.

I hear you though, repetition will improve things I'm sure and I'm wondering if the core thing is in play. Granted its a relatively new movement, rolling into a ball and flipping... maybe?

You also might be fatiguing due to lack of air, be sure you are breathing out slowly, and ready to breath after the turn, versus holding your breath during the turn, and trying to exhale and breath. Make me tired just thinking of it, but I have seen it.

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"Don't mistake activity for achievement"
-John Wooden

I think the best analogy of the core muscle thing I can come up with relates back to when stand-up paddle boards first came out. Not the super wide, super stable ones that everyone has today that you can walk from one side to the other on and they won't flip, but the super long, super narrow ones about 15 years ago when they first started gaining popularity..

A boardmaker friend of mine got a hold of couple of them that were about 12 feet long, but barely wider than normal surfboards. We took them out, and for the first 30 minutes I was perfectly fine, didn't fall at all, and then suddenly, I just kept falling. I couldn't stand up for more than about 30 seconds. What happened is all those little tiny muscles you use to stabilize when you're standing on one had gotten fatigued to the point that I could no longer stand on the board no matter how hard I tried..

I couldn't figure it out at the time, but two days later when all these really strange parts of muscles all up and down my legs, in my sides, and in my back were aching from DOMS it all clicked into place.

You're using muscles you previously hadn't, and you haven't developed the muscle memory or endurance to do it exactly the same every time. Once those muscles get fatigued, it all goes to crap.

^^This. I realized I was holding my breath on the turns then trying to breath once I was back on top. Kind of hard to inhale when you haven't exhaled fully.

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Be sure and breath out through your nose only too! Best of luck to you, it will come

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"Don't mistake activity for achievement"
-John Wooden