| Agreed
I fly the F-22 as well and we have to go up to FL600 with just a vest, helmet, and g-suit on. Pretty scary. And I have had ECS failure above 50k and ran out of O2 before landing….another story. They only rapid-decompress us in the chamber up to 25K any more for safety reasons. We all last way more than a minute at FL 250 - but take into account Jeff Edwards comments about being in shape, etc. Its outstanding training because they teach you to recognize YOUR OWN symptoms of hypoxia - which is the key. All people have different symptoms, and if you have not felt yours its not very safe. Here is why -
If we have a rapid decompression in our IV-P's at 210 (it has happened to me) its not gonna kill us or any of our passengers. It will be totally obvious, we will turn on our O2, and descend. No big deal. But, if we have slow decompression, its way more dangerous. Then we have to rely on an aircraft system to warn us (I don't trust any of them) and/or our own hypoxia symptoms to tell us that we need help and to do something about it. That's why the Payne Stewart guys died, because they didn't recognize their own symptoms early enough to do something about it. Obviously more dangerous (quicker possibly) up in the FL 400+ range, but no more deadly than 250 if you don't recognize it.
So the real message is for guys that go up there to get the training. It will save your life some day. No matter what O2 system you have.
Bob Rickard IV-P
I’m no expert but used O2 for years in my Mooney. In the Air Force chamber, we blew from 18k to 29k instantly. Most had about one minute of consciousness, some had much more—plenty of time to turn on a tank and put on a mask. If no O2 one can dive 10k feet in a minute. 25k is nothing like 44k where the Payne Stewart Lear depressurized. Those pilots didn’t dive, but fiddled with an empty O2 tank
|