ilovecornfields

Any MSC can get you the STC. If you go to the Mooney factory web page they should have a list of Mooney Service Centers. Make sure your propeller qualifies before you shell out the $5000 for the STC

You’re not being serious, right? The accident rate depends on the number of accidents (which you posted) divided by the number of exposures (which you didn’t and is several orders of magnitude higher given the number of people driving vs flying). You essentially have given zero information on the actual accident rate but somehow used this to justify that flying is safer?! I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you were being facetious.

Anyone else get uncomfortable when they think about how safe we convince ourselves GA is and then think about all the accidents/fatalities at or or the way to Oshkosh each year? I guess we’re still doing better than Sturgis, but not by much.

I like those covers over the back seats. Did you make them yourself? What kind of material is it?

“In 1967, Kaczynski's dissertation, Boundary Functions,[35] won the Sumner B. Myers Prize for Michigan's best mathematics dissertation of the year.[8] Allen Shields, his doctoral advisor, called it "the best I have ever directed",[19] and Maxwell Reade, a member of his dissertation committee, said, "I would guess that maybe 10 or 12 men in the country understood or appreciated it."[8][30] In late 1967, the 25-year-old Kaczynski became an acting assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught mathematics.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski Does this win the thread drift prize?

No, but he was an assistant professor in the math department.

The closest I’ll ever get to winning a Nobel prize was parking my motorcycle in the “Nobel Laureate” parking space in college.I figured if they gave me a ticket I could always just ask for a refund once I won my Nobel prize. I miss being young and knowing everything. Not to brag, but I don’t think @aviatoreb’s department had any “nobel laureate” parking spaces. They did have the Unabomber, though.

Safety pilot, shmafety pilot. I actually rarely fly above 12k’. Of course if I see my sat dropping I’ll just put on the oxygen and abort the experiment. I’m not going to sacrifice myself in the name of science.

I understand that concept and quoted that as well, but it doesn’t match my empirical observations and seems a little simplistic. Maybe my observations are wrong, or maybe there’s more to it. If “only pressure matters” then that means there are no other significant physiologic effects with change in temperature and we know that’s not true. Changes in respiratory rate, tidal volume, heart rate, metabolic oxygen demand and even the sensation of dyspnea are all affected my temperature so I’m not sure I’m ready to say “nothing else matters.” I couldn’t find a study on this so I’m going to do one- for the next year, one hour into my flight I’m going to take the oxygen off and see where my SpO2 stabilizes. I’ll use the same pulse ox and finger and record the HR, SpO2, indicated altitude, pressure altitude, inside air temperature and outside air temp. Then I’ll plot things out and see what fits best. I’m going to hypothesize that “cabin density altitude” will provide the best fit, but we’ll see. Anyone else want to do the same?

I’ve found that my oxygen saturation seems to correlate more with density than pressure altitude. I agree with your wife about the temperature and humidity but not on the IM switch - I hated taking the internal medicine boards. I might reach out to someone who actually studied aerospace medicine and try to get a rap answer. I did do some more reading and found this which suggests that the oxygen uptake depends on partial pressure of oxygen. I guess the part I’m still not sure about is the effect of density altitude. Let’s say you take a deep breath and hold it - at higher density altitude you’ll have less oxygen molecules in your lungs than you would at a lower density altitude. As the oxygen gets replaced by CO2 I would imagine it would take less time to see your oxygen level drop because there’s less oxygen there to begin with. At lower density altitudes there are more oxygen molecules so it seems you would take longer to desat. Since there are other physiologic changes with altitude and temperature as well I’m not sure how these all balance out. I do know what my numbers seem to correlate more with density than pressure altitude but maybe I’m imagining the effect. I’ve never rigorously studied it. “Oxygen combines with hemoglobin, although much less avidly than does carbon monoxide. The partial pressure of oxygen in blood flowing through the pulmonary capillaries equals the partial pressure of oxygen within the alveolus by the time the red blood cell travels along about one third of the capillary length. Diffusion of oxygen across the alveolar capillary membrane is normally perfusion limited.” https://www.medmastery.com/guides/blood-gas-analysis-clinical-guide/diffusion-versus-perfusion-limited-gas-exchange

According to Flying magazine it’s pressure altitude, not density altitude they matters but that doesn’t seem to mirror my experience. I’m not sure what the right answer is. https://www.flyingmag.com/technique-proficiency-technicalities-hypoxia-your-fingertips/#:~:text=It is important to note,various membranes in the body. Here’s a more technical paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1114067/

I think your experience is pretty typical and representative of the FAA’s dated guidance on the subject. Most CFIs at the pilot mill schools don’t seem to do a lot of XC trips (since they can’t afford it) so they do a poor job teaching about real-world hypoxia and oxygen use in primary training. I get the feeling a lot of the “get there itis” and “poor inflight decision making” incidents had hypoxia as a huge contributing factor. There are a lot of hypoxic pilots flying around out there thinking that because they’re under 12,500 they are fine (even when the density altitude is 14.5k+). Given how cheap a pulse ox is and the increasing number of people with chronic lung diseases over the last couple of years it seems it’s time for the FAA to at least issue an AC with more realistic and helpful guidelines.

Well, I was resisting but since you asked… The 80% was probably real. The phrase “got up to 80” really concerns me because most people don’t make great choices when they’re really hypoxic. I wrote a letter to the editor recently to one of the big flying magazines who published an article about hypoxia and didn’t even mention just buying a pulse ox and using it. Crazy. I don’t care where it’s made- the $20 pulse ox you buy on Amazon is probably WAY better at estimating your oxygen saturation than you are. I’m not a huge fan of boost cans since when people are hypoxic for a while it can take quite a bit of time to recover. Given the cost of an oxygen system is basically a couple of tanks of fuel I really don’t understand why everyone doesn’t use it.

Well, it’s right next to the oxygen tank so you don’t have to bother looking for a place to land.

Seems like huge weight savings on a two-battery airplane. Would I have to get an MT prop to keep the CG within limits?