Medics upstart altitude training

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Charles Rivezzo
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  At 25,000 feet, a C-17 Globemaster III pilot starts to feel a twitch in his right arm and his vision blurs, making it difficult to see. He's on the verge of blacking out.

Capt. Irena Farlik registers this as an early sign of hypoxia and flips a switch, pumping 100 percent pure oxygen into his flight mask. Luckily for the pilot, this was only a training scenario.

Farlik, an aerospace and operational physiologist, and Master Sgt. Keith Ravenel, an aerospace physiology technician, serve as Travis Air Force Base's Aerospace and Operational Physiology Team, providing "real world" refresher physiology training to aircrew members.

Previously unavailable at Travis, these Airmen stood the program up from scratch eliminating the need for aircrew members to travel to Beale Air Force Base, California, to accomplish the mandatory five-year recurring training.

According to Ravenel, the training focuses primarily on the real danger of becoming hypoxic while in flight.

Utilizing a Reduced Oxygen Breathing Device and Hypoxia Familiarization Trainer, they are able to effectively simulate altitude exposure and mimic any aircraft flying profile.

"The ROBD is a small device that mixes compressed gases to simulate altitude exposure and the is essentially an aircraft simulator that we can configure to mimic any aircraft," Ravenel said. "When combined, these devices deliver refresher physiology training to aircrew members in a real world environment without ever leaving the ground."

Farlik said that the symptoms of hypoxia differ from person to person. Some may experience hot flashes and heavy breathing while others may feel nauseous, tingling and even euphoria. The objective of the training is to assist the aircrew member in identifying how their body reacts when subjected to that type of environment.

"We never know what symptoms a person will experience and sometimes symptoms change throughout an individual's career," Farlik said. "That's why it is imperative that they are able to identify their unique symptoms in case they have a real-world situation occur, such as a leak in cabin pressurization. Failure to identify these symptoms can potentially lead to black outs, which can have deadly consequences."

Aside from the altitude simulation training, aircrew members must also take part in classroom instruction in order to gain a greater insight on a variety of human performance threats such as environmental threats, noise, fatigue, decompression sickness, situational awareness and spatial disorientation.

"The bottom line is that this type of training saves lives," Farlik added. "We touch on a lot of information dealing with human performance and being able to recognize your body's symptoms. If we can prepare our aircrew members to understand these environmental threats, we have achieved our objective." 

Furthermore, utilizing the ROBD/HFT instead of a traditional hypobaric chamber has proven to boast several cost-saving and safety benefits. Relatively inexpensive, the system saves an estimated $25,000 and more than 250 days a year in travel costs, but it is also a much safer environment. 

"Since we are not changing the pressure around the students as we do in the chamber, there is no risk for ear or sinus trauma or developing decompression sickness," Farlik said. 

Aircrew members will still have to experience the altitude chamber during their technical training, but after that they are able to use the ROBD for the remainder of their careers.