P

pboyce

Active Member
Does anyone know of a short written test I can take along with me to give to my passenger to demonstrate the mental impairment due to lack of oxygen at high altitude?

I KNOW there is impairment (that's why I carry oxygen), the studies show there is impairment, however, a lot of people claim they can fly to astronomical altitudes and experience no impairment. They talk as though it were a badge of honor to not use oxygen...

Regards,

Paul
 
You use to be able to...

Back in the day the military would take Civies into the chamber, I took a group of pilots once as a CFI. Not sure if they do it anymore for GA pilots. It was interesting.

You can just study it on your own and get an academic understanding, which I think would be fine. The beauty of the chamber is you get to know your own tolerance and even more important what the symptoms look like. Hypoxia is insidious because the first indication is euphoria and a sense of well-being. For me it being happy and blue fingernails. I also know if I fly at 10,000-12,500 all day (8 hours) I end up with a wicked bad headache that night.

I don't recall the max altitude we flew to but it was below FL180? To go real high (FL250?) you need a blood test/medical? (It was 18 years ago) The idea is not to make you go asleep. What was an eye opener is going on O2 makes a differnce in vision. Your local aeromedical flight examiner can tell you all about the physiology and all that stuff about Rod's and Cone's (eye).

You really don't need to do the chamber but need to know that the effects are subtle, judgment is impaired and night vision is the first thing to go and altitudes well below 12,500.

If you want to do your own experiment have some one fly you high as a passenger without O2. A passenger only needs to have O2 available above 15,000, they do have to use it. Even as a pilot you can go up to 14,000 for 30 minutes with out O2. You can start to feel it at those altitudes for sure.


Just Google the topic. FAA, AOPA, ALPA, NASA have info on the topic.

The legal limits are a guideline. If you are a smoker or in poor health be careful when flying high. If flying at night I would recommend not going above 8,000 - 10,000 with out O2.

They sell these cool small battery powered O2 blood level finger monitors. It is a very good way to know what your blood saturation level is. They are a little spendy, but not too bad. Many aviation shops sell them or medical supply house. Unless you are really going up to flight levels I would not worry about it. The FARs do require training for some pilots who fly pressurized aircraft or aircraft able to fly above FL250. I believe the training does not require a chamber to meet the FAA requirement.

Cheers George
 
Last edited:
Thanks

Brian130 said:
Here's a typical AF demo sheet. It's page 5-6 in this pdf. Enjoy.http://www.noaa.inel.gov/Capabilities/longEZ/pdf/hypoxia.pdf
Click to expand...
Thanks, it was like I was there. I see it is dated 2002. When I was thinking it was not done any more, I might have been thinking of a particular location that does not offer it anymore and assumed that applied to all training at military bases. If you want to fly well above 14,000 it is worth it, if nothing more than an interesting experience. Otherwise for most GA pilots it is not needed, but the attached discription is real cool reading. G
 
Last edited:
Thanks for posting the link to the hypoxia.pdf file. Very interesting. Their worksheet was a combination of simple math problems and visual judgement problems.

It was interesting that the participant could not finish the worksheet after 2 minutes at 25,000 feet due to strong and debilitating physical symptoms. Before that, he was actually doing fine with it.

For people who state they feel fine without oxygen at say, 17,000 feet, is there a worksheet that will demonstrate to them that they are NOT ok?
 
On flights longer than an hour or so, I used to have passengers do a simple multiplication problem. 23x79=? Three minutes later they would have multipled all the digits wrong and added incorrectly. And this was at only 8 or 9000 feet. That should be food for thought when calculating range or making a decision on the weather!
Dave
 
pboyce said:
For people who state they feel fine without oxygen at say, 17,000 feet, is there a worksheet that will demonstrate to them that they are NOT ok?
Click to expand...
Just some simple addition should work. Or a connect the dots. But please be careful. People can die at much less than 17K.
 
personal chamber ride

My thoughts exactly....hypoxia is bad doo-doo. There can be side effects during or afterwards which are unforseen and deadly. The chamber rides in the military are conducted under controlled environments with highly trained technicians administering the rides. Most chamber rides go uneventful, but there are occasional surprises.

My 2 cents? .....I don't think I would want to be conducting physiological experiments for real in a two place aircraft....having to fly AND be the chamber tech.

Just keep sucking the O2 and enjoy the ride...

Hwood :eek:
 
Danny King told me 'bout the nicest, quietest guy you would every want to meet going absolutely bananas in the AF altitude chamber. Totally changed his personality.

Last poster was right, hypoxia is bad doo doo.

Flash has O2 on board (Aerox 2D setup) and I love it.

B,
 
Last edited:
Trust the pros on this one!!

Hey everybody,
Those of us who fly in the AF must complete our chamber ride at least every 5 years. (It used to be 2; not sure why it changed.)

Folks, from someone who just went thru my 4th AF chamber ride a couple of months ago, don't go flying hoping to show someone hypoxia. We did have someone panic in our chamber, and it was only managable because we had the life support professionals there to assist the guy. Had it happened at 25,000 in the RV7A I'm building, I don't know what I would have done. You can't calm a guy down, fly the airplane, and get the mask on his face. Also unlike the chamber and our military jets, you don't have the ability to "gang load" the regulator. That means you put it on 100% O2 and Emergency where it is forcing O2 into the lungs.

My recommendation, call your nearest AF base and find out the phone number to the flying squadron's Life Support shop. It doesn't matter if it is a fighter base, heavy base, or even a missile base with helo support. If there is an aircraft based there, there has to be a Life Support professional on base to maintain the aircraft. Call the Life Support shop, tell them you are a civilian pilot interested in the effects of hypoxia. They should be able to get a video of a chamber ride which you can get a copy of or borrow.

The other item you might ask for is a manual or flyer that talks about the symptoms of hypoxia. The reason AF pilots/airecrew must ride the chamber is so we can identify our specific symptoms of hypoxia (there are many possible symptoms.) For example, mine symptoms are light headedness, followed by my finger tips getting really really cold, followed by tunnel vision and loss of dexterity.

If you are really lucky, you are near a base which has a chamber. They are the experts who can give you all the info you want. You might even be able to swing a ride like the guys who wrote the paper referenced earlier. Here in N. Texas, I know there is one at Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls, as well as one at Vance AFB in Enid, OK.

Fly safe!
 
Call your FSDO...

I agree 100% with not experimenting with this in flight...especially when you can call the FAA and get scheduled ( or at least get on a list to get scheduled) for a real chamber ride! I am pretty sure that our chamber here at NASA/JSC still gets used for FAA-sponsored sessions. Those of us on lfying or test status get a ride every three years, and it is remarkable how each person has different symptoms, yet each individual's symptoms are usually the same from year to year. That is good, because you get to learn to recognize your own symptoms. Since none of us are flying pressurized RV's, hypoxia is most likely going to sneak up on you, either becasue you slowly climb higher than you should without O2, or you are using it and the system fails. I like to fly high in my big-engined Grumman, and always carry a system when going cross-country.

Just to reinforce that it can happen down "low", we used to do mask-off chamber runs at some ridiculous altitude like 29K or 30K. That has now been dropped to a safer 22K, because you get more time to experience your symptoms, and there is less chance of more serious problems arising. And yes, people can experience significant anxiety down much lower than that. I keep all of my chamber worksheets ina folder, just to remind myself that simple arithmetic can be hard sometimes.... ;)


Paul Dye
 
Hypoxia

My dad has told me many times of the altitude chamber he and about 30 people took a test in. Only 2 people passed the test, my dad and another person. The instructor made a bet with the class that he knew something about the two people that passed that was different then the ones that failed. The bet was that everyone that flunked was or had been a smoker. He turned out to be correct. So if you want to take high altitudes better (and for other reasons) DO NOT SMOKE! The instructor said Hypoxia could be had by smokers at very low altitudes...ie under 6k. gmcjetpilot is right about head aches...I once spent about 2 hours at 19K without incident until I was at normal pressure alt. where I got a splitting head ache for about 3 hours! Each persons reactions vary and some can be scary...some people will go nuts (start laughing etc or just panic) so if one insists on trying it out in a small plane then strap the person down so he/she can't get away first :)

I have found personally that drinking plenty of water and getting excercise really helps high alt. performace as well. Many pilots do not drink enough (for obvious reasons) and this will hurt their high altitude tolerance. Oh yeah and a good diet is important too. The main thing is keep healty and KNOW your limits so you can maintain a safe distance from the edge of your limits.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.