Hi All,
In the "good old days" I did a couple of runs in the RAAF hypobaric chamber at
Pt Cook, with another nineteen glider pilots. This chamber was much later
relocated to Edinburgh SA airforce base, and as far as I know is still in use
there today, by the military.
As Ian says, it was an Aviation Medicine Day, with the chamber run being just
part of the total experience. The basic scenario involved twenty glider pilots,
divided into two groups of ten - 10 being the capacity of the chamber. One
group did the chamber run, whilst the other group was given the essential
theory - and more.Then we swapped.
Yeah, a run to about 23,000' (RAAF normal for ab initios??), is what happened
on both occasions. Just like Goldilocks and the 3 bears - not too much and not
too little. You are in the danger zone, but there is room to react, if the s**t
is hitting the fan. Google "time of useful consciousness" to get an
understanding of this subject. The chamber can of course simulate conditions
to a much greater height than that - possibly to the upper edge of the
atmosphere and beyond: The details are lost in the mists of time, but maybe we
just did not ask the right questions for those details (see point 2 below).
Apart from these two matters, several things about my two days at Pt Cook come
to mind:
a.. The TOTAL professionalism of the RAAF crew running the courses.
b.. Their friendliness, and willingness to share information and further
discuss related matters.(We had to wait around for a while at the end of the
day to ensure that there were no unexpected negative after-effects resulting
from the chamber run.)
c.. The sheer number of RAAF personnel required to conduct and monitor the
chamber run - labour intensive for sure.
d.. On my 2nd run, how the team coped with one attendee, who started
hyperventilating in the chamber.
e.. Lastly (but by no means least), experiencing the sound (from within the
highly insulated chamber), of the run-up of the engines powering the chamber
evacuation pumps. I can tell you that the hairs on the back of my neck stood up
as those engines wound up to a banshee scream.
For what it is worth, I will give you my conclusion from these experiences -
there is only one: WHEN IT COMES TO HIGH ALTITUDE FLYING, UNLESS YOU ARE
TOTALLY PREPARED, DON'T FUCK WITH DEATH. IF YOU ARE NOT TOTALLY PREPARED,
ULTIMATELY YOU WILL LOOSE.
Geoff Vincent (who is a member of this forum), and an experienced wave flyer
has devoted considerable time to documenting what is required to be "totally
prepared", If you want to go wave flying, and are new to the game, I suggest
that you get in contact with Geoff - geoff.vinc...@optusnet.com.au
Regarding glider pilots using the RAAF hypobaric chamber I offer the following
comment. The head of the AAF is a very experienced glider pilot, and I suggest
that our new president (Anita), gets in contact with him (Air Marshall Geoff
Brown), on this topic.However, I further suggest that you do not hold your
breath if you expect a positive outcome.
Cheers,
Gary
----- Original Message -----
From: Ian Mc Phee
To: Discussion of issues relating to Soaring in Australia.
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2012 6:40 PM
Subject: Re: [Aus-soaring] MORE: Hypoxia / chamber run video
In the good old days Brad Edwards took a bus load group of us down to RAAF
Richmond for an aviation Medicine day and afternoon was a run in decompression
chamber and from memory we were taken to 23000ft and no way could any of us
complete the counting back by three ie given 100, 97, 94, __,__ There is a
well know audio of think F5 pilot having trouble closing his canopy then
finally takes off and no mater how hard controllers tried they could not get
him to move the Oxy regulators levers forward (giving him 100% oxy) and he just
went into subconsciousness to eventually crash.
Gather the only serviceable decompression chambers are in NZ now. DAMEs in
AUS just experience mixed gasses these days. I think it is a shame at least
commercial pilots are not required to do a mixed gas run and that would be more
useful than the english test all new pilots must now do to get a PPL and pay a
contractor $100 for the 10min test.
Ian M
On 8 July 2012 09:35, Anthony Smith <anthony.sm...@adelaide.on.net> wrote:
----
Towards the end, the 'pilot' is unable to put his mask back on, not from
lack of motor control or lack of conciousness, but just from not caring.
----
No from not caring. I still cared and wanted to put the mask back on. My
experience was the complete inability to get my brain from A to B.
I heard the voice say "Number 3, put your mask back on".
It took some time to remember that I was 'Number 3' - even though I thought
I was fine and was reacting OK.
Then there was the fumbling with the mask and the few moments (actually
quite a few moments) staring at it whilst I tried to work out which way was
up on the mask and how to get it onto my face - even though I thought I was
fine and was reacting OK.
Once the mask was on, the tunnel vision disappeared (hadn't realized that I
had tunnel vision) and all the colours came flooding back (hadn't realized
that the world had gone black and white either).
I would not have believed anyone afterwards when they told that it took so
long for me to think and react, except I saw the second group in the chamber
behave in exactly the same way.
A remarkable experience and the results are somewhat similar to a long
drinking session.
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