10000'
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My what a happy community this is. If hypoxia doesn't get you at 10,000 feet, your mogas will vapourise at 20 deg C and if you ever subject an aircraft to 0g your wings will fall off and you'll be damned forever...
We need a lot more;
Oh, I have slipped the surly bounds of earth
And danced the skies of laughter-silvered wings,
Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds—and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—
We need a lot more;
Oh, I have slipped the surly bounds of earth
And danced the skies of laughter-silvered wings,
Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds—and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—
Join Date: Sep 2005
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I would have said I'd done that , but I would be at risk of being called a liar , charlatan , ne-er do well , have my grammar and spelling corrected and all other manner of pointless additions to the thread that are neither constructive nor helpful , But its fun
Join Date: Sep 2003
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I hope you don't use it for diving!! pure O2 will kill you dead under pressure.
Join Date: Aug 2003
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Effect - Dead
Mechanism - Bose-x as ususal on all things diving right again. :-)
Join Date: Jun 2003
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I've been up to 18k, with oxygen obviously.
Once I did a 5hr flight almost entirely at 16k, UK to Slovenia, just staying on top of the muck. That used up most of a bottle (myself and my partner) and luckily I had one more so I could fly back to the UK on a similar route (over the Alps).
Aircraft performance permitting, altitude is no big deal. The portable oxygen kits are cheap - a few hundred quid. It opens up a whole new world for VFR touring in Europe, away from the UK-style PPL scud running cr*p, and is virtually essential for flying IFR on Eurocontrol-acceptable routes.
The big deal is getting them refilled. The scuba shops tend to get suspicious and when you mention "aviation" they usually leg it. Usually one can't get a refill away from home. I rent a huge welding oxygen (it's all the same stuff) bottle from British Oxygen - about £90/year rent and about £20 for an exchange bottle.
Once I did a 5hr flight almost entirely at 16k, UK to Slovenia, just staying on top of the muck. That used up most of a bottle (myself and my partner) and luckily I had one more so I could fly back to the UK on a similar route (over the Alps).
Aircraft performance permitting, altitude is no big deal. The portable oxygen kits are cheap - a few hundred quid. It opens up a whole new world for VFR touring in Europe, away from the UK-style PPL scud running cr*p, and is virtually essential for flying IFR on Eurocontrol-acceptable routes.
The big deal is getting them refilled. The scuba shops tend to get suspicious and when you mention "aviation" they usually leg it. Usually one can't get a refill away from home. I rent a huge welding oxygen (it's all the same stuff) bottle from British Oxygen - about £90/year rent and about £20 for an exchange bottle.
The Original Foot
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I would have said I'd done that , but I would be at risk of being called a liar , charlatan , ne-er do well , have my grammar and spelling corrected and all other manner of pointless additions to the thread that are neither constructive nor helpful , But its fun
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maxdrypower
If based on the above info anyone wants to tell me what I am suffering from then by all means do so
lol just kidding .............. or am I?
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Sir Pratt , owing to yours and everyone elses concerns I am going to be a miner instead , I just couldnt cope with taking up as much of your time worrying about me as I seem to be doing .
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Back on thread. I once had close to 18,000 ft in a Ka-8 glider (steel tube and fabric with wooden wings) in wave over the Grampians. I remember it was cold and a rather humbling experience. Part of me loved the sensation of the smooth, elevator-like climb along the wave bar, the feeling of remoteness and the beauty of being able to see most of the country but another part of me kept thinking about the two bolts holding the wings on. Strange really, no difference in likelihood of the wings coming off at 2000' against 200'. I suppose it was just the feeling of being so small against the panorama below me and the power of nature lifting me at about 500' min. That flight was over twenty years ago and I still reflect on it.
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On the subject of o2 on the cheap, anyone remember this event?
Many years back a glider pilot, rather than buying overpriced o2 from British Oxygen Company, snitched a refill of his bottle instead from a mate's Oxy-Acetylene kit.
Piloting his glider in epic wave lift, all went well until he crossed the magic 10,000' mark and turned the kit on.....
... to find out with the first breath that he had filled his bottle from the Acetylene side rather than with o2.
This story is many years old and I'm sure apocryphal
Many years back a glider pilot, rather than buying overpriced o2 from British Oxygen Company, snitched a refill of his bottle instead from a mate's Oxy-Acetylene kit.
Piloting his glider in epic wave lift, all went well until he crossed the magic 10,000' mark and turned the kit on.....
... to find out with the first breath that he had filled his bottle from the Acetylene side rather than with o2.
This story is many years old and I'm sure apocryphal
I have also spent a lot of my life wave soaring in Scotland with the RAFGSA. We used to borrow a proper oxygen rig from Kinloss.
I was always led to believe that using welding oxygen was bloody dangerous because the water content was too high for safety.
I was always led to believe that using welding oxygen was bloody dangerous because the water content was too high for safety.
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I was always led to believe that using welding oxygen was bloody dangerous because the water content was too high for safety.
That's disinformation (one of many in GA). Best to phone up British Oxygen - I have. All o2 comes from the same plant and is made to the same spec; the difference is in the paperwork which contains a tighter spec for medical/aviation grades. Welding o2 has to be very clean because even very tiny impurities visibly contaminate the weld. Lots of people have looked into this too - there is an article on avweb.com which says the same thing.
The water content specification is tighter for aviation oxygen because you could be potentially flying at levels where the temperatures are low enough within the airframe to freeze humidity in the regulators or the pipework. In the GA context, where the o2 bottle (of a fitted system) is in the boot and the pipework is within the passenger space even if behind trims, you would be freezing your b*lls off if it got that cold. If using a portable o2 kit it would need to be even colder because the system is right next to you. I can see this originates from old military requirements where there were indeed unpressurised (and poorly heated) jets with operating ceilings high enough to reach say -50C OAT, but this is hardly GA unless you are flying to the N Pole and you are wrapped up like an Eskimo...
Loads of people fly with welding oxygen. I've been using it for years, and because it's so hard to get refills I rent the big BOC bottle and - with appropriate safety measures - I refill the bottles myself.
That's disinformation (one of many in GA). Best to phone up British Oxygen - I have. All o2 comes from the same plant and is made to the same spec; the difference is in the paperwork which contains a tighter spec for medical/aviation grades. Welding o2 has to be very clean because even very tiny impurities visibly contaminate the weld. Lots of people have looked into this too - there is an article on avweb.com which says the same thing.
The water content specification is tighter for aviation oxygen because you could be potentially flying at levels where the temperatures are low enough within the airframe to freeze humidity in the regulators or the pipework. In the GA context, where the o2 bottle (of a fitted system) is in the boot and the pipework is within the passenger space even if behind trims, you would be freezing your b*lls off if it got that cold. If using a portable o2 kit it would need to be even colder because the system is right next to you. I can see this originates from old military requirements where there were indeed unpressurised (and poorly heated) jets with operating ceilings high enough to reach say -50C OAT, but this is hardly GA unless you are flying to the N Pole and you are wrapped up like an Eskimo...
Loads of people fly with welding oxygen. I've been using it for years, and because it's so hard to get refills I rent the big BOC bottle and - with appropriate safety measures - I refill the bottles myself.
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Originally some of the processes for making O2 could result in residual water content. Even today O2 manufactured on site is made from a very different process than the medical and welding product you buy from BOC. It is cooled to -200 (ish) in the process so any water will have dropped out as ice.
The big thing you get with medical O2 is that it has been tested so there is (almost) no possibility of having been mis-filled or having contaminants in it. In the 3rd world this is a real risk, in the UK it is a very remote theoretical risk.
The big thing you get with medical O2 is that it has been tested so there is (almost) no possibility of having been mis-filled or having contaminants in it. In the 3rd world this is a real risk, in the UK it is a very remote theoretical risk.
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I agree MMF that this could be a problem, but in practice it's almost impossible to get a refill when away from home, anyway. Getting avgas is the #1 job and then you look for a hotel
At really big airports it should be possible to refill using the facility for topping off the crew emergency oxygen in jets. I don't know anything about jets - I believe that in many transport jets types the bottle (located near the nosewheel) is actually swapped out but I know for sure that in King Airs the bottle is fixed (in the tail) and there is a threaded fitting for refilling. One could in principle carry a suitable adaptor. I looked into this once but was unable to borrow the other end so could not establish the thread. Anyway, this is pricey - I once paid £75 at Biggin and the bottle was away all day.
At really big airports it should be possible to refill using the facility for topping off the crew emergency oxygen in jets. I don't know anything about jets - I believe that in many transport jets types the bottle (located near the nosewheel) is actually swapped out but I know for sure that in King Airs the bottle is fixed (in the tail) and there is a threaded fitting for refilling. One could in principle carry a suitable adaptor. I looked into this once but was unable to borrow the other end so could not establish the thread. Anyway, this is pricey - I once paid £75 at Biggin and the bottle was away all day.
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Actually........
The difference is not just paperwork but in the way the cylinder is prepared. All O2 does indeed come out of the same "tap" at the depot but is the cylinder handling that differentiates what goes on the paperwork. Weldon O2 the the cylinder is just filled and sent out. Any gas designated as a breathing gas has the cylinder vacuumed and then the contents are tested to ensure they meet a minimum purity rating.
Water content is a misnomer as all O2 is actually produced the same way these days, false economy to do otherwise.
The minor problem with using welding O2 is that you could get contaminated gas. The chances are incredibly small and actually only matter when going down not up. We breathe so many impurities daily it makes little difference (smokers intentionally breathe in CO!).
Using contaminated gas for diving is where it gets really dangerous. I will save the theory on gas exchange for another day.
Personally for anyone wanting to fill there own ask for diving O2, it makes about £3 difference for a J cylinder and is certified as a breathing gas.
The difference is not just paperwork but in the way the cylinder is prepared. All O2 does indeed come out of the same "tap" at the depot but is the cylinder handling that differentiates what goes on the paperwork. Weldon O2 the the cylinder is just filled and sent out. Any gas designated as a breathing gas has the cylinder vacuumed and then the contents are tested to ensure they meet a minimum purity rating.
Water content is a misnomer as all O2 is actually produced the same way these days, false economy to do otherwise.
The minor problem with using welding O2 is that you could get contaminated gas. The chances are incredibly small and actually only matter when going down not up. We breathe so many impurities daily it makes little difference (smokers intentionally breathe in CO!).
Using contaminated gas for diving is where it gets really dangerous. I will save the theory on gas exchange for another day.
Personally for anyone wanting to fill there own ask for diving O2, it makes about £3 difference for a J cylinder and is certified as a breathing gas.