Up to 25,000ft unpressurized today

[C5Engineer 1170]

In an altitude chamber not my Avid! I was due my 5 year Physiological refresher trainer this month. I drove up to Beale AFB today to attend the training. The morning was all academics reminding us about sleep schedules, circadian rhythm, nutrition and anything else that mess with you when flying. Then came the chamber ride. We were on 100% O2 for 30 minutes and then up to 8000ft. We took our masks off and then they take you up to 25,000ft in a little over a minute! I made it about 4 minutes after level off before I went back on. The whole point is just to learn what your symptoms are since everyone is a bit different. It's an uncomfortable feeling for me. They give you a piece of paper with some silly questions on it and some basic math problems. The guy next to me tried to stick it out and he turned blue and just barely got his mask on without help. It was pretty cool watching his color come back after just a few breaths on the mask. After everyone recovers they take you down to 18,000 and you take your mask off again and they turn down the lights and do some cool acuity demos and then it's back down the sea level. The whole thing lasts about an hour. After leaving the house at 5 am this morning and doing that and then driving home again I am beat. Some good training though and you get a free buzz!!

[EDMO 1078]

I was scheduled for some tests today - after getting up earlier than my usual time, I drove thru thunderstorms and rain so hard you could barely see the road.    I went to Fenton instead of Tesson facility where I was supposed to go -

       My wife wrote on her facebook, "What is wrong, when you are supposed to have a brain scan, and go to the wrong place?"

Now, I may be scheduled for Hearing Tests!   

EDMO

Edited 3 Apr 2014 by Ed In Missouri

[ChrisBolkan 130]

That sounds really fun! And a great way to learn how you will react if ever in a situation of reduced oxygen.

 

I work for a company that manufactues neurodiagnostic medical equipment and we were developing a pulse oximenter. Being relatively athletic at the time, I got to participate in oxygen desaturation experiments to compare our oximeter to a standard as part of our FDA approval testing.

 

if I remember correctly (it was several years ago) I put on a mask and was fed less and less oxygen, but still had the sensation of getting full breaths of air so I never felt the need to struggle for air. It was a very interesting sensation as my blood desaturated but since I was in pretty good shape it didn't seem to have much of an effect at least for as long as I did it or for as far as the needed the oximeter calibrated.

 

Then i did an experiment of my own to track our oximeter further into desaturation. We had "safety" there in the form of the company president who is an MD. When I was already desaturated as far as they were testing the oximeter, I took a deep breath of the weak mixture and held my breath for as long as I could. At first everything was OK but as time went on I wanted to breathe worse and worse and the oxygen saturation kept tanking. The first two minutes were OK, but after that things really started happening. My vision narrowed and I really had to fight not to squirm and struggle. I made it to three minutes before it felt like I was about to pass out and die, and everyone in the room was telling me to breathe and were getting very concerned, although I wasn't worried. That was a sure sign I had lost good judgement which as I understand it is one of the signs of oxygen deprevation. They were very concerned and I wasn't! Breathing regular air never felt so good! I hope I didn't kill too many brain cells, but I know some divers can hold their breath for up to seven minutes so I probably didn't do too much damage.

 

Anyway it was a fun experimet and I was happy to get to participate. And I got to learn too a bit about how I react in a strange environment. I almost got the opportunity to go into a chamber like you did, but they cut that program at Fairchild AFB which is where they used to periodically offer the opportunity to civilians.