Transport: Queasiness Masked

For years U. S. airlines have known a lot about passenger discomfort at not unusual flying altitudes between 10,000 and 15,000 feet. But they have done little to allay it beyond providing 105-lb. registered nurses, and handy cardboard containers.

Last week Northwest Airlines got practical about the problem, announced that it was installing plane oxygen systems which will : 1) cure airsickness, 2) prevent heart palpi tation and hard breathing at high altitudes, 3) make flying comfortable at cruising levels up to 30,000 feet, 4) prevent the painful sensation of having one’s ears stopped up in descents from flights.

Northwest chose the light-weight (4 oz.), nose-gripping oxygen masks invented by grey-haired Dr. Walter Meredith Boothby and two other doctors of the Mayo Clinic and already used to cure and prevent seasickness (TIME, Jan. 16). Last week, after demonstrating the oxygen sys tem in an overweather flight of four hours and 50 minutes from Minneapolis to Boston with nine passengers, Chief Pilot Mai Freeburg showed Northwest’s new flying wrinkle to Boston and Manhattan scientists and newsmen.

Passengers with hangovers became clear headed when they began breathing a mix ture of 20% oxygen, 80% nitrogen. Others became violently airsick when they took off their masks, quickly recovered when they put them on again. All showed normal pulse and respiration rates, were able to eat comfortably without taking off the masks.

Before the plane began descending at 1,000 feet per minute (normal airline descent rate 300 f.p.m.), the passengers’ masks were piped to a mixture of 20% oxygen, 80% helium and they experienced no ear pains. Passengers were told that ear plugging was due to failure of the ears to equalize inner and outer pressure in descent, that highly diffusible helium spreads more swiftly than air through the passages from nose to ears, keeps pressure reasonably even.