Once the plane has been flying for a number of hours down low and close to airports, it was time to take her up to a more realistic cruising altitude - above 10,000ft. Now, I have a personally imposed limit of not going above 10,000 without oxygen on board - regs say 12,500...I say no thanks. So, I was time to install the O2 system. I originally chose the constant flow system from Mountain High Oxygen because it was more affordable than the electronic pulsed system that I ultimately wanted to upgrade to. As I spoke with Ric Lee (VP of Sales at MH and fellow Berkut builder), and did some dirty math...I realized that I would spend far more money upgrading later than I would just biting the smaller bullet up front....so, I went ahead with the electronic system. One of the biggest benefits is that so much oxygen is saved that the two of us can use the same bottle of O2 for 18-21 hours at 10-15,000ft!!! Amazing!

This was also probably the easiest install done to date. All I did was cut out some 1/4" thick phenolic hard points, match drilled them, and used a paper template of the mounting point positions. I transferred the positions to the backside of the front seat and floxed the hard points in place. After they cured, I cleaned out the holes and tapped them for the mounting bolts. These bolts simply hold the cylinder mounting brackets to the hard points. A couple of worm clamps later the bottle is bottle is mounted. The EDS units simple mount using a stronger form of Velcro and I placed them out of the way but still reachable and visible in flight.

The electronic units also have visual and auditory alarms that indicate inadequate O2 flow or a malfunction - so access to the bottle's gauge is not really necessary. Nor is the flow adjustment for increased altitude - it's all hands off and automatic. That means during preflight - I turn on the bottle valve, select the altitude that I want the O2 to start (immediate, 5000, 10K, or 15K feet) and I'm done! No O2 flows until the selected pressure altitude is reached and I take a breath. It even warns me if I forget to breathe! I highly recommend this system to all who plan to fly "high", and MH has a variety of systems to meet your specific needs.