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complete bollocks !
your saying there that there is only 2 states possible for a ww2 pilot in relation to oxygen supply
a) perfectly normal and healthy
b) "far to late" (presumably instant near death state, or death itself)
which is obviously total nonsense
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You misunderstood me completely. When one is oxygen deprived, they do not know they are oxygen deprived. It's not as if one is perfectly fine and healthy, and then suddenly die.
Try this experiment: Get only 5 hours of sleep a night for a week. You will not feel tired. In fact you may feel energetic and alert. However, you may notice that you are forgetting things more often, and making more mistakes in every day activity. You THINK you are fine, but really, you are dealing severely reduced mental capacity. You won't suddenly die at the end of that week either, but you may pass out. The difference is that passing out in a plane is pretty dangerous.
Again do a search for hypoxia and exactly what it entails. Here is a quick excerpt:
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Unfortunately, the nature of hypoxia makes you, the pilot, the poorest judge of when you are its victim. The first symptoms of oxygen deficiency are misleadingly pleasant, resembling mild intoxication from alcohol. Because oxygen starvation strikes first at the brain, your higher faculties are dulled. Your normal self-critical ability is out of order. Your mind no longer functions properly; your hands and feet become clumsy without being aware of it; you may feel drowsy, languid, and nonchalant; you have a false sense of security; and, the last thing in the world you think you need is oxygen.
As the hypoxia gets worse, you may become dizzy or feel a tingling of the skin. You might have a dull headache, but you are only half aware of it. Oxygen starvation gets worse the longer you remain at a given altitude, or if you climb higher. Your heart races, your lips and the skin under the fingernails begin to turn blue, your field of vision narrows, and the instruments start to look fuzzy. But hypoxia by its nature, a grim deceiver makes you feel confident that you are doing a better job of flying than you have ever done before. You are in about the same condition as the fellow who insists on driving his car home from a New Year's Eve party when he can hardly walk.
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What this means is that you will be deprived of oxygen, but you won't be able to tell that you are deprived of oxygen because you are being deprived of oxygen. Carbon monoxide poisoning has similar effects of oxygen deprivation since CO attaches to hemoglobin in the same way as O2. You feel euphoric, maybe a little drowsy. But you are not in the state of mind to say to your self "I am drowsy, this is bad, I must be lacking oxygen". Instead you decide shut your eyes for a few moments...which ends up being the last thing you do.
As for training, you can not know the effects that hypoxia will have on your ability to PERCEIVE it until you've gone through it. I don't think the RAF had pressure chambers for the recruits.
02-27-2010, 07:15 AM
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