Do what the old guys did, and what they do in the altitude
chamber - use a balloon or a latex glove. Tie it closed at SLP (or at 8k cabin
pressure), and if you lose cabin pressure it gets BIG! And no chips to get in
your eyes while screaming downhill. And don't worry either. Unless you are
above FL250, your time of useful consciousness (TUC) is plenty long enough to
get your mask on and O2 going
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_of_Useful_Consciousness ). I wouldn't fly
above that high because you are very susceptible to the bends if you have
rapid-D above that height as well. I in fact had rapid-D at 210 a few months
back (accidentally hit the door seal switch) and my training in the chamber
over the years finally paid off!
The guys up at RDD Enterprises have a guy who is really good at
filling in this exact part in the IV-P door, you might want to get in touch
with them (in Redmond).
Bob Rickard (current F-16 guy too)
L-IVP
From: Lancair Mailing
List [mailto:lml@lancaironline.net] On Behalf Of marv@lancair.net
Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2009 10:12 AM
To: lml@lancaironline.net
Subject: [LML] Re: What may have caused Kaboom at 16.5
Posted for John Hafen
<j.hafen@comcast.net>:
As I looked at the seal and its distance to the door frame at various
places
around the frame, I could see that it was fairly close all around (1/8 to
1/4 inch) except for where it blew (right by the stick). In
that area,
there was a gap of 1/2 inch to perhaps 5/8ths inch. The
thought is that as
the seal rounds the 90 degree corner, it is already ³stretched² (because
of
the 90 degree bend) and has less expansion capacity than it would in a
straight or flat area. So the area was raised (see below) to
narrow the
gap, that hopefully will support the new $450 seal better (limit the
expansion required).
Meanwhile, based on posts from many of you, Iıve decided to permanently
hang
a bag of corn chips from the middle of the Rosen Sun
Visors. If I ever lose
cabin pressure again, I anticipate the bag will blow, providing both an
audible and visual warning of cabin depressurization (my fatherıs idea,
actually). Iım trying to figure out a way to have the exploding corn chip
bag automatically turn on the emergency oxygen supply, but I havenıt
figured
that our out quite yet.
Cheers
John Hafen
N413AJ IV (soon to be P) 160 hours