“Visiting units get a couple of days on base to begin their acclimation to altitude so that they can function well as they move into the training area and get to those slightly higher altitudes,” he said. “Between 8,000 feet and 10,000 feet is the first stage for human acclimation at altitude,” said Lawrence. They explained acclimating to high altitude is gradual and passive. “From there, there are multiple elevations, up to the 10,000-foot level, so there's a lot of variability depending on what the mission set is they're training towards.” Michael Gumpert, a physician assistant and head of the Branch Health Clinic Bridgeport, Naval Hospital Twentynine Palms. And since the training center is located on thousands of acres of national forest land with variable elevations, it’s an “ideal” location to train for acclimation, said Lawrence. The three-week-long course is divided into didactic classroom learning, some conditioning, and mobility and technical skills, he said. (Dr.) Kevin Lawrence, the officer in charge of the course in mountain medicine. “We teach both Navy corpsmen and other joint and allied force medics and medical personnel, high-altitude physiology and pathology, or illnesses,” said U.S. Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center, in Bridgeport, California, runs an eight-course curriculum designed to train U.S., joint, and allied militaries to operate in mountainous, high-altitude, and cold weather environments. Service members routinely operate on land at mountainous locations of varying altitudes to which they must properly acclimate. However, pilots are not the only service members operating at high altitudes in the air. “While oxygen is important, so is the need to control the altitude through the use of cabin pressurization systems.”Īnd depending on the mechanical structure of a given aircraft, other equipment may be necessary, he said, such as a full-pressure suit for U-2 pilots or a G-suit for high-performance aircraft operators. “This is similar to fire fighters, who are not conditioned to work in fires but are instead prepared to mitigate the risk.”įor air crews to operate at high altitudes, “the human system must be seamlessly integrated into the aircraft system,” he explained. “The Air Force takes a holistic approach to high-altitude operations, ensuring operational success by focusing on personnel selection, training, and equipment,” he added. Elliott Reed, chief of the physiological training branch at the Air Force Research Laboratory's 711th Human Performance Wing, at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio. Operating at high-altitude environments “is inherently hazardous,” said U.S. Training and acclimating your body to operate optimally at altitudes higher than what you’re used to is key. ![]() Symptoms can include head and muscle aches, shortness of breath, dizziness, and nausea, and may take between 1-3 days to subside. Yet even operating in locations above 4,000 feet above sea level can cause acute mountain sickness, the most common and mild form of altitude illness, and decreased performance. It can cause altitude illness within hours after arriving at high altitudes as your body tries to adjust and you may require oxygen and medication to feel better. The lower pressure in that environment means there’s decreased availability of oxygen in the air around you, which lowers the oxygen supply to your body. ![]() High altitude - generally considered at about 8,000 feet or more above sea level - can negatively affect service members’ health as well as their physical and mental performance, especially if they’re not properly acclimated to it.
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