Teach me how to SKI

Oh well … you did say you had loads of tenacity and aspirations … so I did try, didn't I?

When was the last time you flew and got those bad ears? I ask because the last time my ears suffered must be at least 15 years ago. Reason being that the aircraft pressurisations systems are ten times better than in the old BAC111, 727, and 737-200 days. The key to understanding old myths about flying discomfort is to understand what used to happen and what happens now.

It is a known fact that human ears can cope very well with going up but much less well with coming down and for that reason there have, for some years now, been recommended minimum times for the pilots to use in increasing the cabin pressure back to ground level pressure when coming down. The recommended limit on speed of repressurisation is the equivalent of 300 feet of lost height per minute in "cabin altitude". Bearing in mind that the maximum cabin altitude in any commercial airliner now is about 8,000 or often less (i.e. no worse than standing atop an 8,000 foot mountain where of course you can still breath quite easily without extra oxygen unless you are a smoker), that means you can expect to have your ears gently handled by the pilot when coming down in a modern airliner over a period of 8,000/300 = approx. 26 minutes from the top of descent. Airliners of course fly much higher than that, but the cabin pressure is held artificially at 8,000 or less and no higher.

You will feel something on the way up, but it won't give you pain. And if you really think your ears are worse than everyone elses, you just have to remember on the way down to hold your nose and gently puff your cheeks once or twice to help equalise the pressure in your Eustachians and inner ears to that pressing on your eardrums in the cabin! The air is also much better from high bypass turbofan engines than from the old straight through exhaust type jets! And flying is not at all expensive on Ryanair and some of the others. The way you tell it, you'll probably spend more on getting to the airport than on the flying!

Anyway, good luck!

pattypan4 wrote: »

I can tell you have a passion for planes Peterbaker. I have a passion for my scrollsaw, love my home hobbies tbh and love my hobby groups. Just feel like spreading my wings a bit, its quite hard to be too adventurous when you are an older female solo eg I would not sit solo in a local pub.

Ha! Nor would I! Nor have I ever! But I would sit solo messing about up in the clouds more often if I had spare cash!

And the old body bit … we old blokes also suffer too, but I see more and more in their seventies regularly at the gym, and even more surprising, playing tennis too. Neither their bods nor minds seem to go to seed as fast as those that sit at home or get driven around on a bus.

I got told recently that regular tennis (an hour or two once or twice a week) can be expected to add 10 years to life expectancy. Having recently started lessons again, I do know it uses sixty some-odd year old muscles I hadn't used for decades!

Oh and if you were at all serious about learning to ski, better start toning up yours now at the gym ready for the start of the season and the snow train to the Alps before Christmas?

chris_n wrote: »

I have taught a number people in their 60s and70s to actually ski so why not?

Yep and whilst we hear that the ladies can be a little more brittle-boned, at 4ft11, this one has less far to fall in those early days when little upsets are more likely