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By Larry Golberg

While serving as a dentist in the Air Force I decided that I wanted to get a flight card so that I could take hops. Hops are flights on Air Force planes that one could take to virtually anywhere in the world. But, without earning your wings non-flight personnel could not catch a hop and you had to take a “test” in an altitude simulator to earn your flight card.
The day arrived for the big test. After donning a flight suit several people including myself climbed into the altitude simulator. The simulator was a steel chamber that looked like a large diving bell. Once in the chamber we strapped on our oxygen masks. I felt like Chuck Yeager or Tom Cruise in “Top Gun” ready to shoot down enemy planes.
Inside the chamber were some poles with surgical gloves tied around them, which looked rather strange. As our simulation began the personnel running the test informed us that we would be “traveling” to an altitude of 16,000 feet. Military planes unlike commercial airliners are only pressurized to 8,000 feet. Due to this lack of pressure we were told that as we approached the higher altitudes the gases in the chamber would expand. That meant all the gases: the ones in the air as well as the ones in the gloves on the poles and the ones in our bodies. As the gloves began to expand so did the gases in my insides. We were instructed to let the gases fly either through burping or farting or else we would expand like the gloves and look like the Pillsbury dough boy. I realized then that the oxygen mask was for more than breathing oxygen. I could only imagine what that chamber smelled like with a dozen people letting gas rip like they’d just eaten a pound of beans. By this time the surgical gloves were fully expanded and a dozen people were encouraged to fart in public.
But, back to the simulation. As we got to the higher altitudes my ears started to get blocked up just as they would on an elevator or a trip up a mountain. We were instructed to clear this blockage by either yawning or swallowing. While that sounds easy enough I was having no luck at all in clearing the pressure build up out of my ears. As we started our “descent” from 16,000 feet this inability to clear my ears started to cause a great deal of inner ear discomfort. By the time we were “at” 8,000 feet the discomfort became pain and when we eventually hit ground level it felt as if someone was jabbing ice picks in my eardrums.
But, I wanted that flight card and I’d be damned if I was going to tell anyone about the excruciating pain that I was experiencing. I was prepared to tough it out.
There was only one small problem: the simulation was not over yet. We still had to experience a rapid decompression. So they took us “back up” to 8,000 feet and made pretend that a cabin door was blasted open. All during this climb the pain did not subside at all, it actually continued to worsen. Now it felt like there like were two ice picks being jabbed into each ear at the same time.
Well, the hatch was “opened” at 8,000 feet and I felt condensation in my oxygen mask. I chalked the moisture up to the rapid change in pressure. We “landed” back on the ground a couple of minutes later. When I took off my oxygen mask the condensation was not water but bright red blood splattered on the inside. This liquid of life must have spewed out of my nose like a guided missile when the rapid decompression hit.
I couldn’t keep my pain a secret anymore and I had to go visit the flight surgeon. Upon looking in my ears he informed me that my left ear looked as if someone threw a tomato in there and my right ear didn’t look much better. He prescribed some medicine to dry the blood up. Because of all the blood that was in my ears my hearing muffled. After about one week I could finally hear out of my left ear again. Needless to say my Air Force flight career was over before I ever got off the ground.