High-Flying Hazards Many Calls Made On Research Unit

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28284, 23 May 1957, Page 9

High-Flying Hazards Many Calls Made On Research Unit

[By a Staff Reporter of “The Press")

An investigation of emergency equipment carried by Tasman Empire Airways’ DC-6 airliners is to be made this week. A representative of the Royal New Zealand Air Force aviation medicine unit at Wigram will travel to Whenuapai, at the request of the Civil Aviation Administration, to carry out the check to see whether the gear complies with the regulations. The unit will advise the administration of any deficiencies, and has been asked to make recommendations for the improvement of the emergency equipment carried by T.E.A.L. in its planes. The investigation sought by the administration is typical of numerous calls the unit —a military organised and maintained establishment answers in civil fields in addition to its programme of air force training and research. Last year the unit assisted the Government in a study of pilot fatigue in civil airlines. Glider Pilots Regular assistance is given glider pilots for the correct use of oxygen at high altitudes and advice is given them on the best types of protective clothing to wear. The unit is considering constructing an oxygen system some time in the future especially to meet conditions encountered by high-flying gliders. Information concerning the ability of styles and types of crash helmets to withstand shock is available to glider pilots, motorcyclists and helmet manufacturers. A catalogue of military work, some of it secret, is also extensive. One aviation problem the unit will specialise in will be high cockpit temperatures. Already the unit has sent aloft an observer in civil planes to study high cockpit humidity. This was a comparatively simple study compared with the proposed intensive investigation of temperatures in military planes. Human Guinea Pig

As a “guinea pig” on unprotected runs to test human reactions one physiologist at the unit has been subjected to temperatures up to 230 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat was supplied by the sun beating through the clear plastic canopy of a Canberra bomber’s glasshouse-type cockpit. Yet closed in behind the pilot, the bomber’s navigator can sometimes be freezing. Heat on the pilot has been partially baffled by an overhead radiation shield but for complete comfort of both men some kind of thermostat suit to provide individual “climates” which can be controlled by the wearers is thought desirable.

A plant is being designed to fit a long narrow empty room at the z unit headquarters. It will supply r cockpit heat while a volunteer i sits and sweats and a sensitive j arrangement of scales records his I sweat loss. The unit believes the equipment and experiments will i assist in determining the detri- t mental effect of heat on a pilot’s c efficiency and health with a view 1 to taking steps to overcome the 5 problem. s Results of the experiments will be made available to civilian 1 industries where men work in ( heat, and to the navy, which has its own problem in hot engine rooms. “We are also interested in the physiology of it, why things happen,” one of the unit’s staff said. “Generally, we concern ourselves with applied, rather than fundamental science; that is, putting to use facts other people have already discovered. Engineers are now working on special thermostat suits to give each man his own private warmth and coolness as he requires it. With an increased air force commitment in Malaya, New Zealand may well have a need for these types of “control-over- ! environment” suits. Closer to home is a similar problem which will probably be solved in the next few weeks. i Crews of the air force twinengine Devon passenger planes regularly flying in and out of Wigram ani other fields all over I New Zealand have compained of uncomfortable cold when flying. : The unit is to send men flying in the planes on a number of flights to measure the cold and recommend the most effcient types of clothing readily available to protect crews. Seeing in Darkness Night vision training is another aspect of the unit’s work. Aircrew are taught how to increase the efficiency of their sight in darkness and adapt their eyes to changes and reductions in light. An ingenious projector in a light-tight room simulates landscapes with buildings and ships and planes in fog, cloud and clear sky as changed by the instructor. \ The unit is young (18 months) but it is steadily going ahead with research and testing. It is investigating the performance of solar stills which produce drinking - water from seas and is giving advice on flying clothing and survival equipment. The still gear is being tried out before the British Ministry of Supply puts it into use with the Royal Air Force. Although the unit is modelled on ideas and practice at the Farnborough Institute of Air Medicine it is making independent investigations and initiating research where operational conditions differ between Britain and New Zealand. Survival Gear For instance, most British gear and instruction is base.d on survival, evasion and escape on land. New Zealand surrounded by sea and with its aircraft operating iu parts of the Pacific Ocean and arpund Malaya has primarily a sea survival problem. Although the Royal Air Force is also concerned with Arctic survival, increased New Zealand interest in the opposite and of the earth would mean more research into polar survival because of the difference of conditions in the Antarctic from those encountered in the north polar regions; especially during the summer when flying is generally carried out. Last week tests of a Royal Air Force-type dinghy were made in 51 degrees Fahrenheit • water in the Wigram pool, to find out if an injured man could get into the partly-inflated craft and inflate it without the help of the normal compressed gas supply. The dinghy has a quilted cover to keep out

cold and moisture. Another of its type is being tested in the Antarctic by members of the New Zealand expedition flight there. Hearing Tests The unit is also responsible for seeing that the hearing of all aircrew in the Dominion is up to standard. Continual exposure to noise causes crews to lose some of their hearing ability, and if they lose too much they are grounded. Tests are done in a soundproof room with a machine playing over a word test against a background of noise at the level (about 100 decibels) usually encountered over an aircraft intercommunication system.

A laboratory is used for chemical analysis. Much of its work is testing the sea water processed in airmen’s survival stills. An oven in the laboratory contains for 48 hours at a time the plastic stills under test to see that the plastic will not weld in tropical conditions. The stills are subjected to continuous heat of 160 degrees Fahrenheit. New high-flying planes for the air force, such as Canberra medium bombers, could involve the unit in considerable expansion. Two of the main items would be a new decompression chamber for simulating atmospheric altitudes of at least 50,000 ft and an ejector escape seat training apparatus. The chamber in use at present is a Canadian war-built model later used by the Otago School of Physiology. It has a “ceiling” of 30,000 ft. In the summer months, members of the unit’s staff sometimes escape from their warm rooms to the coolness of the chamber. One New Zealand pilot recently had to use a Vampire ejector seat over the sea.' As more modern planes are bought for the air force in re-equipment programmes an ejector training apparatus would h e a necessity. It could cost £35,000.