You will not find any aircraft drills that recommend, under any circumstances (except temporarily for safety altitude), that you stay above 10,000 ft cabin altitude following a decompression.
Interesting.
I remember a discussion about combi aircraft and a possible A380 Combi with whole main deck cargo, some alleged SOPs regarding cargo fires.
Namely, that unlike passenger and cargo plane belly holds which are often equipped with fire suppressant bottles, the main deck freighters often lack fire bottles on main deck. And that SOP for uncontrolled cargo fire was supposed to be descending to around FL200, decompressing the plane and using crew oxygen.
Can anyone confirm or deny?
Even the military fighter drills tell the pilots to get below 25,000 ft. This is to protect against decompression illness - "the bends”. The military (and civil) masks can easily protect against hypoxia at 25,000 ft but they cannot protect against the bends.
(Note: it used to be 25,000 ft for the bends, then it was dropped to 22,000 ft because studies showed there is still a low risk there). We’re considered safe below 18,000 ft. Safe, that is, from the bends, but not from hypoxia if you are not wearing a functioning mask (despite contrary advice from some non-experts on other threads who think that flight above 10,000 without oxygen may be OK in some circumstances. It isn’t. Never. This is why cabin altitudes are limited to 8,000 ft and the military provide expensive bottled oxygen free-of-charge above this altitude).
Intruder wrote: “A long-distance runner, mountain climber, or a person who normally lives at a high altitude will have a longer TUC than the average Joe.”
Not necessarily. A person from Denver may not, someone from Peru might. You cannot predict a person’s TUC.
Except that the TUC should predictably be big at any distance equal or below where the person slept the night before?
What is the TUC at 0 feet?
“A cold, fatigue, or other factors can significantly reduce TUC.” Well said.
Sure. Then the fatigue might reduce TUC to zero even on sea level...