Oxygen regulators, medical type

Agreed with most of the foregoing.

I'd be a lot more inclined to recommend aerox, if they didn't sell such complete garbage. For instance take a look he

http://wingsandwheels.com/oxygen-equ...ula-masks.html

That clear plastic mask is a total embarrassment, likely to break before first use (that's its best feature -- saves failure at 25K feet). The needle valve and flow meter assembly shown (the one with the right angle valve at the inlet) will almost certainly break on you too. Total rubbish. You guys at W&W ought to be ashamed to carry that stuff.

You can assemble a decent quality aerox system, but you have to pick and choose. Their regulators seem to be okay and the "glow meter" flow meters (see for instance @ Chief aircraft) seem to be rugged enough (well, two seasons and haven't broken mine yet). The blue silicone masks are okay, but seem exorbitantly expensive for what they are. You'll be annoyed when you spend almost $200 and the thing shows up with a tag that says "return to manufacturer by such and such a date for overhaul".

M&H has their issues too. I had a borrowed EDS system fail (wide open) on me in flight at 14,000. Man that was exciting. I talked to M&H about it the next day, they walked me through some basic trouble shooting, finally agreed that the unit was dead, and not repairable. They don't have any built in back up protection, even in the event that the battery just runs down. Really? On a life support system?

So yeah, I agree with the "go for quality -- it's your life" sentiments expressed by others here. Wish the manufacturers shared them.

Best regards,

Evan Ludeman / T8

On Thursday, November 5, 2015 at 9:51:25 PM UTC-5, wrote:
But here in the East we rarely go high enough to need oxygen

A physiologist pointed out to me that a pilot's performance will often benefit from supplemental oxygen well below the levels stipulated by the FAR. If you have an EDS system, you might start to use O2 at a lower altitude than you anticipate.

Related, Dr Dan wrote a good article about the reliability of using a pulse oximeter to evaluate the efficacy of your supplemental oxygen system:

http://www.danlj.org/~danlj/Soaring/...-p18-20-22.pdf

Edited for clarity:

Dr Dan wrote a good article about the UNRELIABILITY of using a pulse oximeter to evaluate the efficacy of your supplemental oxygen system:

http://www.danlj.org/~danlj/Soaring/...-p18-20-22.pdf

Mountain High...

On 11/6/2015 5:52 AM, Tango Eight wrote:
They don't have any built in back up protection, even in the event that the battery just runs down. Really?

I was at 17,900' about 90 miles from home in the Colorado Rockies when
my Mountain High system began chirping its alarm. I flew a high speed
final glide home (there was a lot of lift to reduce descent) thinking I
was out of oxygen. On the ground, I found plenty of O2 in my tank so I
swapped the batteries in the electronic box and everything went back to
normal. I had the batteries in the cockpit but didn't think of swapping
until I was on the ground.

--
Dan, 5J