Good comments Ray. The symptoms of hypoxia manifest themselves in various ways. Many people have a tingling in their lips or finger tips. My only symptom is that I get very drowsy and unfocused.
Living in the mountains, I am acclimated to higher altitudes and routinely fly at 11,000 - 14,500' for short periods. I find my endurance to be less and less with age. When I was in my early 20s I could spend the day at 15,000' with little effect. Now that I'm in my upper 50s, a lengthy cross country trip at 12,500' without O2 will leave me fatigued, unfocused and not necessarily processing information optimally upon arrival at destination. That's not a good situation. It takes time to re-oxygenate and recover from an oxygen deprived condition. Age and physical condition are big factors in the onset of symptoms and speed of recovery. If you have the opportunity to take a flight at higher altitudes with a co-pilot that is wearing O2, it's a real learning experience in how quickly you can become really stupid. There is a huge difference in human performance between 12,500' and 15,000'. -Jeff Scott Los Alamos, NM > Subject: KR> Hypoxia > > Hello All, > Not KR related, but definitely aviation related. The 99's are having a > convention this week in New Orleans and one of the seminars was/is on > hypoxia and is open to all pilots in the area. I went there (instead of > listening to Mark) on Wednesday and it was excellent. it's one thing to > read about what happens if you fly too high without oxygen, it's another to > feel it. > The class was about an hour and a half and went over the types of hypoxia, > symptoms, ATC examples (very cool) and what to do about it. Then you get > to go to a chamber that they equalize at 25,000'. And the thing is, the > list of symptoms are only potential symptoms and everyone reacts > differently. Nausea, headaches, tunnel vision etc. > So you start at 25,000'. They say you have 3 minutes (at that altitude) to > get yourself out of trouble. That may be too generous. We had an oxygen > sensor on us (to measure oxygen in the blood) and you start at 97% or > higher. And then it drops. by the time you are in the 60's you are done. > We also had a clipboard to log the onset of any symptoms - every minute. > And we had a sheet with a simple maze and some math problems. > In my case, the only symptom I felt was a tingling in my fingertips. But > by the third minute, I could not do the maze (kindergarden level) nor any > simple math problems. I could barely write a number. I simply could not > focus. 8x7 was impossible. Once you put the mask on, after 3 or 4 deep > breaths, you are back to normal. it's that quick. > And of course the reality is that you can suffer from hypoxia at much, much > lower altitudes (they said start worrying about it over 8,000 - especially > at night). > For me, the problem is that I didn't get a headache or nausea or anything I > could react to. I simply lost the ability to focus. Which means I could > not even know that I am losing control. But it was a heck of a thing and > very instructive in highlighting the dangers of hypoxia. > I strongly recommend that if you ever get the chance to experience it - do > it. And before I do any high flying I will get an oxygen setup. > > > Ray > New Orleans
