Real Hypoxia Training at FlightSafety

FLYING Staff

Friday, May 12, 2006 at 08:00 AM ET

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Key Takeaways:

FlightSafety International, in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic, has introduced a new "mixed-gas" simulator for pilot training that safely replicates high-altitude hypoxia by altering the oxygen-nitrogen mix in breathing air, avoiding the risks of traditional altitude chambers.
This innovative training helps pilots identify their own unique and often subtle early symptoms of hypoxia in a realistic flying environment, rather than just learning general symptoms in a classroom.
The course involves two phases: first, identifying personal hypoxia symptoms during non-flying cognitive tasks, and then experiencing and reacting to hypoxia while actively flying a simulator.
This realistic training addresses a significant safety threat by enabling pilots to recognize the onset of hypoxia early enough to take corrective action, even when symptoms are subtle and might otherwise be ignored during flight.

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A mantra in pilot training is that you should train the way you fly, and then fly the way you train. Thanks to its enormous fleet of Level C and D full-flight simulators, FlightSafety International has been providing absolute realism in flight training for many years, except in one area-high altitude physiology. Until now, the only training FlightSafety and other schools could provide is classroom education about the effects of high altitude on the body and pilot performance. Now, for the first time, pilots can safely experience real hypoxia in a flight simulator without leaving the ground.

FlightSafety has teamed up with the Mayo Clinic to create a device that changes the mix of nitrogen and oxygen in the air a pilot breathes to exactly simulate the effects of high altitude physiology. The Mayo Clinic has a long history in the study of flight physiology, dating back to the 1930s. The clinic was among the first medical facilities to use supplemental oxygen to treat patients. That work, plus an intense interest in aviation by its founders, led the clinic to the study of high altitude pilot physiology and development of some of the first effective oxygen masks for pilots. During World War II the clinic built the first centrifuge to study the effects of G-loads on pilots, and that led to the invention of the G-suit that squeezes the lower body, and the straining maneuver that helps pilots combat the debilitating effects of Gs.