R-22, nice little chopper, as long as water doesn't get into the fuel. I lost two friends, one my neighbor, a couple years back, in this type of heli, for that reason. Rest in piece Matt and Scott.
C, the deal with oxygen, or lack of it, during flight is this....
(Damn, I do remember some things from flight school!)
FAA regs require pilots to start using oxygen at 12,500 feet if they are going to be above that altitude for more than 30 minutes, and at all times above 14,000. Some are affected at a lowly 8500 ft with minor signs of hypoxia, which may be a dull headache or feeling sleepy. Commercial aircraft pressurize to an 8000 ft equivalent pressure. Now the real bitch is if you are drinking alcohol, or doing certain drugs, which can result in histotoxic hypoxia, where the cells are poisoned by a lack of oxygen intake. I once had a tinge of (histotoxic?) hypoxia when I went up in my friends hot air balloon to take my other freind up to 10,000 ft for a nice little free-fall parachute jump . Well, when he took the dive, we were not in a fast enough decent to counter the loss of 200 lbs, and up we went...to 12,000 ft! Besides being scared shitless watching the envelope deform like that, wishing I had my own chute and freezing my ass off, we had partaken in some early morning champagne, and boy was I feeling it! My friend (balloon pilot) was particularly disturbed by the whole situation, vowing to never do that again saying he was really freaked out by the loss of a passenger, even though he knew that was the plan. The part that was strangest to me was how fast "Billy" disappeared from sight, I'm talking gone in an instant! It took a very long time to get down from there...miles and miles away! LOL oh the good ole days!
Back when I was I was a snot-nosed grunt in the service, we went on a helo excerise using Chinooks.....pick-up/extraction from the LZ---the whole nine yards, with full kit and everything. I was fine. Truly I was. I was really into it, y'know? But NOW? I dunno if it's age, or because of more awarness of my own mortality or both.....but thinking about that kind of thing NOW? Along with the story you just told here?
P-a-s-s.
Things of that nature tend to fall within a younger mans fancy, I suppose.
I'll stick to my feet being planted on terra firma.
LOL, I hear ya C! I was all of 22 at the time and would NEVER do that again! My long time friend in the story "Billy" sure doesn't, he's knees are now shot after years of jumping out of perfectly good aircraft. Have you ever been in a hot air balloon? It is an incredibly stable, safe and secure platform for flight, barring any wind. I would enthusiastically suggest that it be on everyone's "bucket list"!
We went on one about two years ago. We skipped across the border into Niagra Falls, New York, and they had a hot air balloon ride there. Went pretty high, too.
yeah yeah canuck. we know how you know about this helicopter. you read it on the web, just like everything else you say you know. miter - don't be fooled by this fat bag of lard. store detective with too much time on his hands.
Comments (16)
To post a comment, you need to login or signup.