How High Can You Go

On April 28th, I had the opportunity to visit Beale Air Force Base to receive training in high altitude physiology and take a ride in an altitude chamber. This class is normally reserved for Military Pilots, but once every few months they allow civilian pilots to attend.

I flew up to the base the night before (its near Yuba City, CA) with Ken Maples, my fight instructor. Before checking in to the hotel for a good nights sleep, we went to the local Sports Bar to watch the Sharks attempt their comeback against the Ducks. Unfortunately they lost the series as we all watched in vein. Very sad, but that's another story.

The training took all morning and part of the afternoon. Lots of good information on how pilots react in harsh (not enough oxygen) environments and the instructor did a nice job.

Beale AFT is also the home of the U-2 spy plane and the Global Hawk unmanned aircraft used in Iraq. We had a chance to see them, very cool.

The best part was when we all entered a large chamber, donned our oxygen masks and then pulled the air from the chamber to simulate high altitude atmosphere. There were 3 Air Force personnel in the chamber with us to be sure we all stayed safe.

After a series of simple activities, the took us up to 25,000 feet and we removed our masks. WOW, not much oxygen at 25,000 feet. The goal was that as soon as you felt ill, you were supposed to put your mask back on. After 2-3 minutes most everyone had put their masks back on, but I was still doing the worksheet they gave us (simple math problems, silly questions and a maze). Its important that you are able to recognize your symptoms with reduced oxygen and that is the purpose of this activity.

Unfortunately, after 5 minutes, I still felt fine and was told to put my mask back on, as it becomes dangerous after 5 minutes at that altitude.

What it turns out to mean for me is that I don't exhibit any obvious symptoms of oxygen deprivation and therefore need to be extremely carefully when flying above 12,000 feet. Even with supplemental oxygen, I need to monitor and be sure I am getting the right levels into my system as my body won't give me much warning.