A hard drive crash once caught me off guard at high altitude.
Admittedly less of a concern these days, but back in the era of spinning disks I thought it would be fun to take my netbook up loaded with approach plates.
Turns out yes, the read write head is supported by a thin cushion of air. As the air becomes less dense so does the cushion until - yup you guessed it - head crash.
It’s well documented now of course but I understand it also used to be a problem in Tibet and Chile.
One thing I would add is that most sea-level habituated people are measurably hypoxic over 5,000 feet or so. It's just not as obvious.
If you're a pilot, there's an interesting self-test you can do on yourself the next time you fly VFR at night. At about 8 or 9,000MSL, without oxygen, take a look at the landscape below. Looks normal, right? Now breathe some oxygen while continuing to look.
For most people, it's like having the contrast turned way down on a TV and not realizing it. Once the contrast comes back up, there's all this depth of color, vibrance and detail you had been missing -- and have not been aware of it.
If you're like me, the crazy part isn't that you were hypoxic. It's that everything seems completely normal. You can't use an out-of-whack system (your brain) to judge whether it's out-of-whack or not.
My wife still remarks that she'll put on our daughter's first, and I'm like please, please, please don't do that, there's a reason they say this. If you pass out, you can't help anyone else. It doesn't seem to get through to her.
Reminded me of the two times I’ve been hypoxic. One was in the altitude chamber. The Navy was great about training and had all pilots experience hypoxia so they could understand how the symptoms effect them in particular. My first indications was tingling fingers. The second time was flying into Iraq. I had skimped on the preflight checklist and missed the cabin pressure switch, which was always in the on position, but had somehow been set to off. Took my mask off at 20k heading in country and started to feel light headed with tingling fingers. Told my commanding officer / flight lead something was wrong. We started to return to the carrier. During the emergency procedure checklist hit the step to check the cabin pressure switch. Oops. “Sir, we don’t have to abort the mission!” The Navy had some great training that saved my life on more than one occasion.
I was in a Cessna 206 headed to Oshkosh. Our pilot had planned to fly Eastbound at 17,000ft to avoid an air current. We all got nasal cannulae for supplemental oxygen. We departed at 3AM, and following takeoff I immediately fell asleep.
I woke up somewhere around 14,000ft, dizzy and confused, and realized I hadn't put my cannula in before falling asleep. I fixed this, and within a minute the brain fog was gone and I proceeded back to sleep.
Then we hit turbulence, which in a small craft like a 206 means you occasionally whack your head on the ceiling. Couldn't sleep through that.
The author mentions that he would design a system with a continuously monitored pulse oximeter that could trigger the EPS descent mode automatically. Do wrist-mounted versions (fingertip ones would probably be too bulky/uncomfortable for continuous use by someone at the controls) of such continuous oximeters exist at the moment? The Apple Watch apparently has a sensor capable of measuring blood oxygen content, but disabled that functionality for unstated reasons (FDA regs?) [1], and I'm unaware of any extant wrist-worn device with that functionality enabled.
Unpressurized high performance single engines are basically the number one private pilot killer. Dentists and business men with a few hundred IFR hours will go up solo in their new million dollar TBM, lose oxygen, descend into icing, and that's a wrap. Don't be one of those guys.
...are there stats on that? It's my impression that poor pre-departure decision making - especially regarding WX and w & b - are the very, very simple things which tend to kill private pilots.
A TBM is pressurized. Article is about unpressurised planes. TBMs also have quick-don masks as standard equipment and very loud alarms warning you if cabin depressurizes
Latest Nall Report [1]: 73.8% due to pilot-related (action or inaction).
A TBM is pressurized, and would "lose oxygen" only if the cabin had already depressurized, either due to a rare malfunction (like the TBM 930 a year or two ago) or a pilot not knowing how to work the pressurization controller and climbing up into hypoxic altitudes, and then ALSO not having his emergency oxygen supply stocked, or not attempting to use it at all.
I'm surprised at your comment, to be honest, and the only motive for it I can guess is envy. Dentists and Businessmen in million dollar planes are a thin thin sliver of the General Aviation population.
Its extremely hard to detect hypoxia in yourself. Since your own detection apparatus is faulty it usually doesn't work. Your best bet is to see if anyone else looks like they have hypoxia, and if so should trigger the thought that you might as well. Think of it like being able to tell if you are in a dream, it takes most people some practice to tell, even though it seems like it should be simple
[+] [-] paulgerhardt|7 years ago|reply
Admittedly less of a concern these days, but back in the era of spinning disks I thought it would be fun to take my netbook up loaded with approach plates.
Turns out yes, the read write head is supported by a thin cushion of air. As the air becomes less dense so does the cushion until - yup you guessed it - head crash.
It’s well documented now of course but I understand it also used to be a problem in Tibet and Chile.
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|7 years ago|reply
One thing I would add is that most sea-level habituated people are measurably hypoxic over 5,000 feet or so. It's just not as obvious.
If you're a pilot, there's an interesting self-test you can do on yourself the next time you fly VFR at night. At about 8 or 9,000MSL, without oxygen, take a look at the landscape below. Looks normal, right? Now breathe some oxygen while continuing to look.
For most people, it's like having the contrast turned way down on a TV and not realizing it. Once the contrast comes back up, there's all this depth of color, vibrance and detail you had been missing -- and have not been aware of it.
If you're like me, the crazy part isn't that you were hypoxic. It's that everything seems completely normal. You can't use an out-of-whack system (your brain) to judge whether it's out-of-whack or not.
[+] [-] perl4ever|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chiph|7 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUfF2MTnqAw
[+] [-] acjohnson55|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] poof131|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asteli|7 years ago|reply
I woke up somewhere around 14,000ft, dizzy and confused, and realized I hadn't put my cannula in before falling asleep. I fixed this, and within a minute the brain fog was gone and I proceeded back to sleep.
Then we hit turbulence, which in a small craft like a 206 means you occasionally whack your head on the ceiling. Couldn't sleep through that.
[+] [-] _ks3e|7 years ago|reply
[1] https://9to5mac.com/2015/04/24/apple-watch-blood-oxygen/
Some more information about the physiology of hypoxia can be found here: https://web.archive.org/web/20150318011408/dr-amy.com/rich/o...
[+] [-] durandal1|7 years ago|reply
https://www.aviationpros.com/press_release/10393999/cirrus-a...
[+] [-] nradov|7 years ago|reply
https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/fenix5plus/EN-US/GUI...
[+] [-] aphextron|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benmarks|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmitrygr|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] schmookeeg|7 years ago|reply
Latest Nall Report [1]: 73.8% due to pilot-related (action or inaction).
A TBM is pressurized, and would "lose oxygen" only if the cabin had already depressurized, either due to a rare malfunction (like the TBM 930 a year or two ago) or a pilot not knowing how to work the pressurization controller and climbing up into hypoxic altitudes, and then ALSO not having his emergency oxygen supply stocked, or not attempting to use it at all.
I'm surprised at your comment, to be honest, and the only motive for it I can guess is envy. Dentists and Businessmen in million dollar planes are a thin thin sliver of the General Aviation population.
[1] https://www.aopa.org/-/media/files/aopa/home/training-and-sa...
[+] [-] giggles_giggles|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unparagoned|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] killjoywashere|7 years ago|reply
https://www.faa.gov/data_research/accident_incident/2011-05-...
[+] [-] cameldrv|7 years ago|reply