SR22 Down - Gulf of Mexico

Everskyward said:
I never understood the allure of flying high, but maybe that's because I spent a lot of time doing it in both pressurized and unpressurized airplanes (way too much time in these). If I had the choice, and the weather was cooperating, I would fly at 1,000' AGL. Unfortunately I didn't have the choice, except when flying the mapping planes. No jet flying at 1,000' AGL. :(

That said I know others feel differently.
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+1. If I can fly low I will. I like to get a good view.
 
I like to get high. It gives more options. OTOH, if’n yer low it’s over quick so you don’t have time for anxiety.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Obviously the PulseOx is the first line of defense, but it has issues. For one, I don't see most pilots actually keeping the things on them for extended periods of time during flying, just doing spot checks.
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This is where integration of Apple Watch into your ForeFlight would be a great help, I suspect. Better yet, into your panel-mounted avionics, but that's probably a pipe dream.
 
zaitcev said:
This is where integration of Apple Watch into your ForeFlight would be a great help, I suspect. Better yet, into your panel-mounted avionics, but that's probably a pipe dream.
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Why? So Apple could slow your iWatch down when the battery loses capacity, just when you were trying to stay conscious?!


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I once flew from Kotzebue to the village formerly known as Barrow at much less than 1000 feet. I had to follow the coast line.

At Barrow I picked up another 207 and flew it to Deadhorse. White out conditions all the way from Barrow to Deadhorse. And someone was nice to me at Deadhorse. The ATIS was reporting 3/4 mile visibility, but when I called flight service to ask for updated weather, they gave me 1 mile visibility, state your intentions. Special VFR into the class E, please.....and what do you like on your pizza..??
 
Ted DuPuis said:
Having spent time between 500 AGL and FL270, I tend to agree with you. It's a lot more fun to fly low. That said, I tend to fly at the best altitude to complete the mission. That generally means a combination of what altitude will get me the best TAS, efficiency, tailwinds, around weather (icing, storms, etc.) and also taking into account human factors. So I'm rarely flying at 1,000 AGL, although I last winter I did fly from NYC back home to KS at 2,500 MSL (which was <2,000 AGL for most of the trip) because of winds. It was a lot of fun, way more fun than flying at FL180-190. But the 414 is 40 KTAS faster at FL180-190, so guess where I spend more time given my typical 600+ nm legs...

You really have to be going a long ways to get a benefit from being up that high in a piston bird, though. Not like a turbine bird where you get way better speed and efficiency up high.
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Once I got my first good look at a 2000 ft radio tower off my wingtip (on my first flight to OSH) in the Midwest I have never wanted to fly cross country at <2000 ft AGL ever since.
 
Tantalum said:
I tend to feel more comfortable with a few thousand feet between me and terra firma. At less than 2K AGL if you have an engine problem you have very limited options..
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As @tawood said, that's highly dependent on where you're flying. I can fly south from my home 'drome in E MO to the gulf @ 1,000' agl and almost never be beyond glide distance of a nice field.

If I fly west, across S MO to, say, Springfield, then 7,000' ain't a high enuf! A lot of hills and nothing but trees as far as you can see across much of that route.

GRG55 said:
Once I got my first good look at a 2000 ft radio tower off my wingtip (on my first flight to OSH) in the Midwest I have never wanted to fly cross country at <2000 ft AGL ever since.
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ehhhh...that's why they make charts. I guess my attitude is different because I learned to fly within a few miles of a whole flock of 2,000 footers east of Springfield, MO. Would use them for turn about a point practice! ;)
 
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GRG55 said:
Once I got my first good look at a 2000 ft radio tower off my wingtip (on my first flight to OSH) in the Midwest I have never wanted to fly cross country at <2000 ft AGL ever since.
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TAWS is a wonderful thing.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
TAWS is a wonderful thing.
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I agree (and haven't flown anything without TAWS in a long time) but still makes me nervous to be very low and I don't want to be depending on TAWS (I'm not suggesting you were implying that btw).
 
Justin M said:
I was surprised that once they identified a problem, that the chase planes didn't stay with the Cirrus until resolution.
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Article makes it pretty clear that they had a visual the he was unconscious:

"The NORAD pilots reported the only person on board the Cirrus was unresponsive likely due to hypoxia."

Not a lot they could do even if he crashed.
 
Maybe Cirrus needs to install a remote control on their CAPS and give NORAD pilots the remotes.

(I'm only partially joking)
 
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timwinters said:
Maybe Cirrus needs to install a remote control on their CAPS systems and give NORAD pilots the remotes.

(I'm only partially joking)
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Or the two interceptors should have stretched a net between their planes and caught the Cirrus......

(I am totally kidding) But the remote may be a good idea......
 
Justin M said:
That was a helpful article.

I was surprised that once they identified a problem, that the chase planes didn't stay with the Cirrus until resolution.
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Mexican airspace.......
 
StanN45 said:
Mexican airspace.......
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Yep, that was part of it. Also, the guys were out there with no CPDLC, no HF, tanker's SATCOM wasn't working (for a while) - so they had minimal capability to talk to anyone back in the US. The winds were howling out of the NNW so at best he was going to have a cross wind to get home and fuel was an issue. They were there when he went down, they just couldn't identify exactly where he was once he hit the water. There was a solid cloud deck blocking out all moonlight. If you've never been low level over the deep ocean at night with no moon.... yeah - it ain't a barrel of monkeys even with two jet engines pushing you around. Seeing a dot in all that blackness? Forget about it.
 
EvilEagle said:
Also, the guys were out there with no CPDLC, no HF, tanker's SATCOM wasn't working (for a while) - so they had minimal capability to talk to anyone back in the US.
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The Gulf is all VHF. Short segment is non-radar, maybe 20 to 30 minutes at most.
 
Larry in TN said:
The Gulf is all VHF. Short segment is non-radar, maybe 20 to 30 minutes at most.
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Maybe they could see them on radar but the UHF freq's weren't working out there. I can't imagine they still had them when they got below the cloud deck.

I wasn't on the intercept but I did talk to the guys who were out there; they were working COM out until the SATCOM started working right.
 
Everskyward said:
I believe the finger device measures the redness of your blood, or some such thing, to determine the O2 saturation, so it wouldn't work well on your wrist. They would need to come up with another way to measure.
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They typically measure light absorption at 2 wavelengths. One has the same absorption for oxygenated and de-oxygenated hemoglobin whereas the other wavelength has different absorption by those two types of hemoglobin. By comparing the ratio of the two one can compute the O2 saturation.

The difficulty with a wrist location would be the relative opacity of the skin there to these wavelengths.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
In the 414 in emergency descent I'll be able to do 6,000+ FPM down. In the sim it was around 7,000, and I think that with the MT props I could get down faster (with engines windmilling those things are major barn doors). So even from FL190, I can get down really fast. So that aspect makes sense.

In the 172/PA28, I'd go up to 12,500 max but there was no point in going any higher. Really your chance of a fire in those things is also pretty low. I worry about it more in the 414 with the turbos.
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The gas fired cabin heater probably would be my biggest concern?
 
TCABM said:
First, it’s onset of the LOSS of useful consciousness, not incapacitation. However, the higher you go, the quicker that happens, too.

Here’s a really good, quick (3-5 min) read about the effects and outcomes as observed in real time.

http://avstop.com/medical/anencountewithhypoxia.htm
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The big problem is being hypoxic and not knowing it. Your time to save yourself is ticking down and you have no idea. I haven't been in the pressure chamber, but I did do the hypoxia chamber where they just pump out all the O2. Based on that, I would guess that MOST people, absent some obvious event or warning, would have NO IDEA they were going hypoxic. Even if you've read all the articles describing the symptoms.

We were given specific tasks and when you could no longer complete them, you were to put your mask on. We also had finger pulseox monitors and we writing down the numbers. When they got low enough we were to put out masks on. In other words, were in a situation where we KNEW we were going to go hypoxic at some point, and had the knowledge and means to save ourselves within that 'time of useful consciousness,' and were actively monitoring our saturations.

Still, most participants had to be TOLD to put their masks on, and some had to have it done for them. That was the real eye opener for me. I've never flown at those levels, but based on that experience, I would not do it alone, and I would not do it without constant o2 monitoring and a plan to DESCEND NOW the very second something is off. The effect when you immediately go from "hypoxic but feel fine" to not hypoxic by just putting on that mask is dramatic, and you realise very quick that you were not fine.
 
If you ever have a chance to experience an altitude chamber do it. Some Air Force bases open them to the public. I did Moody AFB a long time ago and Columbus AFB I guess in the late 70s. Eye opener for sure.
 
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Just read in NY Daily news a Cirrus pilot on his way to a pilot and paws mission crashed in the gulf of Mexico. Apparently a pressurization problem, he was unresponsive and overflew destination. RIp.
 
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