While I was in the Air Force I found out the best way to catch a ride on any military aircraft. Get an Altitude Card. Most people don’t know this but the military and particularly the Air Force has regular flight schedules much like commercial airlines. These flights go all over the place. Basically from one air force base to another. The best part of this is that as an Officer you can hitch a ride on these flights any time you want FOR FREE. There are visiting officers quarters, a gym, a pool, a bowling alley, a theater, many times a golf course and of course the Officers Club. Not to mention the Base Exchange. If you were flying into Nellis AFB, as an example, outside Las Vegas it wouldn’t be too tough to enjoy what Las Vegas has to offer and you would get there for FREE and stay in extremely affordable quarters. Now these flights do not require an Altitude Card. That is reserved for planes that fly at higher altitudes. The scuttlebutt was that I should go to the Altitude Chamber and get a card so that I then could fly on any Air Force plane…period. I signed up to go through the training. Not a big deal. I flew into Barksdale AFB the night before the training. I stopped at this sandwich shop on base and got a sandwich. I mistakenly put raw horseradish on the sandwich, I thought it was coleslaw. I thought I was going to die. The experience was horrific. I don’t know if this was somebody’s idea of a joke but I do think that they should have warned the unsuspecting customer about the horseradish. Once I survived the sandwich shop, went to my quarters and got ready for the training the next day. There were about 15 of us going through the training. Basically you start in a classroom and they go over the basics then it’s on to the Altitude Chamber. They are able to simulate actual scenarios in the chamber, like cabin losing pressure, a hole in the fuselage, etc. We were instructed like they do on commercial aircraft to know how to handle loss of cabin pressure. First of all there is serious condensation in the air, a drop in temperature and the oxygen masks drop down. Like on commercial aircraft you are to put your mask on and then help your partner. This all sounds great until it happens. I cannot believe how I reacted to the “explosion” and loss of cabin pressure. You would have thought that I was going to die. I might just as well have missed all the previous classroom instruction because for that moment I was out of control. I managed to get the mask on and was finally able to help my partner.
Here is the final tidbit which I thought was interesting and funny at the same time. They provide you with a list of symptoms on a sheet of paper on a clip board. There is also a list of 10 questions. What they want you to do is go without oxygen and start answering the questions. At the same time number your symptoms in the order that they happen. You have a partner and you take turns experiencing hypoxia. The first time I have the oxygen on and my partner is without oxygen. He starts taking the test. Who is the president, what is your name, what year is it and so on. The last question out of 10 is count backwards from 100. The answers are easy for about 5 questions then things start to go sideways. By the time the person is counting backwards from 100 they have pretty much lost it. 100, 73, 42,90, 5 and then the pencil makes some random mark on the page and you give this person oxygen. During the time of taking the test your partner has been numbering their symptoms in the order they occur because each person will experience the same symptoms in the same sequence each time they are deprived of oxygen… headache, dizziness, and one of the symptoms is impaired judgement. The thing that struck me funny is that once you number impaired judgement how can any symptom after that mean anything. We all had fun watching our partners succumb to hypoxia. It was a great experience and we all received our Altitude Cards. I was glad to have it even though I never needed it on any of the flights that I took. Still… Good to Have. Also a life experience to share.
