Originally Posted by
MechEngr
That would be an interesting option - build a full motion platform hypobaric chamber for check flights with 20 - 30 minute bleed-down from the correct pressure. See how many crews notice. Make sure they are kept busy with a bunch of ATC requests and simulated chatter with the company about a late departure and maybe a re-route for weather.
One doesn’t need a hypobaric chamber to do this. FAA CAMI has a plastic tent that they fill with a hypoxic air/nitrogen mixture to the O2 concentration at 25000 ft. They do it without masks on, and there are a couple of attendants keeping tabs on the airmen in the tent, and putting masks on them if they get too out of it. It would be a simple thing to put a pressure mask on a pilot in a sim and do the same thing to him.
Of course, none of it is as impressive as an actual chamber with a vacuum accumulator set up for explosive decompression to 35k.
(But there’s not too much that’s insidious about that, especially when it starts snowing in the tank)
Civil airmen can go to CAMI and do not only hypoxic training, but a bunch of other useful things, and it’s all free.