Acclimitisation for non pressurised planes.
 

Hi
This is about high altitude acclimatisation requirement for flight crew. Consider a crew taking off from sea level (where they don't have to use supplementary oxygen) in a non pressurised cockpit and landing at 15000 ft for a work schedule of 5 days.

The crew would have used supplementary oxygen during the flight above 10000 ft, but after landing at destination at 15000 ft they are without it and breathing out of a rarefied oxygen atmosphere.

So, do they need an acclimatisation program of two-three days before they fly again or it would be fine to fly the very next day since they would be using supplementary oxygen during the flight?

Thanks

Interesting question Peeush

Some study here;

http://www.medind.nic.in/iab/t08/i2/iabt08i2p9.pdf

Why don't you speak with the Doctors at RAF CAM?

RAeS London 5th March
 

Royal Aeronautical Society | Event | Stewart Lecture 2013

All the aviation medics will be in town on Tuesday next week.

Trudge is more into integration of kit but I am sure there will be others there who can feild your question.

Free to attend if you are not even a member.

lj, good find and quite relevant to some ISAF as well I would have thought.

I was thinking more like Dr Green...........if he is still there?

However, if we hadn't have sold off the CHS to QQ, and then let them disband the capability (no profit) - Peeush could have had a trial to answer thenquestion as opposed to a calculated guess!

My thought is that altitude sickness is likely to occur in the first few hours at altitude. A slow ascent is likely to reduce the risk so flying up to altitude is not a good way to do it. For mountaineers they recommend 1000 feet fer day once above 10,000 feet. So it would seem to me that staying at 15,000 for a few days is not likely to show any obvious benefit. Probably best to land and fly out as quickly as possible.

My experience of flying a military aircxraft from a sea level base to a 10,000ft airfield was that I felt relatively awful on the ground and had trouble with hotel stairs etc. However my lung capacity was at the very bottom of normal.

Once back in my aircraft with a mask on I was instantly back to normal. Beware mistakes on the ground before you get on O2 though.

For what it's worth.
FAA regs permit operation up to 12,500 ft without supplemental oxygen, and up to 14,000 ft for 30 minutes.
I instructed at a flight school where we exposed students to aircraft operation at 12,000 ft without oxygen. All students remarked on a perceived change in capability. Approximately 50% made significant navigational errors and all of those were sure that they hadn't made errors. The errors started occurring after about half an hour.

So, I guess even if you are operating the aircraft with oxygen, you may get your planning on the ground wrong and not notice.