I Learned About Flying From That: 18,300 Feet in a Cessna 150

Ken Fransen

Thursday, February 14, 2013 at 01:50 AM ET

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Key Takeaways:

A young pilot, seeking an altitude record, unintentionally climbed a Cessna 150 to 18,300 feet, far exceeding safe altitudes without supplemental oxygen.
During the ascent, he experienced hypoxia, which insidiously impaired his judgment, leading to euphoria, difficulty with tasks, and a dangerous delay in realizing his life-threatening condition.
The incident highlights how hypoxia can affect even safety-conscious pilots, causing them to make critical errors, and underscores the importance of current FAA oxygen regulations for high-altitude flight.

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The cloud were building beautifully over the California coast range. I was back from college for the weekend and itching to fly, so I grabbed my camera and hopped into one of the Fresno Sky Riders Club Cessna 150s. It was a 1963 model with the standard Continental O-200 engine, producing 100 galloping horsepower — no modifications, full fuel, calm day over the San Joaquin Valley with no updrafts. The fun weather was 60 miles to the west over the mountains. I was a skinny college kid, and 62Z took off smartly.

At the time, another young club member and I had a running competition (though not terribly serious) over who could take a 150 higher. The record was mine at that time — about 12,000 feet — because my friend was a little girthier than I. But an altitude record was not on my mind this beautiful fall 1971 day. I figured the cumulus would top out at about 8,000 or 10,000 feet, and my photo flight would be over.