oxygen for aircraft up to 18.5 k and TSO-C64

[skydivefj 0]

Hi all,

In anticipation of gaining the use of a pilatus porter and doing high altitude jumps we are trying to organise the required oxygen system for operation up to 18k

I have been calling the NZ CAA and the local gas suppliers and I have talked to aircraft engineers.

We are awaiting a reply from a senior CAA representative and hope he can answer our questions...

In the meantime I am wondering if any of you will be able to help...

What we are unsure of are, the type of tanks required, and the installation of them.

I have tried to research the rules and it really is beginning to look like a grey area, with not much information available.

I have learned the masks must meet the requirments of TSO-C64 and the regulator must have a readable flow and be capable of 15litres per minute and there must be a separate tank for the pilot and a mask for each of the passengers.

I have seen operators use 2 tanks strapped to a plywood board and that sits on the co pilots seat strapped in by the seat belt.

This seems to avoid riviting or screwing the system to the aircraft, but just because people do that, does not mean that the rules allow that...

Is there anybody here with reasonable knowledge of this subject?

Thanks for any help in advance.


Rhys

[riggerrob 643]

Hint: the last Canadian high altitude record was set using medical oxygen cylinders.
Those cylinders were the same size used in ambulances and they were small enough that they could be worn in freefall.
I sewed up a bunch of Cordura sleeves that straped around the record-attempters chests, so that the oxygen cylinders hung behind their left shoulders.

In North America, there are insignificant differences between medical oxygen, aviator's oxygen and welder's oxygen, because it is all chemically pure.

[LouDiamond 1]

Medical oxygen has moisture in it which shouldn't be used for high altitude jumps due to the risk of the moisture freezing somewhere in the delivery system.

I've posted threads on this topic that should answer most of the OPs questions, a search should point in the right direction.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[billvon 3,006]

>In North America, there are insignificant differences between medical
>oxygen, aviator's oxygen and welder's oxygen, because it is all
>chemically pure.

Indeed, all are identical nowadays.

[skydivefj 0]

Quote

Hint: the last Canadian high altitude record was set using medical oxygen cylinders.
Those cylinders were the same size used in ambulances and they were small enough that they could be worn in freefall.
I sewed up a bunch of Cordura sleeves that straped around the record-attempters chests, so that the oxygen cylinders hung behind their left shoulders.

hmm thats a good idea, I could make cordura sleeves lined with thin closed cell foam and sling them to the co pilots seat enabling good viewing from the pilot and jumpers for the gagues.

I have found a source on ebay for medical tanks and valves with regulators, the 15litres per minute is covered with these.

thanks for the suggestions.

Quote

In North America, there are insignificant differences between medical oxygen, aviator's oxygen and welder's oxygen, because it is all chemically pure.

bizzare, as the rep from BOC gas here on the west coast of the south island told me he can supply me aviation oxygen freely and easily but medical oxygen needs a prescription...


Can any of you suggest what size tanks to use/that are usually used, we will have 2 one for the pilot and one for the PAX....

We will hire the large tank from BOC gas, they will have a contract fill that as needed, so we will simply transfer the oxygen from that large tank to the ??? size tanks as needed...

[skydivefj 0]

Quote

I've posted threads on this topic that should answer most of the OPs questions, a search should point in the right direction.

Can you cite the name of the thread/s?

I did have a good sniff through, but couldn't find anything specifying the mounting of the tanks or the type of tanks used.

It seems medical tanks are appropriate and as long as we do not rivit or screw anything to the airframe, then an engineer is not required.

i'll have to see what the CAA guy says...

[riggerrob 643]

Hint: recruit a local medical professional (doctor, nurse, emergency medical technician, respiratory therapist, etc.) to assist you in obtaining medical-grade oxygen and accessories.
Then "forget" where you got the oxygen ... to protect them professionally.
It is also a wise idea to carry a respiratory therapist on board the airplane to monitor skydivers for signs of hypoxia.
On that note, I strongly urge you to attend high altitude indoctrination training with the Royal New Zealand Air Force, Civil Aviation Authority, etc.

[billvon 3,006]

There are two separate systems being talked about here:

1) Bailout systems. These must be small, streamlined and bulletproof; for example, they cannot have protruding adjustment handles.

2) In aircraft systems. These can be larger tanks with more awkward regulators. In the US, a larger welding tank with a pressure regulator, followed by a fixed orifice manifold, is the most common. There isn't much control over flow rates there.

More effective regulators are constant-flow; these regulators guarantee a volume of O2 instead of a pressure, and are thus better suited for aviation systems. A good supplier of them:

http://www.mhoxygen.com/

15 liters per minute is a problem. 4LPM is about the max you see in aviation regulators. 6LPM is the upper limit for nasal cannulas. Non-demand masks can go as high as 10LPM, but above that it's fairly ineffective; the extra O2 just blows out through the mask. To truly get to 15LPM you need a diluter/demand system which is, minimum, $1000 a station.

Per the FAA, you need 2lpm to go to 20,000 feet.

[LouDiamond 1]

Quote

Hint: recruit a local medical professional (doctor, nurse, emergency medical technician, respiratory therapist, etc.) to assist you in obtaining medical-grade oxygen and accessories.
Then "forget" where you got the oxygen ... to protect them professionally.
It is also a wise idea to carry a respiratory therapist on board the airplane to monitor skydivers for signs of hypoxia.
On that note, I strongly urge you to attend high altitude indoctrination training with the Royal New Zealand Air Force, Civil Aviation Authority, etc.

You don't want medical oxygen, see my post above. The OP has stated he can get Aviators oxygen and that is what he should use. I also would not recommend a respiratory specialist ride on board. Unless they have been to the chamber and are a physiological tech, chances are they wouldn't be any better than an average, untrained person sitting there.


To the OP: How many people do you plan on putting on the aircraft O2 system at one time and for how many lifts?

Are you expecting this to be a take off and climb to 18.5 K MSL as quickly as possible type of flight?

Do you want to outfit each jumper with his own bail out bottle as well?

There are a lot of details you haven't provided that would be helpful to know in order to help you out before hand.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[skydivefj 0]

Quote

You don't want medical oxygen, see my post above. The OP has stated he can get Aviators oxygen and that is what he should use. I also would not recommend a respiratory specialist ride on board. Unless they have been to the chamber and are a physiological tech, chances are they wouldn't be any better than an average, untrained person sitting there.


To the OP: How many people do you plan on putting on the aircraft O2 system at one time and for how many lifts?

Are you expecting this to be a take off and climb to 18.5 K MSL as quickly as possible type of flight?

Do you want to outfit each jumper with his own bail out bottle as well?

There are a lot of details you haven't provided that would be helpful to know in order to help you out before hand.

Hi Guys,

I am ingesting everything you are all saying and this is all valuable information not just for me/us but for anybody.

We will be going to 15k (oxygen is a requirement in NZ to this height) and 18k mostly tandems and in a -27 Pilatus porter.

The airspace is busy here with scenic helecopter companies but they only go to 7k and in the mountains so we will not have much conflicting traffic. Up at 15k+ we will run into the odd commercial flight that is flying btween queenstown and auckland depending on the weather.

Bill: it is interesting what you are saying about the flow, the regulations require a system that is capable of 15lpm but we have to learn about all ths still.

The plane is still some way away (month or 2) but we want to have the oxygen here when it arrives and we would like to know all the ins and outs of it.

I am urprised none of you have mentioned the dangers of using O2 systems and we are fully aware of the risk of explosions when contaminents are present and if the valves are opened too quickly etc. etc.

By law we have to have a health ad safety manual here and our manual will be (is being) ammended to include these. i will post for reference and scrutiny once we are happy with it.

I didn't consider welding tanks as something told me they were not clean enough but from the information you are al giving me it seems this is far from the case...

If anything it is a very interesting subject. I have done around 1000 jumps using O2 but never considered the amount of thought that goes into installing such a system.

We will not use conullas, we will use masks and every customer will get their own to use and keep for hygene reasons.

They're about $3 each. I was concerned about these as the regulations stipulate they must meet the requirements of TSO-C64 but it seems all masks do that?

[billvon 3,006]

>I am urprised none of you have mentioned the dangers of using
> O2 systems and we are fully aware of the risk of explosions when
>contaminents are present and if the valves are opened too quickly etc. etc.

Fire is another danger. Nearly everything burns in pure oxygen, and in many aircraft setups it is difficult to turn off rapidly (i.e. it's under the bench or something.)

[riggerrob 643]

Oxygen fires are SCARY!
I have only seen one oxygen fire. We heard a funny noise and walked in to the hangar to see a 2 meter orange flame blowing out the side of a T-33 jet trainer.
Fortunately we were able to put out the fire before it destroyed a half dozen T-33s, a pair of Hueys and a visiting Labrador helicopter.
The fire was eventually traced to an aluminum oxygen hose rubbing on the airframe and a spot of grease.

Which is why our Kiwi friend should hire professionals - who will avoid silly mistakes like greasing oxygen fittings.

[riggerrob 643]

Lou Diamond,

We are just going to have to agree to disagree on this issue.
I am quoting an article published in Aviation Consumer Magazine ... about five years ago.
While you are quoting an old MIL SPEC for aviators' oxygen.
While US military hospitals might still use moist oxygen, most civilian hospitals now use dry oxygen. The last time I read the label on a oxygen bottle - in an ambulance - there was no mention of moisture.

Tomorrow I will confirm this with a respiratory therapist who works in hospitals near Vancouver.

[hackish 8]

I have a number of welding flow meters that go way past 15lpm. Not sure if they would work with oxygen as I use them for argon. Someone did give me a nice pair of shiny new medical O2 regulators. I've been meaning to build an O2 system for our AC. Haven't had enough time to read up on it as far as aircraft regs go.

-Michael

[lekstrom10k 0]

A word on welding gasses,usually oxygen has right hand threads on every fitting. A burnable gas will have all left hand threads.
The guy to talk to is Mike Mullins as he flys high altitude jumps up to 30 plus thousands at boogies.He is easy to get a hold of and always helpful.

[Decodiver 0]

I have more than 20 years experience of handling oxygen.

Just be real careful if you are decanting between tanks with a whip (a decanting hose), I've seen many of those go incendiary over the years and have seen my fair share of closed-circuit rebreathers burst into flames when the O2 cylinder was turned on too. Once it burnt the boat down to the decking

Treat oxygen with extreme caution it will fucking kill you in the blink of an eye if it goes bang and you really don't want a fire in an aluminum ac.

Cheers,

Coops.

[michaelmullins 81]

Quote

Medical oxygen has moisture in it which shouldn't be used for high altitude jumps due to the risk of the moisture freezing somewhere in the delivery system.

I've posted threads on this topic that should answer most of the OPs questions, a search should point in the right direction.

At least in the US, there is absolutely no moisture in medical oxygen and there is no difference between aviator breathing oxygen, medical oxygen, or welding oxygen. Hospitals or other medical entities may add moisture to oxygen to prevent drying out the patient but in every case the moisture is added after it comes out of the bottle by bubbling or otherwise running the gas through water.

When oxygen is required by the FAR's what you are allowed to use is oxygen, and oxygen is oxygen. Glider pilots routinely use welding oxygen and so have I.

I have seen oxygen delivered into tanks. There is one delivery hose and if you want medical oxygen it goes into a tank labeled "medical oxygen", if you want aviator breathing oxygen it goes into a tank labeled "aviator breathing oxygen" and if you want welding oxygen it just goes into a tank labeled "oxygen".

I once needed oxygen at a remote location and went to the local gas dealer who did not carry aviator breathing oxygen. I asked for medical oxygen and was told I needed a doctor's prescription for that. So I just got oxygen, which you would refer to as welding oxygen.

If breathing "welding oxygen" (which is really just pure oxygen out of the same source as all the others) would kill you I would be dead long ago.

As a practical matter, I normally just buy aviator breathing oxygen as the cost difference is minor and the bottles look more impressive to the naive.

Mike Mullins

[kallend 2,027]

Indeed.

100 million tons of O2 are extracted from air for various commercial/industrial uses annually. The most common method is to fractionally distill liquefied air into its various components, with nitrogen N2 distilling as a vapor while oxygen O2 is left as a liquid. It all goes into the same bulk storage tanks regardless of final use.

...

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

[Manuel1 0]

There are actually 7 grades of oxygen. You dont really want to use welding O2 for breathing gases. Not so much the moisture content, but the purity level. Do a hydro on a steel welding tank and they usually have to be tumbled to get clean. I do a lot of cold water scuba diving and I use at least a grade E of oxygen for limiting my free flows. The USP grade system starts at 99.0 purity. So the difference isnt really all that much. However, when it comes to sustaining life, I am going to use the recommended grade. If you need a perscription for medical O2 all that I do is see my family doctor and he gives me a perscription. Airgas here in Ohio just wants to see a ARC O2 admin card on file.

[LouDiamond 1]

Quote

Lou Diamond,

We are just going to have to agree to disagree on this issue.
I am quoting an article published in Aviation Consumer Magazine ... about five years ago.
While you are quoting an old MIL SPEC for aviators' oxygen.
While US military hospitals might still use moist oxygen, most civilian hospitals now use dry oxygen. The last time I read the label on a oxygen bottle - in an ambulance - there was no mention of moisture.

Tomorrow I will confirm this with a respiratory therapist who works in hospitals near Vancouver.

The problem with the internet is that not everyone reading it is in the USA. While most O2 in the USA doesn't contain moisture, there are other places that might have it available. Likewise, I cannot know what the person reading this information might do. It's wise to put it out there NOT to use medical O2 with moisture in it because there is a very real chance someone may get their hands on a bottle of medical O2 and think it is OK to use it. This issue is compounded by the fact that most civilian O2 systems are piecemeal and use equipment not designed for the environment it will be used in. This can increase the chance of said moisture possibly freezing somewhere in the system.

It is always best to err on the side of safety, as it was mentioned above, oxygen is not something to play around with, be it the fire hazard or the use of it by humans at high altitudes.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[totter 2]

Quote

http://www.mhoxygen.com/

Check out this web site that billvon suggested. This company MAKES O2 systems for aircraft. If you are looking for a system to supply 8-10 people this would be the company to talk to. No need to over design a system like you would for a Twin Otter.
They build systems for General Aviation that are self contained (regulators, manifolds, etc ...) and would be the size that you are looking for (meaning tankage).
A welding tank is just to big and bulky for continues use in a Porter, plus it would add unnecessary weight for continues use. Most of their systems are 4-6 place, but I'm sure that you could piggy back them. Not sure how many loads one tank would last but they do design them for extended flights. Usually for 1-2 hours duration.
If the pilot will be required to have his/her own bottle, Mountain High Oxygen sells them too. Used to have 4 of the bottles for the pilots to use for Big Ways or to do ferry flights. The bottle are about the size of a litter bottle. They held enough for 8 loads to 18k or 4 hours of flight.
All can be filled from a larger bottle that is kept on the ground.
The one good thing about these systems are that they a designated (PORTABLE), which here in the States, means that you do not need approval to have and use them in the aircraft. Just don't screw it down.

[AndyMan 7]

Quote

Quote
http://www.mhoxygen.com/

Check out this web site that billvon suggested.

Chicagoland Skydiving Center uses this system (or one just like it,not sure) in their Otter and PAC.

As a jumper, it is by far the nicest oxygen system I've used - the hoses snap in securely and a pinwheel in the hose tells you there's oxygen flowing.

The pilots love it too, since there's two lines coming off the bottle, they can keep their O2 running while the jumpers system gets shut off at the green light.

_Am

__

You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead.

[mutumbo 0]

If medical grade oxygen has moisture in it then why is it every time i go to pick up a patient on continuous o2 are they on a humidifier? As far as i know all forms of o2 that comes in a can that is meant to be breathed wheather its medical grade or SCUBA oxygen is completely dry.

Thanatos340(on landing rounds)--
Landing procedure: Hand all the way up, Feet and Knees Together and PLF soon as you get bitch slapped by a planet.

[LouDiamond 1]

*Aviation grade oxygen;
- 99.5% minimum oxygen content.
-Tested for moisture content because of the risk of freezing at high altitudes. Maximum moisture content is guaranteed.
-Higher cost when compared to the medical and welding grades.

*Medical grade oxygen;
-99% minimum oxygen content.
-Regulated the same as prescription drugs.
-Maximum level of CO and CO2 gas is guaranteed.

*Welding (Industrial) grade oxygen;
-99.5% minimum oxygen content.

*Research grade oxygen;
-Highest grade of oxygen.

http://www.zaviation.ca/training/oxyfacts.htm

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[totter 2]

Remember, it all comes down to what the authorities on the far side of the world tell our Kiwi friend what he needs to use.
If they say AVIATOR'S, then thats what he needs to use.
I do agree with LouDiamond to the fact that we do not know what the standards are for O2 on the far side, so its better to initially say, "Use Aviator's" because that is a standard that is pretty much universal. If our Kiwi pal finds out that all three are the same standard, as some state here in the New World, then the choice is his if allowed.
I've always used Aviator's, so I will stay out of that end of the discussion.