SPECIAL OXYGEN EQUIPMENT
USE IN HIGH PARACHUTE JUMPS
Washington, July 1. Testing special self-developed oxygen equipment, Lieutenant-Colonel William Lovelace, making his first jump, parachuted 40,200 feet, one of the highest recorded, perhaps the highest with an immediately opening parachute. The 7.61 mile drop occupied 23 minutes 51 seconds, through temperatures of 50 degrees below zero.
The equipment comprises a small cylinder sewn into the clothing, containing twelve minutes’ supply of oxygen. Speed is essential, because at 40.000 feet unconsciousness occurs within 15 seconds without oxygen, and the special supply must last from the time the flier disconnects his regular mask to when he is prepared to bale out and hurtles through oxygen-thin air. The War Department said Lieut.-Col. Lovelace suffered no ill-effects, except a frozen hand when his glove was torn off He is a former president of the Aero Medical Association and co-win-ner of the 1942 Collier trophy for aviation medical research. —P.A.
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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 2 July 1943, Page 5
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154SPECIAL OXYGEN EQUIPMENT Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 2 July 1943, Page 5
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