iPod's go bust at high altitudes?

cyberhippie

Man that sounds messy seventies

vistet

Visions of Pamela Anderson in the Taglang La .. not pretty

Sunray

Also

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/op/heads/op_Height.htm

slightly more approacable for the less technically minded.

10,000ft or more and you really need to have a high altitude hard drive for reliable operation. All the iPods apart from the iPod shuffle use hard disks. As do just about any MP3 player that has more than about 1.5Gb of storage.

cyberhippie

Cheers Sunray interesting reading for geeks like myself!

nagakrishna_s

Airliners are pressurised to about 10335.12 kg/m2 (~14.7 psi) this is the pressure at sea level .... now the atmospheric pressure at an altitude of about 9-10,000 m (30,000ft) will be 3023.199 kg/m2(~4.2psi).
most commercial airplanes are built with very strong structures with meshing frames in them and glass is bullet proof ... so if u manage to punch a hole .... the pressure drops drastically but its not so strong to rip open the metalic/glass parts ... Actually one can work out the force acting on the inner surface near the hole and if u compare with the force u need to rupture (as in the movies) the fuselage ... its nowhere close .... Also if there is a drop in pressure the pilots will bring the plane to about 4000m (15000ft) that is considered to be safe...

the air pressure is not created by holes in forward direction ... coz such an arrangement will dramatically add on to the drag force on the airplane which means u need to have more powerfull engines + burn more fuel ... They are maintained by the compression stage of the Gas turbine engines (jet engines)... mostly are the Turbofan bypass type.

Cheers

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nagakrishna_s

By the way 10,000m or 30,000ft is the normal crusing altitude of most airliners. And by the way ... those with sillicone implants too can relax .... u could even get to space with them ..... and low pressures acting on a punctured implants too will not rip open the boobs ... lets not get too techie on it ...

vistet

Holes or not on this point I am dead certain, having read up fairly extensively on high altitude medicine : not correct. This is the reason why there is a safety limit on how close to departure you can dive , and why patients are recommended
to increase oxygen delivery during flights :

cyberhippie

I must admit to feeling a bit breathless at times on a flight now I know why!!
As for the bullet holes well explosive decompression does happen if you punture the skin of the airplane!
I've seen it happen, happily not on a live flight but on Mythbusters! They set out to disprove the myth of passengers being sucked/blown through tiny holes during explosive decompression, that was disproved but the resulting bang sure took a piece out of the side of the aircraft I imagine the sheer speed of the airplane would do the rest!

agni5454

Sea level pressure at STD conditions = 760mmHg / 1atm /750 barr

I never said an aircraft cabin was overpressurized as increase in pressure (> 760mmHg) can cause problems as well. But the interior pressure is ~ 8000 feet (roughly 2400 meters and around 500 to 600 mmHg) the cruising altitude is normally 40,000 feet ~ (at 40,000 feet the air pressure is <140mmHg ). Therefore due to the change in altitude, there is a change in pressure; interior pressure is higher than exterior. As you go higher and higher into the atmosphere, the airpressure decreases while the pressure inside cabin is held at is held constant between 500 to 600 mmHg; therefore resulting in a higher pressure inside while a lower pressure outside (when a cruising alt is reached at 40,000 feet).

Secondly, i did not go into specifications of how to pressurize a compartment :-) you are generally correct about the method on how to build a pressure in an airpart compartment Also, no..i think you may have misunderstood me. ONE bullet will not do any damage to a plane...but imagine a gun fight (i was thinking terrorism; i had terrorism in mind when i was talking about bullets and thats why i mentioned air-marshals)

Air Pressure charts: http://www.scuba-doc.com/flyngaft.htm
Boeing Cabin Pressure Req: http://www.boeing.com/commercial/cabinair/

I just read Cyberhippie's post :
Yes, ONE bullet hole will cause a change in pressure but the plane should be handle it. Couple of holes mean trouble (speed + rapid change in pressure can cause structural damage).

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nagakrishna_s

well about the bullet hole..... one or more holes will not have an effect ... unless the hole is that of a cannon or of that sort... well if the bullets hits the pilots ... thats a different question....

Cyberhippie: I too watched the Mythbusters expirement ... well in that the pressure difference between the cabin and outside was much higher than what we are talking about ... Also there would certianly be some things flying out of the plane ... its similar to openig the window on a windy day .....

agni5454: Thanks for the links they are very informative...

skell

Have there been any improvements in this situation? I have a fairy new ipod nano that I was planning to take trekking in Manali, Leh, Ladakh, etc. Then I stumbled across this thread!

I'm leaving in 3 days and would appreciate any updated advice. Can I take it and just use it at lower altitudes? I don't want to risk ruining it!

Mickey S

The iPod Nano doesn't have a hard drive. You can stop worrying.

EDIT: But the Apple website still gives a maximum operating altitude for the Nano of 10,000ft (3,000m), and a maximum operating temperature of 35 degrees, too, which should worry a few people on this forum...

skell

Thanks Mickey, I hope you're right. No one else had any comments, so I guess I'll take it and hope for the best.

saajan_20

sir
for quite sometime i used to see ur location as leh and u must be having a laptop or some computer around how was the experience ??

vistet

The Nano uses flash memory .. which is the same that´s used in digital cameras. Never had , or heard of problems with that , after going repeatedly over 5000 meters.

This kind of memory is hard to mess with beyond salvage : I´m not recommending anyone to try it , but a friend of mine put a USB memory in the washing machine - worked fine after drying. At work I forgot a USB memory stick on me while working in the EMR laboratory , which has a magnetic field that not only trashes credit and ID cards but sucks carts etc across the room - also no problems.

And the hard drives in Leh and Lhasa (3660) have spun on without hitches in my experience.

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