Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What's the highest you ever flew?

1946 Luscombe,

We flew over a 8600 foot peak, not by much! LOL

I don't really know, however high the plane flies between here and Alaska.

However I do know how deep I've been.....2800' in an underground copper mine.

That’s pretty funny.
I was raised on a cattle ranch between Fairplay and Hartsel Colorado. The elevation at the post office in Fairplay is 9,950 feet. Most places in South Park are at 10,000 and above.
Never needed to wear an oxygen mask. My lungs might be a little more developed than most though. 😁

US-34, aka Trail Ridge Road, is the highest-elevation continuous paved route in the United States. It peaks at 12,183 feet. It’s also called Beaver Meadow National Scenic Byway, and connects Grand Lake and Estes Park by way of Rocky Mountain National Park.



Here I am with my 10-speed on Trail Ridge Rd on my cross country bicycle trip. I must admit I was gasping for air, I was from Georgia elevation 420 feet. Not as much oxygen on Trail Ridge Rd.

About 11500 at controls of a Cessna 172
Probably 33000 to 35000.commercial.

10,000 in a Huey and 37,000 in a commercial jet. I was at 13,200 in a Cessna 172 last spring flying with my cousin's husband checking out the scenery of western Colorado.

kwg

I could dunk a basketball at one time

Never road a bicycle over Trail Ridge Rd, quite an accomplishment, but here I am in 1984 on my ‘74 BMW R90S.



My son, now 53, and I sitting on that same wall maybe. 😎

[u][/u]In the U.S oxygen requirements
Sea Level to 12,500' - No oxygen required.
12,501' to 14,000' - Required by the required crew if over 30 minutes at this altitude.
14,001' to 15,000' - Required to be provided and used by the required flight crew.
15,001' to 25,000' - Must be provided for every occupant. Canada might be different. The guidelines don’t guarantee you won’t get a headache or fatigue flying below the minimum legally at higher altitudes.

41,000 feet- Lear 35

Airliner? No idea but I bet I was asleep over an ocean.

41,000 feet in an EA-6B on a post-maintnance “profile A” test flight many times. It would only get up that high slick with no drop tanks or jamming pods on it. Helped to have the stores racks removed and you could get to 43,000.

The only time it got exciting is when the air line that inflated the rear canopy seal blew. The cabin went from about 25k to 41k in 3 seconds. Rolled on its back and nose straight down to below 10k. They had the helo on the line spooled up in case any of us had symptoms of decompression sickness and had to get us to the chamber at Bremerton but none of us did.

35,000 or so. I was on one flight where they had TV type monitors overhead about every third row. They showed the plane's location on a line that represented the path from beginning to end. They also listed speed, altitude, and temperature.

The only surprise was temperature. It's cold at 35,000 feet. If I remember correctly, it said -40F.

That is pretty much any trans ocean flight.....though for the last 10 or so years, most every seat has its own small monitor to watch.

I knew it would be cold that high. I didn't think it would be 40 below. It made me think about what kind of engineering went into making the engines function at that temperature.

Colder air is more dense providing more mass to the exhaust stream providing more thrust. Racers know how cold air affects horsepower.

When it turns colder, flight students tend to get behind the jet right after takeoff because the jet accelerates so much faster than they’re accustomed to.

And we could dump water on the steam jets so we didn't have to stay awake half the night to heat it... 😁

P-47s had a service ceiling of 42,000 feet. I realize that they had a big honkin' turbocharger that allowed them to function at that altitude. But I never thought about how the super cold temperatures would affect their big radial engines.

There's a U.S. Army Air Corp instruction video on YouTube which instructs the proper manner to fly the P-47. It's a complicated plane to fly full tilt. It's amazing to me that those pilots could keep track of how to get maximum performance out of it when under the stress of fighting. Both the turbo and the water injection had to be operated and if you cranked it up too much you could blow the engine.

60K-ish in an F-16. Ceiling is supposed to be 50K, but I was doing about 1.9M and pulled the nose up a little. She can flat get away from you when she's a-scootin' up there. Had to push over a bit to get going back down. Can't pull it out of burner based on how the motor works and got to keep a little positive "G" to keep the oil system happy. Was kind of on a parabola and just rode it back down. In the early '80s a buddy went to 73K and the pressurization system (ECS) shut down. That can get dangerous without a pressure suit. He lived. In the early 90s another buddy was at 50K going Mach 2 and decided it would be cool to do a loop. He lived too, but lost the engine and the ECS, both of which he got started again and brought it home. I never saw the video, but he probably beat the 73K number.
Got several U-2 and SR-71 buddies that consider those altitudes "down in the weeds" LOL.

Cheers,
Rex

After my high school graduation (NorCal 1980). It was an annual "trip" to Disneyland that the school sponsored. My first time in a plane...

Yup that was the talk in those days when they left to fly over Baker. One gye had a heart condition which didn't help matters but he didn't mention having any problems except that it was the highest he ever flew.