“AIR” FOB AVIATORS

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6735, 11 October 1928, Page 2

“AIR” FOB AVIATORS

" , , ~ „ . i TO SUSTAIN LIFE IN HIGH- * ALTITUDES. Compressed oxygen, put up in steel i bottles, is to-day a necessity for men - who fly high (says the San Francisco Chronicle). It has still tho same pro- ; portion of oxygen, but' there is not en- , ough of it. At an elevation of three and a halt miles the density of the air is about one-half what it is at sea level. At 1 five miles it is hardly more than, one-, third. When five-miles up, the aviator can with difficulty get enough air 3 into his lungs to furnish, the oxygen his blood requires. If he goes higher v is mind is liable to be affected.' His faculties cease to co-ordinate properly.: ; Ho may even become unconscious. Hence, a man who is going- far aloft must take a bottle of oxygen with him. A ready-at-hand supply of the life-giv- , ing gas has saved many an aviator and balloonist. At the aviation stations of the . United States Army and Navy, bottles of oxygon are always kept ready for use. The gas under, pressure, in...steel cylinders is a commercial product which has many industrial and other ■ uses. < . When wanted -for. use the oxygen ’is drawn from the cylindrical tanks and passed into the bottles , (which are -provided with valved stoppers) through, a-rubber tube.