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Asian Acute Respiratory Disease Spreads Worldwide!


rookie

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Hi!

 

Very unscientific, but I calculated once that when you inhale on a plane you are getting air that has already been breathed about 20 times already.

 

Actually this varys from airline to airline. Compressing the outside air to cabin pressure costs a lot of energy so it stands to reason to guess that the budget price airlines recycle more air than the expensive ones.

 

regards

 

ALHOLK

 

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Uh, planes fly at a height of around 10 kilometer. The temperature and lack of oxygyn up there would kill you long before you reached the ground.

 


 

Of course you could equip the passengers with small portable breathing devices, like US Special Forces for their 35,000 feet HALO jumps (High Altitide, Low Opening)....

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Hi!

 

The cabin air compression system on most modern airliners is driven by the jet engines so there is no additional cost.

 

Regardless if it is driven by the main engines or an auxillory unit it uses energy and thus uses fuel. The more air ithat is compressed the more fuel is consumed.

 

regards

 

ALHOLK

 

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The load placed on the engines by the compressors uses a meaningless fraction of their output and the fuel cost even at maximum range and altitude would be measured in tens of pounds for the entire flight. A difference which makes no difference is no difference.

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Two interesting facts:

 

According to a National Academy of Sciences report, airline pilots get ten times more oxygen than economy passengers.

 

On 747's, the average cost of running each of the 3 air packs that compress the air is just $80/hour. Standard procedure is to use only 2 these days. It might be useful to know that if you complain of air sickness, the standard procedure is for them to turn on all 3 air packs.

 

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While I don't know what the fuel cost of running a compressor is I was told by a pilot that 747s have two or three air mixing devices that cost 60-70USD/hr to run. This pilot (Singapore Airlines) told me he was under verble instruction to run on one air mixer unless passengers complained. This was several years ago so perhaps this is no longer the case. However I can't help but believe that there is an economic dis-incentive to providing more fresh air.

 

ag

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