ismael chang ghalimi

High Altitude Training

I completed my high altitude training today. Eliot and I flew N423SR to Beale Air Force Base to attend the Aerospace Physiology Training organized by the FAA Civil Aerospace Medical Institute (CAMI). On my way there and back, I had the privilege of carrying a former captain who flew on Boeing 747 for Cathay Pacific. The training program was absolutely fascinating, to the point where I almost passed out in the decompression chamber (sorry, no pictures…). Definitely an eye opener regarding the risks inherent to high altitude flying. We also got to see four U2 planes, including one doing some pattern work at incredibly slow speed, and a couple of Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), which definitely are much bigger in real life than they look on pictures. Overall, a fantastic trip, which added 2.2 hours of SR22 experience onto my logbook and completed my transition to Cirrus SR22 GTS Turbo transition, for both G2 and G3 models. Awesome!

I think you lost useful consciousness. The average time for this loss is about 3-5 minutes at 25,000’. You were still conscious but not alert and quite a bit faded. I can’t say that I was very useful either after 10 minutes in that environment.