ALTERNATIVE POSITIONS IN EMERGENCY:

In case of loss of the entire oxygen supply of any one system, the affected crew member may move to any other convenient regulator in the ship with these exceptions:

  1. The nose gunner may not move to the navigator-bombardier regulator if the entire system is out.
  2. The radio operator may not move to the bomb-bay regulator if the entire system is out.
  3. The bottom turret gunner may not move to the camera tunnel regulator.

This is true because every station, with these three exceptions, has its own individual oxygen supply. The use of the walk-around bottle is the same as that described for the B-17. (Page 20).

DURATION OF OXYGEN SUPPLY:

With the present system in the B-24, each man has approximately 9 hours oxygen supply at 30,000 feet with the Auto-Mix on. However, it occasionally becomes necessary in emergencies to calculate the residual oxygen supply. This can be done by the simple formula given on page 24:

5 (man hours) x no. of intact cylinders x actual pressure/400 divided by no. of men using the system.

Application of this formula is much simpler in the B-24, since usually only one, and at the most two, men are using a single system.

VARIATIONS:

The exact location of the demand regulators in a ship is variable, depending upon the model, place of installation, etc. It is extremely important that you familiarize yourself with the location of the regulators in your ship, so that you can move from one to the other in darkness, in case of emergency. Many of the B-24 H models have two extra regulators: one in the nose, and one in the tail. There is also variation in the location of the portable recharging hose for the top-turret bottles. This is located in the right side of the ship in most earlier models, but in the left side in later models. Fundamentally, however, the system in all ships commencing with No. 42-40218, is as described above. It is up to you to familiarize yourself with any minor differences in your ship.