My idea is that when traveling the world, getting an oxygen bottle filled might be a real problem. What I want is oxygen supplied that I can use up to 18,000 feet that never needs refilling. No oxygen bottles! Some system that treats the air at those altitudes and gets it to a pressure that I can breath in and retain the same sort of ‘saturation’ in my body that I have at sea level.

To achieve this I’m going to use an Oxygen Concentrator. These are portable devices people use on the ground for supplemental oxygen as required for certain medical conditions. The units compress the ambient air and with come chemical magic deliver oxygen in a pulse method triggered by an intake of breath. This is similar to the pulse demand oxygen systems that normally go with an oxygen bottle.

Before I installed my Oxygen system I needed to test it in real world conditions. I bought an Inogen One G2 second hand and had it serviced and checked. It weights 7lbs and runs off its own battery (good for a couple of hours) or a 14v aircraft power system. It was originally designed for being used at home with 240volts but has an adapter for the car or when traveling on a passenger plane.

Here’s the unit and just on the right is a fingertip pulse oximeter. I had this calibrated at a hospital and I received some instruction on when readings were reliable.  The usual power brick is on the floor and a cannula is shown plugged in. For the test I just used battery power.

I flew with the generosity of a pilot (Dave) with a very nice Mooney. His updated panel was really impressive and convinced me to go for the expensive GTN750 if I both afford and fit it in my panel. The previous plan was the smaller GTN650 which Dave also has.

Dave filed an IFR plan and after take off we headed south and climbed straight up to FL180. That 18,000′ and the limit allowed for a cannula system. Higher than that a full flow mask is mandated.

My plan was that he would be on his plane’s usual oxygen system the whole time and there would be oxygen available for me if my system didn’t work. I’d know this by continuous checking with the finger oximeter. As I was the passenger, he did all the flying and I considered this a good safe method to test my system.

Below are my simple test results. I was at 98% on the ground as we taxied out. At 10,500′ you can see quite a low reading of 82%. I took a few extra breaths and it went right up again. I was learning that I need to concentrate on normal good breaths, not those of a lazy passenger taking in the view and super relaxed. Oh yes and thats my usual handwriting, not those of an O2 deprived person. Too much keyboard work perhaps.

We went into a holding pattern at 18,000 feet for over 15 minutes and I found that while there was one low reading of 94% a few extra breaths and I was back up to 97% which was very easy to maintain there after with normal breathing. I should have been more excited, the system WORKS! It’s going in my plane.