In article , Dave Eadsforth
wrote:



I guess the mask could be irritating for wearing several hours at a time
if you don't need it for oxygen. Again, in the movies, I have sometimes
seen RAF pilots with their masks unclipped, and they just pull it
towards their mouth when they want to speak. Very steely for the
movies, but I don't know whether that was a director's whim, or whether
RAF pilots actually did that. My own experience of wearing a mask (for
comms in open cockpit 'planes, not oxygen) tells me that a dangling mask
is an irritation, and it is not easy to clip on quickly if you have to
do that in a hurry - takes two hands and a hard pull, unless you've gone
to the lengths of bending open the helmet clip.


Couple of questions about the WWII mask, and, for that matter, modern
masks. I have sleep apnea, and have to wear a night-time mask that
forces compressed air into my nose (continuous positive airway
pressure). In the years I've used it, there have been considerable
improvements in the comfort of the mask and its support equipment.

Now, understand this mask covers the nose, not the mouth, so the
irritation it would produce would be at the bridge of the nose or just
below the bottom of the lip. The first versions used a foam pad
standoff above the nose, padding the part of the mask to which the
headstrap attaches. That helped some, but there was quite a bit of
problem around the rest of the mask -- it had some flexible plastic
(think of a soft shower curtain) over the hard plastic edges, but there
was still a lot of irritation.

The more recent masks replaced the flexible plastic sheet with a thick
gasket of gel -- sort of like a blob of semidry rubber cement, except
not sticky. Comfort improved enormously.

Did any of the WWII masks have a soft edging around the periphery of the
mask? I don't know when foam rubber became readily available, but I'd
think of that. Some protective skin creams also might help. Was
anything like that used?

Also, a major improvement in reducing respiratory irritation is to
humidify the gas supply. Before ultrasonic humidifiers, I recognize this
might be messy in an aircraft, with the water in the reservoir slopping
around, but was anything like this tried?