I know read from a very prominent Asian Airlines' AOM that anything higher than FL410 requires at least one cockpit crew to wear an oxygen mask.

8 hours ago, PerWel said:

I recall that I read somewhere about navigation that in real life no airliner/captain goes higher then FL390 with passengers onboard.....

cough... Concorde... cough.... 

Almost every SWA B737 flight will routinely go to FL400/410 given a long enough stage length.  Good grief, sounds like people are getting their information from the internet. 

3 hours ago, downscc said:

Almost every SWA B737 flight will routinely go to FL400/410 given a long enough stage length.  Good grief, sounds like people are getting their information from the internet. 

Dan,

The use of oxygen is addressed in Part 91.  Basically it says above FL350 and below FL410 with two pilots at the controls it is not necessary for one of the pilots to wear an oxygen mask as long as both pilots have access to quick donning masks that can be placed on within 5 seconds.  If one of the pilots leaves the controls when above FL350 the other pilot must put on an oxygen mask.  

There are some other special provisions for certain specially equipped aircraft.  

Having done the chamber numerous times at altitudes substantially below FL350 it seems to me that 5 seconds to put on a mask isn't much time when above FL350.

Bill 

 

16 hours ago, Bluestar said:

Having done the chamber numerous times at altitudes substantially below FL350 it seems to me that 5 seconds to put on a mask isn't much time when above FL350.

I agree. We were lax in the Chancellor since we were limited to FL250 and the one time we had decompression the masks were on the floor behind the partition between cockpit and cabin.  We would have been goners had we been much higher... as it was I finally felt out of danger as we descended below 16000 and that seemed to take a loooong time.  I was responding to the post that said no one flies above FL390 with pax on  board.  Of course they do.

There was a chamber at Offutt AFB where I got my CPL MEL and Instrument but I never made it over there for that.  I wish I had, I've heard plenty of stories.  Sounds like more fun that the forced exposure to tear gas I had to go through for gas mask training.

On 9/18/2017 at 11:15 PM, downscc said:

Almost every SWA B737 flight will routinely go to FL400/410 given a long enough stage length.  Good grief, sounds like people are getting their information from the internet. 

No it came from a ATC guy, not some amateur forum. I do not say it is true facts, just what I read what that guy said. Might be wrong.

 

 

26 minutes ago, PerWel said:

No it came from a ATC guy, not some amateur forum. I do not say it is true facts, just what I read what that guy said. Might be wrong.

Yeah, I'm going to go back to my earlier statement, then. Sounds like a misunderstanding of the statement, in that the statement was likely intended to say that, given the sector length, and weight of passengers, the planes usually don't go up that high, unless there are no passengers (and therefore no weight to bring them down to lower altitudes).

A330/B772 on the HKG-TPE / ICN / Japan flights regularly have ECON cruise level at FL400/410. 

Not so much on the 777 (only the -200 actually), but A330 flying in South East Asia do use the level FL410 or FL411 (metric RVSM level in china 12500m) quite often. 

The other reason is the number of airways in these regions are limited and traffic volume is very high, the higher crusing level for regional flights is often required to free up the lower levels for long haul flights.