Oximeter's

Go the FAA Physiological Training Altitude Chamber What An Experiance.


"Robert Chambers" wrote in message
.. .
I did an O2 system for much less than that. I got hold of an O2 system
that emphysema patients drag around behind them (all I wanted was the
tank adapter and flowmeter) traded the old empty cylinder in on a fresh
full one. Had a nurse friend of mine procure a couple of nasal cannulas
and I'm good to go.

I don't fly high enough to use it, I carried it with me on the
cross-the-pond trip just in case.

I'm going to try it at night sometime to see if the vision thing is
noticeable.

Robert

Longworth wrote:
Cecil,
If I am not mistaken, using oxygen at night at low altitude is
mainly to help with vision. We rarely fly at night except for night
currency at local airport and maybe at twilight or shortly after sunset
on long cross-country trips. The oximeter just tells you whether you
need oxygen or not. By itself it does not help with high altitude or
night flying except telling you that you'd better go lower or land ;-)
I'd think that putting the 200+dollars towards the purchase of oxygen
on board is a better idea. One person complete system sells for
something like $450. Emergency hand-held system selling for something
like $320.

Hai Longworth

It don't matter How High you are our having any health issues. One can
experience Hypoxia at lower altitudes it all depends on a number of factors
air density, food intake, sleep, dehydration, ect.


"RomeoMike" wrote in message
...
Assuming that you don't have health issues that would make your
hemoglobin less saturated with oxygen at altitude than normal, and
assuming that you don't intend to challenge FARs pertaining to the use
of oxygen, what do you see as the value of carrying an oximeter?

NW_PILOT wrote:
Why Are Oximeter's So Expensive? I was thinking of adding one to my
flight
bag but at over $200.00 I am giving it a second thought.

Darrel,
Yeah, it's a nice thing to have but not essential to the pilot's
health or safety except the extreme cases. Not sure how expensive is
an oxygen system integrated with an oximeter (on-demand system) but
unless one is concerned about running out of oxygen, there is no point
of messing around manually with the regulator while flying. I'd be
curious to see how many pilots use the oximeter while using oxygen.

Hai Longworth

Steven,

I agree. However, it one is in good health, don't smoke, go through
the IMSAFE checklist before every flight, hypoxia risk at low altitudes
should be quite minimum. BTW, for us, the E part is very important ;-)
we always pack plenty of food and water for any flights short or long.

It's the same issue with the risk of getting the bend while diving.
I had witnessed two cases of so-called 'undeserved hit' where the
divers did not violate any safety rules and did not do any
decompression dives. In one case, the diver was on a diet (on a
liveaboard with 5 dives a day) and had a sunbath right after a dive.
Another case, the guy stayed up late bar hopping the night before.
Both divers had sophisticated dive computers monitoring their N2 levels
etc.. but good equipment can't help with poor health condition.

Hai Longworth

"Peter Duniho" writes:

The FARs require the use of oxygen. They don't stipulate how much to use.
So, you can either rely on the calibration of your oxygen equipment, or you
can get some actual feedback on whether you are getting enough oxygen.

Indeed. Once on the way home (Indiana) from California I stopped in Colorado
and needed oxygen. They didn't have the required fitting so I flew home with
what I had knowing I could always go lower if I ran out though it would
probably mean an extra stop for fuel. (I was VFR and it was VMC all the way
home. We have a big O2 tank and only two people.)

I reduced my wife's oxygen flow (because she was just resting anyway) but
when we crossed the Mississippi and she couldn't think of the word "barge" I
stuck her finger in the oximeter. She wasn't terribly low but she was lower
than usual so we increased her flow a bit.

And before I got the oximiter there was the time that I almost passed out
because I didn't notice my cannula had slipped while I was relieving myself
over the Rockies...

--kyler

Longworth wrote:
Darrel,
Yeah, it's a nice thing to have but not essential to the pilot's
health or safety except the extreme cases. Not sure how expensive is
an oxygen system integrated with an oximeter (on-demand system) but
unless one is concerned about running out of oxygen, there is no point
of messing around manually with the regulator while flying. I'd be
curious to see how many pilots use the oximeter while using oxygen.

We do in the Lancair...

Kyler Laird wrote:
And before I got the oximiter there was the time that I almost passed out
because I didn't notice my cannula had slipped while I was relieving myself
over the Rockies...


If I had to guess, I'd say there was a good chance everybody else on that flight
came close to passing out when you relieved yourself over the Rockies.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE

On 11/23/2005 4:00 PM, Mortimer Schnerd, RN wrote:
Kyler Laird wrote:
And before I got the oximiter there was the time that I almost passed out
because I didn't notice my cannula had slipped while I was relieving myself
over the Rockies...


If I had to guess, I'd say there was a good chance everybody else on that flight
came close to passing out when you relieved yourself over the Rockies.


.... not to mention the poor folks on the ground!

;-)


--
Mark Hansen, PP-ASEL, Instrument Airplane
Sacramento, CA

I'd be curious to see how many pilots use the oximeter while using
oxygen.

I don't. I may look at my nails periodically.

Ron Lee

Hai Longworth wrote:

Yeah, it's a nice thing to have but not essential to the pilot's
health or safety except the extreme cases.

I'll disagree about "only in extreme cases". For a long time, I was
willing to fly at 12.5K ft without using O2. Every once in a while I'd
turn it on if I was feeling very tired, or was yawning a lot, and once
at 13.5K ft I THOUGHT I had turned it on, but hadn't, for a 2 hour leg.
I now think that having a pulse oximeter is an extremely useful tool to
tell you how well YOU'RE performing - we monitor the heck out of the
planes, but don't do a very good job of monitoring ourselves. The SpO2
monitor is a way of doing just that.

At any rate, here's a message I posted to the COZY mailing list
regarding an experiment (not controlled, but interesting nontheless) I
did earlier in the week:


We had previously had a discussion about SpO2 levels vs. time at
altitude.

So I flew to Las Vegas from Mojave today to pick up my wife, coming home
commercial. I took a different route - through the "Trona" gap, over
L72, and just south of China Lake. It's faster (more direct), but I had
to go higher to avoid mountains. On the way there, I decided to use my
SpO2 sensor to watch my O2 levels as I climbed without supplemental O2.

As I passed through 8K ft., I put on the gizmo. My SpO2 levels were in
the low 90's, and when I leveled out at 9500 ft., within a couple of
minutes at the most my SPO2 levels evened out at about 87%. Not great,
but OK for a while. After about 1/2 hour there, I climbed up to 11.5K
ft. for radar coverage, and within a minute my SpO2 levels were down to
78%. I did NOT put O2 on, but monitored my levels, which stayed at 78%.
I was yawning a bit, and deep breathing could raise the levels for a
short period, but when I went back to regular breathing, it would drop
back to 78%. After about 15 minutes at that level, I was cleared to
descend into LAS, and by the time I got down to about 6K ft, my SpO2
levels were back in the low 90's.

It seems clear that it takes very little time for the SpO2 levels to
change and stabilize when climbing and/or descending - a minute or so at
the most, at least for me.

On the way back, I set up the O2 system for both my wife and myself (she
gets headaches at 9K - 10K ft and above, it seems) and we headed out.
At 10.5K ft going west, with the O2 set to one liter/min for both of us,
our SpO2 levels were in the mid 90's - 96% for my wife, and 95% for me.
Personally, I didn't _feel_ much different, although I was definitely
yawning a lot less. I do know that I'm a lot less fatigued after O2
use.

It seems that _I_ should use O2 anytime above 10.5K ft, no matter what
the regs say - for my wife, it's about 9.5K ft for comfort reasons. It
also seems clear that there's no "reservoir" of O2 that's used up as you
climb - your SpO2 levels are dependent upon altitude, and not really on
the time at that altitude - a minute isn't very long.

--
Marc J. Zeitlin
http://www.cozybuilders.org/
Copyright (c) 2005