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Jess- You wrote "When those funny little masks drop down to deliver O2, where does the O2 come from. I always figured it would have come from compressed gas cylinders." Actually, on some planes it does - and all airliners carry some compressed O2 in tanks, both for medical emergencies and for the flight crew. (If you're on a 2 pilot airplane, like a 737, 757, 767, 777, MD11, Airbus, etc) and one pilot leaves the cockpit for any reason, the other guy has to be on O2 "just in case". He may not have time to grab the mask and put it on if he's all by his lonesome and an emergency happens. On a lot of the newer airliners, the little mask that drops down to you is fed by an O2 generator. I don't know the details, but it's a solid chemical that, once "lit" produces pure O2. Advantage is no compressed gas to worry about. In any event. the airlines have control over all of this stuff and they follow a strict maintenance program. They have no way of knowing whether you do the same with your SCUBA tanks. I have known a few guys who filled their tanks from their own compressor, never got VIP's and performed their own "hydros" with a hammer and a metal stamp. Also, most of these guys consider the rated tank pressure to be just for sissies. Do you want one of their (full) tanks in the cargo bay of a plane that you are riding on? There have been a lot of comments bounced around here about this subject. Nobody disputes the effects of a blown tank in an airliner cargo bay and I did a little speculation as to the effects of a blown burst disk in an earlier message, but the bottom line is this: Ther is a slight chance that a full tank, even a well maintained one, COULD explode in an airplane, but there is NO chance of an empty one exploding. And that makes the choice real easy for the airlines, the people who write the laws, and us. Ray
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