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bigway

oxygen

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This is an interesting thread. I'm new to the sport and loving it. Whenever I'm driving home after, I have this totally laid back feeling. I did 3 AFF jumps the other day (the most I've ever done in one day)going to 13.5K. I went out to dinner with my family after and couldn't stop yawning. I was so tired. Are these the affects you can get from this? I just thought it was sun/nerves/newbie jitters that was tiring me. Hmmm, I'll definately pay more attention to my psysiological state when jumping. This is really good to know.

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I would say you are feeling the effect of the adrenaline wearing off. You are going and putting your body in a hi stress situation repeatedly, and you body chemistry is making giant peaks and valleys, and it is wearing you out. You will get used to it later in life.

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Vicki

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No wonder they say that BPA means "Ban Parachuting Association"



Who are "they"? And why is it any different from SIM Section 6-7 G1?



I don't know why BPA requirements are more restrictive than the recommendations in the SIM - you'd have to ask the BPA board about that.

"They" are the British skydivers I 've met over here, who almost to a person grumble that the BPA rules are excessive. Two guys from Devon used the "Ban Parachuting Assoc" name.
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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Hypoxia is a silent killer, and it doesn't really affect any two people the same.



True and sometimes it won't effect the same person the same way. I have been to 16.5 and only been effected once. (took the hose of to early). I havebeen to 13.5 and felt it worse on one ocassion.
Dom


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Congratulations for your post. Nothing like a scientific point of view. I have personnally followed a course on high altitude jumps and we have spent the whole weekend on it. Recognizing the symptoms of apoxia is important but I guess most of the skydivers don't. Fortunately, we generally have fast climbing airplanes however the problem remains anyway.
Learn from others mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all.

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I've done a couple sunset jumps at 15,500 AGL (16750 ASL) out of an Otter. I didn't notice anything. It was business as usual. The extra 3,000 feet took a little over 5 minutes to climb and then we were out the door. Which, is a relatively short period of time...so I felt comfortable with it.

I think it all comes down to how long you're exposed to that altitude and how your individual body reacts to it. I grew up in a mountain town at 6500 ASL. I'm assuming people who spend most of their lives in high elevations will have a higher threshold in comparison to someone living at sea level. When I say threshold I'm referring to ASL threshold.

This is a great topic. I got my wheels spinning.
Klaasic

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I didn't notice anything.



That's what is so dangerous about hypoxia. You don't notice what's happening. Even after the fact. Unless you are tested during the event, you probably are not a good judge of whether or not you were affected.
Remster

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Remster

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I didn't notice anything.



That's what is so dangerous about hypoxia. You don't notice what's happening. Even after the fact. Unless you are tested during the event, you probably are not a good judge of whether or not you were affected.



Key point!

Hypoxia and it effects can change too. YOUR physiology is also key. Do you smoke? Overweight? Age? all can effect it and it can change from time to time. What was OK today might not be OK tomorrow. Airplane goes around?

There are also situations where you get no feedback or symptoms. Your first sign is your buddy telling you that you just passed out and you don't remember it.

Best to follow the recommendations (there is a reason) and not be in denial. Watch your buddy and don't play macho man...
Dano

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kallend

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Vicki

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


No wonder they say that BPA means "Ban Parachuting Association"



Who are "they"? And why is it any different from SIM Section 6-7 G1?



I don't know why BPA requirements are more restrictive than the recommendations in the SIM - you'd have to ask the BPA board about that.

"They" are the British skydivers I 've met over here, who almost to a person grumble that the BPA rules are excessive. Two guys from Devon used the "Ban Parachuting Assoc" name.



Because the Aussies have a bigger nanny state than the US, and the UK makes Australia look like Somalia.
cavete terrae.

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I learned my personal hypoxia symptoms in an interesting way, at only ~14,000 ft above sea level.

I was team training and found myself unusually grumpy and hostile at altitude. On jump run I am usually happy and excited, on this particular weekend I was angry at the pilot on jump run, thinking "Is this Bozo EVER going to give us the green light? What is he DOING?">:(

A week later I discovered that I had been walking around with a spontaneous pneumothroax (collapsed lung with trapped air between lung and chest wall). Presumably, as we ascended the trapped gasses expanded compressing my lung. The combination of the low ambient oxygen tension and the comprimised lung probably resulted in transient hypoxia which would explain my unusual grumpy attitude.

A trip to the hypobaric chamber would have been a much better way to discover this... and would not have left a scar on my chest!:|

With the lung treated .... I am back to my happy/excited self on jump run. ;)

The choices we make have consequences, for us & for others!

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>I've done a couple sunset jumps at 15,500 AGL (16750 ASL) out of an Otter. I didn't
>notice anything.

Years ago I was on a sunset load at Lost Prairie, wingsuiting out of the Skyvan at 13,000 (about 16.5 MSL.) I had an O2 system with me. As we climbed to altitude it started getting dark. I kept the O2 off because I figured I didn't need it until I was actually skydiving.

Finally the light turned green, we opened the door and Mad John started spotting. (We wanted to get longer than the normal spot.) It was pretty dark out but I figured we had enough light to see each other and the DZ.

I turned on the O2 after about 10 seconds. Suddenly the whole plane got lighter and I could see outside a lot more easily. I also realized I hadn't been thinking very clearly before the O2 came on.

Hypoxia is pretty insidious. I can usually recognize it now but I've had a lot of experience with it (a lot of jumping above 20,000 feet.)

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When I was training the Ecuadorian Special Forces, we took off the ground at 9500 ft above sea level. We had to climb to
17000 ft in order to do a 30 second freefall. During each jump, I would perform as well as at a lower altitude, but after opening, I would start to feel bad effects on my body. Once I landed, I could hardly stand up, and carrying my canopy back to the pack area was a real chore.
The men who live there were accustomed to living at the higher elevation, and you would never see any one of them showing hypoxia effects...not ever.
We were staying in a hotel at 9500 ft ASL, and by the 2nd or 3rd day, we could hardly walk up a low sloping ground, and the city of Quito is all hills.
It was truly the most exhausting jump session Ive ever encountered, and I have been to over 20,000 ft sharing breathing from a small walkaround oxygen bottle.
Jumping from 30,000 plus ft AGL or ASL one does need supplementary oxygen, and would be foolish to try such a jump without it, and back up systems. Usually the pilot breathes from the aircraft supply, but I always had a large bottle on the aircraft floor with a console for at least two supplies for oxygen masks.
To answer your question, continued jumping without oxygen over 20,000 ft MAY cause problems, because once you are out you are very soon into a level where the ambient air will sustain you. Once back on the ground, your body returns to everything normal. If you make another jump from that altitude within a short time span, you MAY run into some more evidence of hypoxia.
Over 35,000 ft, you should consider at least a partial pressure suit. Without it, more problems will affect you.




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billvon

>I've done a couple sunset jumps at 15,500 AGL (16750 ASL) out of an Otter. I didn't
>notice anything.

Years ago I was on a sunset load at Lost Prairie, wingsuiting out of the Skyvan at 13,000 (about 16.5 MSL.) I had an O2 system with me. As we climbed to altitude it started getting dark. I kept the O2 off because I figured I didn't need it until I was actually skydiving.

Finally the light turned green, we opened the door and Mad John started spotting. (We wanted to get longer than the normal spot.) It was pretty dark out but I figured we had enough light to see each other and the DZ.

I turned on the O2 after about 10 seconds. Suddenly the whole plane got lighter and I could see outside a lot more easily. I also realized I hadn't been thinking very clearly before the O2 came on.

Hypoxia is pretty insidious. I can usually recognize it now but I've had a lot of experience with it (a lot of jumping above 20,000 feet.)



Occasionally I'll get a visitor from sea level. I've had a couple of them have difficulty up on the top of trail ridge road at 12100 feet MSL, especially if I take them up on the first couple of days. If I get many more, I might have to install an oxygen system in my car...

I was a bit concerned for my sister and niece when they did their tandem here, but they handled their short time at 17 grand just fine.
I'm trying to teach myself how to set things on fire with my mind. Hey... is it hot in here?

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FlyingRhenquest



Occasionally I'll get a visitor from sea level. I've had a couple of them have difficulty up on the top of trail ridge road at 12100 feet MSL, especially if I take them up on the first couple of days. If I get many more, I might have to install an oxygen system in my car...

I was a bit concerned for my sister and niece when they did their tandem here, but they handled their short time at 17 grand just fine.



I have a long time friend from IN who comes out here in spring & fall to do wooden boat work in Grand Lake. I usually pick him up from DIA, then take him to GL via Berthoud Pass. One year as we reached GL he announced that he wanted to go up over Trail Ridge Road. I told him it was a bad idea, but he was determined. About the time he started sliding down into his seat, looking quite blue/green, I turned the car around.:D
"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

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The decreased partial pressure of oxygen encountered at increasing altitude can quickly lead to incapacitation or death.

The lethal effects of acute altitude hypoxia cannot be underestimated. Deaths have occurred at altitude between 17,000 and 20,000 feet.

The main purpose of our respiratory process is to supply the lungs and the blood and tissues with adequate oxygen, and to eliminate that carbon dioxide that is generated by the metabolism of the body tissues.

Hemoglobin is the oxygen carrying agent of the blood. Oxygen must diffuse from a gaseous state to a dissolved state to combine with the hemoglobin.
The oxygen diffuses across the alveolar membrane, through the interstitial fluid and capillary endothelium. Within this capillary, the dissolved oxygen diffuses through the plasma, the red blood cell membrane, and the intracellular fluid within the red cell to combine with the hemoglobin.
The solubility of a gas, and its partial pressure, greatly influences its diffusion characteristics. Carbon dioxide is about 25 times more soluble than oxygen in pulmonary tissues and fluids and its capacity for diffusion is about 20 times greater than oxygen.

PARTIAL PRESSURE OF OXYGEN

The quantities of a gas at various altitudes, expressed in percentages of the atmosphere, has little significance. Percentage represents the relative volume of a gas and not its molecular concentration. Molecular concentration, or partial pressure, determines the availability of the gas to the body.
The partial pressure of a gas, in a mixture of gases not interacting with one another, is equal to that pressure that the particular gas would exert if it alone occupied the space taken up by the mixture (Dalton's Law of Partial Pressure).
The total pressure of a mixture of gases is the sum of the pressure of the individual gases composing the mixture.
The body requires hemoglobin saturations of 87-97 percent and arterial oxygen at 60-100mm Hg (millimeters of mercury) in order to function normally. Below this level the body is hypoxic.
The standard pressure at sea level is 760mm Hg. Since oxygen comprises about 21 percent of the air, we would expect the dry air oxygen partial pressure in the lungs to be 159.6mm Hg (760 times 21 percent), but through physiologic processes, the partial pressure of oxygen in the arterial blood is normally about 100mm Hg.
Air inhaled into the lungs enters small air sacs (alveolus) where the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide occurs. When the partial pressure of the oxygen is higher than it is in the blood, oxygen molecules are picked up by the hemoglobin molecules. This hemoglobin saturation is approximately 97 percent at sea level.
The atmospheric pressure decrease at 10,000-foot altitude causes 523mm Hg ambient air pressure resulting in 87 percent hemoglobin saturation and 61mm Hg arterial oxygen.(lower end needed to function normally)
At 15,000 feet (429mm Hg) the hemoglobin saturation is 80 percent (we need 87-97 percent for normal functioning), and arterial oxygen is 44mm Hg (the body requires 60-100mm Hg.).

The higher you go the less of the oxygen you breathe in passes through the cell walls of the alveolus and your saturation level continues to drop. Above 15,000 msl you need a demand pressure system of some type to function normal.

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so I felt comfortable with it. ….I think it all comes down to how long you're exposed to that altitude and how your individual body reacts to it.

I was a bit concerned for my sister and niece when they did their tandem here, but they handled their short time at 17 grand just fine.



What you think or how you may feel about doesn’t count, it if you are above 10,000 feet MSL you are hypoxic.

Symptoms of hypoxia are many and varied. They may also change for the same individual from one exposure to the next.

And this doesn’t even get into the subjects such as: Types of hypoxia, the need for pre-breathing and symptoms of DCS.

If you want to do jumps at higher altitude do it right.

Sparky

(Over 25 jumps/tests at or above 25,000 MSL
Taught High Altitude Jumping to civilian jumpers for several years.)

http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp55/mjosparky/Testing/HighAltitude3-1.jpg

http://i397.photobucket.com/albums/pp55/mjosparky/Testing/HighAltitude2-1.jpg
My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

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