How does the Bonanza work above 10,000ft?
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I did a bunch of digging through the manual, and it seems like Bonanzas are not pressurized, even the turbonormalized and even turboprop variants. I did not pick up the Analog Overhaul of it, though I do have the Analog Caravan, but largely avoided flying above 10k so I didn't really think about it until now.
In practice, how exactly does it work flying an unpressurized plane above 10kft? I see there is supplemental oxygen on board, I guess everyone just masks up for the duration? Does that functionally limit you to a few thousand feet above 10kft, or could you do that all the way up to the service ceiling of 25kft fairly comfortably?
I don't know that anyone runs a Bonanza commercially, but I know the Caravan is, so in some place where you had to go to or above the 10kft limit, do commercial passengers mask up, or do they just avoid those areas? I did a winter tour in my virtual airline in the Caravan in Alaska, in which that was a fairly common thing for parts of the route.
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I'll have to keep this short today, but when you ask real aviation questions, I like to give real aviation answers
Yes, the unpressurized aircraft in my Professional Series have supplemental oxygen, and I even recently improved this system to account for different sized oxygen cylinders, and added duration tables to all the manuals.
At least in the US, 10,000ft is not the hard limit (or any limit at all). In the US, 12,500ft is the soft limit, where you can be over it for 30 minutes without oxygen. After that, 14,000ft is the hard limit for crew, and 15,000ft for passengers. From there, your simple nasal cannula will only get you to 18,000ft. After that, you need a full face "re-breather" mask. Lastly, after 25,000ft, you need the "diluter demand" mask, which you can see for crew in my Starship and TBM.
Yes, I would think Caravan operators would just remain below at least 15,000ft, unless special circumstances in mountainous areas required it.
I hope that answers some of your questions! I think I got to everything. Always happy to add more!
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I'll have to keep this short today, but when you ask real aviation questions, I like to give real aviation answers
Yes, the unpressurized aircraft in my Professional Series have supplemental oxygen, and I even recently improved this system to account for different sized oxygen cylinders, and added duration tables to all the manuals.
At least in the US, 10,000ft is not the hard limit (or any limit at all). In the US, 12,500ft is the soft limit, where you can be over it for 30 minutes without oxygen. After that, 14,000ft is the hard limit for crew, and 15,000ft for passengers. From there, your simple nasal cannula will only get you to 18,000ft. After that, you need a full face "re-breather" mask. Lastly, after 25,000ft, you need the "diluter demand" mask, which you can see for crew in my Starship and TBM.
Yes, I would think Caravan operators would just remain below at least 15,000ft, unless special circumstances in mountainous areas required it.
I hope that answers some of your questions! I think I got to everything. Always happy to add more!
@Black-Square By all means, if you have more to offer on the topic, I am an empty sponge.
I think I have 10kft in my head because that's where everything with a pressurized cabin seems to sound the cabin alt alarm, but 12,500 does ring a bell from when I was looking into it.
And for the diluter demand mask on the Starship, do you mean that's what's modeled in their storage alcoves, or you can actually see them on the passenger/crew models in the Starship? If so I'll have to play around some more.
The nasal canula also sounds familiar, as before I really went down the third-party plane rabbit hole, the DA62 was (and still is, I suppose) my favorite stock airplane, and I briefly ended up looking into that since it is also not pressurized.
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@Black-Square By all means, if you have more to offer on the topic, I am an empty sponge.
I think I have 10kft in my head because that's where everything with a pressurized cabin seems to sound the cabin alt alarm, but 12,500 does ring a bell from when I was looking into it.
And for the diluter demand mask on the Starship, do you mean that's what's modeled in their storage alcoves, or you can actually see them on the passenger/crew models in the Starship? If so I'll have to play around some more.
The nasal canula also sounds familiar, as before I really went down the third-party plane rabbit hole, the DA62 was (and still is, I suppose) my favorite stock airplane, and I briefly ended up looking into that since it is also not pressurized.
@jmarkows just for your information, the altitudes over Europe (EASA) are a bit different:
-no oxygen below 10.000ft
-oxygen for flight segments above 10.000ft if they are longer than 30min
-oxygen for all flight operations above 13.000ftAbout the rest I'm not sure- I didn't learn about any other requirements, but I'm not flying anything that could even go that high.
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@jmarkows just for your information, the altitudes over Europe (EASA) are a bit different:
-no oxygen below 10.000ft
-oxygen for flight segments above 10.000ft if they are longer than 30min
-oxygen for all flight operations above 13.000ftAbout the rest I'm not sure- I didn't learn about any other requirements, but I'm not flying anything that could even go that high.
@Jannik-Stein Thanks for sharing. Despite making aircraft for anyone around the world, my regulatory knowledge is entirely US based. I wonder if there is a logical reason for this, like that most of Europe occupies higher latitudes than the US, and the tropopause is lower in the winter at higher latitudes, or if it just reflects a different appetite for risk.
