The first thing that happens to most passengers above 12,000 feet is they fall asleep. Some commercial operators will fly almost to 14,000 but are themselves on oxygen, when the passengers are obnoxious. Invariably the a$$holes fall into silent dreamland! Federal regs demand that passengers be provided with oxygen ABOVE 14,000!
I for one, really enjoy high altitude flying. My trip out to City of Rocks this past July 4th was at 12,500' over the Wasatch Mountains near Logan, UT. I set the timer and measured out my "legal" time above 12,500 which occurred just as I crested the range. Then a fast ride "downhill" to 10,500 at Malad City. That was a 500 fpm descent rate at 156 kias.
I've only done two static line jumps at 3,000+ ft...
I am terrified of heights, so it was kind of a big deal for me.
It was also a big deal that I hit my chin on the wheel of the plane after climbing out on the wind strut and "letting go". I didn't lose any teeth, thankfully.
I did, however, have a tire mark on my chin for about 3 months. No lie.
Good times.
~peace
EDIT: Terrified of heights = Skydiving, bungee jumping, and becoming a climbing instructor, teaching others to conquer their fears.
Still terrified of heights, which keeps me in "check", but chasing adventure!! :)
Igor Sikorsky started building airplanes, or more accurately, flying boats.
I saw an interesting interview with him during which he recounted flying in
one of his clippers down the coast of Florida at low altitude along the beach.
While doing so he was suddenly overcome by a strong sense of deja vu. Then
he realized with a start that he was seeing the exact scene that he had
previously seen 60 years before as a child in Russia only that time it had
been a dream! Whoa!
r Dave over at Shorpy.com allows us to see history in an entirely new light with his ongoing submissions of large-format Kodachromes. Dave's website generally focuses on extracting pictures from the online catalog of the Library of Congress and sharing them with a wide audience, but his personal effort to adjust the color and contrast of these archived transparencies has amplified their reality and even enlivened them.
Let us know!