WHERE BLOOD WOULD BOIL.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20919, 28 July 1933, Page 4

WHERE BLOOD WOULD BOIL.

LIMIT OF FLYING HEIGHT. LONDON, June 23. The limit of flying height in an open cockpit aeroplane is about 60,000 ft, for, according to a calculation by Mr F. W. Lanchester published in the journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, at that height the blood would boil. This is the region of approximately 50 millimetres mercury gauge pressure, and, needless to say, life could not be maintained. The record height so far attained was Mr C. F. Uwin's 43,976 ft, a wprld's record held by Great Britain. For ascents exceeding 20,000 feet airmen use an artificial oxygen breathing outfit to make up for the air's deficiency in that essential, and to counteract the extreme cold they use electrically heated clothing. Mr Lanchester suggests that an alternative to the regular oxygen outfit would be the subcutaneous injection of oxygen, a method adopted by veterinary surgeons in the case of valuable animals under treatment for pneumonia. He adds: "I believe that if practised in the case of high altitude mountain climbing, such as the ascent of the last stages of Everest, it might make all the difference." A very small quantity of oxygen absorbed in this way would last long enough.