HYPOXIA

This is in response to the paraglider missing thread. Many pilots all over the world underestimate the effects of hypoxia and think that they are the exception to the rules. This ferry pilot certainly did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt2T...1bj9GlVqnzogHl

You really have no idea how effected you are. That is one of the reasons it is so dangerous.

Boggs

On Thursday, December 10, 2020 at 4:23:10 PM UTC-8, Waveguru wrote:
This is in response to the paraglider missing thread. Many pilots all over the world underestimate the effects of hypoxia and think that they are the exception to the rules. This ferry pilot certainly did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt2T...1bj9GlVqnzogHl

You really have no idea how effected you are. That is one of the reasons it is so dangerous.

Boggs

Before I started wave-flying over the Appalachians in PA and VW, I took a high altitude chamber ride at the Wright-Patterson AFB in OH. It was a true eye-opener. After a few minutes off O2 at 25,000ft, they had us work on a task sheet with all kinds of stupid stuff on it: 81-3, -3, -3 etc. dEciPherAtextTHatWaswrITTenLiKEThis, find your way out of a maze; simple stuff, piece of cake! The supervisor on the outside called me on my head-set and asked me, how many thumbs I had: 10, of course - and why are these jack-a$$es behind that big window laughing at me?
Let me tell you, my work sheet would have been worth framing! The column of 81-3s was correct for the first few calculations, then my numbers got bigger again and even started to grow decimals! The text I deciphered was in some language - none of which I was familiar with - and I know a few of them! My way out of the maze was a straight line from the center to the exit - screw those walls! All this was done with full recollection and being convinced, that the round peg would go into that square hole, if they just had made that square a wee-bit larger!
We all got a good laugh out of looking at each other's work sheets after we were back 'on the ground'. The others in the chamber didn't fare much better than I did but the big take-away is this: if you think you are immune to hypoxia, you are full of it! Hypoxia is a silent killer; it creeps up on you and lets you make one bad decision after the other, all the while you are convinced that you got it under control - well, you don't!
O2 is cheap insurance and the MH-systems have reached an unprecedented level of accuracy and reliability.
If you have a chance to take a high altitude chamber ride, do it. I think the one at Wright Pat is no longer in operation, so if anyone knows where one is that is accessible to civilians, chime in.

Uli
'AS'

On Thursday, December 10, 2020 at 8:55:45 PM UTC-5, AS wrote:
On Thursday, December 10, 2020 at 4:23:10 PM UTC-8, Waveguru wrote:
This is in response to the paraglider missing thread. Many pilots all over the world underestimate the effects of hypoxia and think that they are the exception to the rules. This ferry pilot certainly did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt2T...1bj9GlVqnzogHl

You really have no idea how effected you are. That is one of the reasons it is so dangerous.

Boggs
Before I started wave-flying over the Appalachians in PA and VW, I took a high altitude chamber ride at the Wright-Patterson AFB in OH. It was a true eye-opener. After a few minutes off O2 at 25,000ft, they had us work on a task sheet with all kinds of stupid stuff on it: 81-3, -3, -3 etc. dEciPherAtextTHatWaswrITTenLiKEThis, find your way out of a maze; simple stuff, piece of cake! The supervisor on the outside called me on my head-set and asked me, how many thumbs I had: 10, of course - and why are these jack-a$$es behind that big window laughing at me?
Let me tell you, my work sheet would have been worth framing! The column of 81-3s was correct for the first few calculations, then my numbers got bigger again and even started to grow decimals! The text I deciphered was in some language - none of which I was familiar with - and I know a few of them! My way out of the maze was a straight line from the center to the exit - screw those walls! All this was done with full recollection and being convinced, that the round peg would go into that square hole, if they just had made that square a wee-bit larger!
We all got a good laugh out of looking at each other's work sheets after we were back 'on the ground'. The others in the chamber didn't fare much better than I did but the big take-away is this: if you think you are immune to hypoxia, you are full of it! Hypoxia is a silent killer; it creeps up on you and lets you make one bad decision after the other, all the while you are convinced that you got it under control - well, you don't!
O2 is cheap insurance and the MH-systems have reached an unprecedented level of accuracy and reliability.
If you have a chance to take a high altitude chamber ride, do it. I think the one at Wright Pat is no longer in operation, so if anyone knows where one is that is accessible to civilians, chime in.

Uli
'AS'
There is/was a traveling one. I believe it diluted the oxygen percentage instead of reducing pressure. You need a current medical to take a turn and last I heard basic med did not count. I doubt it is in operation during 'rona times.

On Thursday, December 10, 2020 at 9:57:45 PM UTC-5, Gregg Ballou wrote:
On Thursday, December 10, 2020 at 8:55:45 PM UTC-5, AS wrote:

If you have a chance to take a high altitude chamber ride, do it. I think the one at Wright Pat is no longer in operation, so if anyone knows where one is that is accessible to civilians, chime in.

AMEN!! I was lucky back in the dark ages to have had that experience in a chamber at Andrews AFB when it was open to civilians, and I had a very similar experience with the worksheets!! Sure made a believer out of me! IF you EVER get a chance for that experience, for heaven's sake take it!!
I don' t "fly high" any more, but I still take my oximeter with me and if it drops below ca. 95%, I just come down . .

On Thursday, December 10, 2020 at 8:55:45 PM UTC-5, AS wrote:
On Thursday, December 10, 2020 at 4:23:10 PM UTC-8, Waveguru wrote:
This is in response to the paraglider missing thread. Many pilots all over the world underestimate the effects of hypoxia and think that they are the exception to the rules. This ferry pilot certainly did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt2T...1bj9GlVqnzogHl

You really have no idea how effected you are. That is one of the reasons it is so dangerous.

Boggs
Before I started wave-flying over the Appalachians in PA and VW, I took a high altitude chamber ride at the Wright-Patterson AFB in OH. It was a true eye-opener. After a few minutes off O2 at 25,000ft, they had us work on a task sheet with all kinds of stupid stuff on it: 81-3, -3, -3 etc. dEciPherAtextTHatWaswrITTenLiKEThis, find your way out of a maze; simple stuff, piece of cake! The supervisor on the outside called me on my head-set and asked me, how many thumbs I had: 10, of course - and why are these jack-a$$es behind that big window laughing at me?
Let me tell you, my work sheet would have been worth framing! The column of 81-3s was correct for the first few calculations, then my numbers got bigger again and even started to grow decimals! The text I deciphered was in some language - none of which I was familiar with - and I know a few of them! My way out of the maze was a straight line from the center to the exit - screw those walls! All this was done with full recollection and being convinced, that the round peg would go into that square hole, if they just had made that square a wee-bit larger!
We all got a good laugh out of looking at each other's work sheets after we were back 'on the ground'. The others in the chamber didn't fare much better than I did but the big take-away is this: if you think you are immune to hypoxia, you are full of it! Hypoxia is a silent killer; it creeps up on you and lets you make one bad decision after the other, all the while you are convinced that you got it under control - well, you don't!
O2 is cheap insurance and the MH-systems have reached an unprecedented level of accuracy and reliability.
If you have a chance to take a high altitude chamber ride, do it. I think the one at Wright Pat is no longer in operation, so if anyone knows where one is that is accessible to civilians, chime in.

Uli
'AS'
Uli, I remeber being there with you. One thing that sticks with me was the change in vision when the O2 was restored. COLORS came back.
For the low price of oximeters these days, we should all carry one an monitor our personal response to altitude.
FWIW

When I Started flying Hang Gliders here in Telluride and Central Colorado and the Owens Valley I made dozens and dozens of trips up into the low 20's without O2. I also look back and found my self in the landing zone not remembering much on how I got there!
Then in the early 80's a guy by the name of Terry Reynolds put together a batch of nice Hang Gliding friendly O2 systems. Large Kevlar bottles, stainless steel flex lines, regulators. I bought one at our Hang Gliding Festival. I took off and I got up over 18 and remembered I had it; I turned it on and in a few minutes I went from a black and white world to one with color!
Blue Skys, green hills.
O2 is cheap and I'm now with Eric Grennwell. I go on 02 in my glider very low and if I'm cruising at 17+ every hour I turn it up high and do some deep breathing. Also coming into land I turn it up high for a few minutes. You wanna be sharp for the landing.
Nick
T

I started selling Nelson O2 systems in 1991 for hang gliding. Patrick McLaughlin of Mountain High asked if he could sell them also, and I told Jerry Nelson I didn't have a problem with it at all. Safety is safety, and the more sources for the equipment, the better. Mountain High eventually bought the Nelson line of regulators and flowmeters, and went on to develop and patent the Electronic Demand System (EDS) with altitude compensated pulse delivery. To me, it is the single greatest advance in oxygen delivery systems. I have used one in hang gliders and now sailplanes ever since they became available, and have been a dealer since the 90's. Now, at age 67, I set the delivery altitude at 5,000 ft. so I am on O2 even on takeoff. (Moriarty field elevation is 6,200 MSL.) As they say, "Don't leave home without it!"

When I Started flying Hang Gliders here in Telluride and Central Colorado
and the Owens Valley I made dozens and dozens of trips up into the low 20's
without O2. I also look back and found my self in the landing zone not
remembering much on how I got there!...

This is the sort of thread that can shed a whole lotta insight into such
things as: info/knowledge diffusion/comprehension rates throughout targeted
special-interest populations (hang-glider/sailplane types); hypoxic realities;
etc.

All hypoxia-related stories are the same, but different!

I musta had sufficient imagination & curiosity to both seek out info on the
topic and believe what I read, even before availing myself of the opportunity
of a chamber ride back in the '80s. (For the record, I - then, anyway - was
one of those people who essentially lacked "any obvious symptoms" [arguably,
the most at-risk kind?] other than "the usual mental degradations"...no blue
fingernails, no giddiness, no "B&W vision symptoms"...just mental
dullness/sloppy-handwriting/etc/) By then I owned a ship w. an O2 system...and
after then, I *believed* (!!!).

Ever-after, part of me was amazed/appalled whenever encountering someone
ignorant-of/unbelieving of altitude-related hypoxia (think: any Himalayan
mountain climbing tale). Flying from Boulder, CO (at the eastern base of the
Rockies), it wasn't uncommon for "a hang glider type" to either stop by the
field for a chit-chat, or occasionally land there from a cross-Divide flight.

One in particular sticks with me. After relating my amazement to having
encountered a hang glider near 18,000' on one bitterly cold March day above
the Williams Fork Range and asking him how he dealt with such wind chill, he
related a flight to that altitude that all he remembered anything about was
the takeoff and subsequent post-landing landing somewhere he knew not where,
miles from his launch site..."coming to" long after he'd landed. He put it
down to "the cold"; I noted he might want to do some research about hypoxia!

Cowabunga!!!

Bob W.

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On Friday, December 11, 2020 at 5:54:28 AM UTC-8, wrote:

Uli, I remeber being there with you. One thing that sticks with me was the change in vision when the O2 was restored. COLORS came back.
For the low price of oximeters these days, we should all carry one an monitor our personal response to altitude.
FWIW

... was the change in vision when the O2 was restored. COLORS came back.
Yes John, you are right! It felt like staring into a bright light after being in the dark.
In a nutshell: the CPU between your ears starts slowing down and provide faulty results! Use O2 early and plenty.

Uli
'AS'

My current glider came without an oxygen bottle. Before the new bottle arrived with the Canadian regs allowing half an hour between 10,000 and 12,500. I spent a considerable amount of that legal (if not smart) half hour trying to figure out which hand on the altimeter was what.

Before the MH, I took an Aerox up to 18,000 and believe I was conscientious in adjusting the flow. But I grounded myself for two days afterwards as I was wiped out after landing.

Higher up I treat the pulse oxymeter as a primary instrument, followed by the VNE placard.