Can't Handle Altitude Anymore

Jay Honeck

Jay Honeck

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Jay Honeck
Well, after three years of enjoying the thick, rich, sea level ocean air, Mary and I are apparently unable to exist at high(er) altitudes anymore.

Yesterday, after spending over an hour at 11,500', we both experienced the unpleasant side effects of hypoxia. Head ache, longer-reaction times, and fatigue.

Upon descending to 7500', we immediately felt better, and were fine, if tired, below that. Apparently we are either no longer acclimated to flying high, or we're just getting old.

The RV performed marvelously up high, so I would hate to not be able to take advantage of that smooth, cool air above the afternoon build ups.

So...what do you guys recommend for supplemental O2? I've heard a snort or two makes a huge difference -- true?
 
Welcome to the club, even though nobody I know really wants to be a member. My personal tolerance has been 10.5k for a long time. I have an Aerox unit that hangs on the seat-back. So far so good.
 
Jay Honeck said:
Anyone tried these?

http://www.boostoxygen.com/products/
Click to expand...
Jay
That is little more than a toy for kids in an "oxygen bar". I suppose it might have some limited utility for a pilot to use in an emergency if you do not intend to carry a more substantial oxygen system, but not for use other than in an emergency.

Your problem is that 8A just climbs too fast! No, really, living at sea level is partially responsible but acclimation takes place in a couple stages over a much shorter time frame than 3 years. If you really want oxygen, consider rolling your own supply with a M6 or M9 bottle or 2 and a larger tank at home to refill those bottles. Conserver devices are available to extend the duration of supply in those bottles but pricey. A M6 has 165 liters so at 1 lpm should last 165 minutes. A M9 has 255 liters.
 
i have a small aerox bottle i carry in the glider. It works great. Mountain High is fancy but for the cost of the controller box i prefer to just refill the bottle more often. i use O2 anytime i think i'm going to be above 10K. At Moriarty (field elevation 6K, takeoff DA 9K) i would just start it up on the ground before takeoff since I expected to soon be in the mid teens.
 
you ought to be able to get bottles filled from the local tourist scuba shop in exchange for some advertising at the hotel.
 
tonycondon said:
you ought to be able to get bottles filled from the local tourist scuba shop in exchange for some advertising at the hotel.
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Sorry, no. SCUBA is compressed air. He needs O2. Welding supply has tanks, and can refill.
 
docmirror said:
Sorry, no. SCUBA is compressed air. He needs O2. Welding supply has tanks, and can refill.
Click to expand...

For our veterinary hospital, we have to use only Medical Grade Oxygen. We are not allowed to use welding tanks. We get it from the same distributor as welders, but the Medical grade tanks have to be certified as such.

So I have to ask the question: Is welding grade oxygen really good enough for people to breathe.
 
I built my own 02 system and use welding tanks for refills. Works great and cost is much cheaper than the store bought systems. Build your own and use it above 8K. ;)
 
Your local ambulance and or fire department may be able to assist you with refilling a smaller Cylinder. We used to have a cascade system that refilled the smaller portable cylinders and the large ones for the onboard , would hook up to a compressor unit that was heavily filtered and dehumidified.
The cylinders used on the fire trucks for the SCBA were filled from an onboard cascade system and onboard compressor but not considered " O2"

Sent from my iPhone
using Tapatalk
 
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JOhnH said:
For our veterinary hospital, we have to use only Medical Grade Oxygen. We are not allowed to use welding tanks. We get it from the same distributor as welders, but the Medical grade tanks have to be certified as such.

So I have to ask the question: Is welding grade oxygen really good enough for people to breathe.
Click to expand...

Generally speaking, welding O2 is more pure than aviation or medical O2. The deltas are so small that any differences would not be able to be felt.
 
docmirror said:
Generally speaking, welding O2 is more pure than aviation or medical O2. The deltas are so small that any differences would not be able to be felt.
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What impurities can it contain?

Any fuels -- like lubricants -- are fire hazards in the presence of pure O2.

Jay, a significant summer risk no one seems to think about is that if you're inadequately hydrated, hypoxia gets a lot worse a lot sooner than if you're properly hydrated. So, if you sweated out on the ramp for half an hour preflighting, then took off parched to 10500, you're gonna feel it.

I watched this happen to my son. This kid runs in circles atop Pike's Peak (14000) with no ill effects, but flies with me to Lake Tahoe (cruising altitude up to 9000), drinks no water, and conks out hypoxic on the return. Never did a faster descent...down to 3000 over Auburn and a bottle of water in his face, and he felt a whole lot better. My wife and I were both fine. The Pike's Peak trip had us woozy.
 
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MAKG1 said:
What impurities can it contain?
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Aviation can have a bit more water in it. Other than that, I don't know. The key here is you can not use a SCUBA shop, cause it's compressed air, and you can use any kind of Oxygen at the cheapest rate you can find.
 
Dr Bruce has a sticky in the medical section about a DIY O2 system.

Cheers
 
docmirror said:
Sorry, no. SCUBA is compressed air. He needs O2. Welding supply has tanks, and can refill.
Click to expand...

What about a scuba place that does mixed gas? Isn't that helium and oxygen?
Or do they get tanks of premixed Helox?
 
PilotAlan said:
What about a scuba place that does mixed gas? Isn't that helium and oxygen?
Or do they get tanks of premixed Helox?
Click to expand...

I don't know. I never did a mixed gas dive. I'm a rec open diver, not advanced. Never wanted to mess with it.
 
PilotAlan said:
What about a scuba place that does mixed gas? Isn't that helium and oxygen?
Or do they get tanks of premixed Helox?
Click to expand...

HeliOx is a very specialized technique. It's used for very deep dives and very long dives. I don't know (but I'm not really up on it currently) and walk-in-off-the-street dive shops that handle it. However, there are many who now do NitrOx mixed tanks. This varies the percentage of Oxygen in relation to the nitrogen to allow higher percentages of oxygen. They would have to have some source of oxygen but I don't know if they can do pure oxygen fills.

John
 
JOhnH said:
So I have to ask the question: Is welding grade oxygen really good enough for people to breathe.
Click to expand...

It's all the same oxygen anymore.

When the rules were written the various grades of oxygen had meaning but now it's all the same because it's all produced the same way: liquifying and then distilling. It looks like membrane technology is coming and that will be at least as pure as distillation.
 
^^ Yup. Welding is the cheapest fill by far. I do a fair amount of gas welding so I just got a big tank. I think it was $28 plus a tank exh fee of a couple bucks.
 
Jay Honeck said:
Details, please?
Click to expand...

Buy a small tank to keep in the plane (M6 or M9) on a site like:http://www.tri-medinc.com/page12.htm or ebay.

Buy a CGA870 Style regulator like seen on site above.

Buy nasal cannulas

Buy a transfill adapter like here:http://www.ebay.com/itm/Oxygen-Tran...211?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e7b7755db
to fill the small cylinder you take in the plane from a large cylinder you keep at home.

Buy a large cylinder. Tractor supply sells and fills them. You might find one at a welding shop if there is one nearby. Get the large tank filled.
 
I use medical grade o2 in what is called a D bottle even though it is not recommended .If its good enough for medical patients its good enough for me,a pulse ox is a must to make sure your flow is correct.
 
docmirror said:
Generally speaking, welding O2 is more pure than aviation or medical O2. The deltas are so small that any differences would not be able to be felt.
Click to expand...

Actually, that is not the case, although the deltas are as small as you said.

The Oxygen is the same, but in order to be certified for medical use, the tank has to be purged between each refill. Not so with welding gas (o2). Moisture and other impurities may be left behind without purging.

But since you need a prescription or a medical license to buy medical gas, it sort of means that welding gas is all you are going to get.
 
JOhnH said:
Actually, that is not the case,
Click to expand...

Actually it is. The gas spec by USP(medical folks) can be 99.2%, with almost 1% impurities. Industrial is generally 99.5%. I've heard the FDA allows even lower purity, but it's just not that important to me.

Your statement argues the container, not the gas. I'm no expert by far, but when I take my welding tank in, they do a quick check on it for pressure. They don't like it when it's completely drained cause they have to do a vac cycle on it. I have no idea if that's a requirement or not, but I've learned to leave a smidge of gas in there so they don't have to hook it up to the vac manifold.
 
JOhnH said:
The Oxygen is the same, but in order to be certified for medical use, the tank has to be purged between each refill. Not so with welding gas (o2). Moisture and other impurities may be left behind without purging.
Click to expand...

May be but aren't unless the tank is left setting for a very long time with the valve open. That really doesn't happen.
 
Clark1961 said:
It's all the same oxygen anymore.

When the rules were written the various grades of oxygen had meaning but now it's all the same because it's all produced the same way: liquifying and then distilling. It looks like membrane technology is coming and that will be at least as pure as distillation.
Click to expand...

This.

Don't let anyone tell you there is a difference. Those same people will tell you the earth is flat. ;)
 
JOhnH said:
Actually, that is not the case, although the deltas are as small as you said.

The Oxygen is the same, but in order to be certified for medical use, the tank has to be purged between each refill. Not so with welding gas (o2). Moisture and other impurities may be left behind without purging.

But since you need a prescription or a medical license to buy medical gas, it sort of means that welding gas is all you are going to get.
Click to expand...

And the earth is flat. :rofl:
 
You will need ( it is advised) to have 2 fill tanks. One will do the heavy filling, the second does the "top off" . Don't be in a rush to fill the tanks. They get hot as the gas expands. Allowing it to cool will allow more 02. Some guys even put their tanks in water to absorb the heat.

The oxygen to fill the tanks comes from the same source. Period.

Call your family DR. or medical examiner and ask them for a life time prescription for 02 for your aircraft and you can refill ( if you have the adapter) at any medical facility. :dunno:
 
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tonycondon said:
shows what i know about SCUBA :)
Click to expand...
Actually some SCUBA shops do indeed have O2 but it's not necessarily common and they probably cannot refil O2 bottles. Some methods of producing Nitrox or TriMix use bottled O2 as the oxygen source.
 
JOhnH said:
For our veterinary hospital, we have to use only Medical Grade Oxygen. We are not allowed to use welding tanks. We get it from the same distributor as welders, but the Medical grade tanks have to be certified as such.

So I have to ask the question: Is welding grade oxygen really good enough for people to breathe.
Click to expand...

I do a lot of technical scuba diving. I.e. caves, deep wrecks (sub 200 ft) etc.

I have mixed my own diving gases for years.

Couple points.

Welding/aviation/medical O2 are all now exactly the same thing at every plant I have seen. It just isn't worth the effort for praxair, Matheson, airgas, etc. to have separate systems, plus welding grade actually needs very high purity. I'd be happy to give more details if anyone cares, but that is the short version.

Second. Be very, very, very careful with high pressure oxygen. I can not over state this. It can be handled safely and it isn't that hard, but an oxygen fire is a scary thing. Please,are sure you know what you are doing if you are going to roll your own O2. If you are interested in doing this I'd be happy to provide some resources and suggestions.

If you have a technical diving scuba shop in your area they likely carry O2 and would most likely be quite happy to fill your bottle. Although you might have to get an adapter that works with there system.

-Dan


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
JOhnH said:
Actually, that is not the case, although the deltas are as small as you said.

The Oxygen is the same, but in order to be certified for medical use, the tank has to be purged between each refill. Not so with welding gas (o2). Moisture and other impurities may be left behind without purging.

But since you need a prescription or a medical license to buy medical gas, it sort of means that welding gas is all you are going to get.
Click to expand...

John,

Not true. Maybe true on paper, but I know for a fact that the filling techniques for Aviation, Medical and welding are all identical.

The impurities thing is a common myth. But you simply can not have any impurities in your O2 bottles, high pressure O2 does bad things when it comes into contact with impurities!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
Before I got an oxygen tank, I found that the ill effects of flying above 10,000 feet were greatly reduced if I took vitamin E for several days before the flight.
 
I really don't know anything about this, but I've always wondered if portable concentrators have any use in aviation.

George
 
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