Yes sounds in the right order of magnitude.
A large cylinder (which, if composite, is still lightweight) removes the huge hassles of getting oxygen refills while on a trip.
I am having trouble finding the regulations – if any – governing inspection of oxygen cylinders. Can anybody give me a pointer?
I’m not aware of any aviation specific regulations.
General regulations on oxygen cylinders are country specific. In Germany steel/aluminum cylinders need to be inspected every 10 years, composite cylinders every 3 years.
As an FYI, in the US (at least in CA, not sure if this is a federal or a state mandate), they need to be inspected every 5 years.
172driver wrote:
As an FYI, in the US (at least in CA, not sure if this is a federal or a state mandate), they need to be inspected every 5 years.
It’s per DOT regs. They also have a useful life: 15yrs for kevlar and 25 for steel ones.
Is it portable or installed?
I’d like to see a reference that e.g. “all kevlar” have a 15 year life and “all steel” have a 25 year life.
AFE (Oxford) offers a very reasonable ‘Testing’ System quoting “should be tested every 3 – 5 years”; but doesn’t declare the source for the statement.
I sometimes think that Oxygen Cylinder Testing under pressure is like the “Active ECG”: the Testing is more dangerous/accident prone than the problem it is claiming to solve.
Posts moved to existing aviation oxygen thread
Some info is back here.
I got mine tested at a very good price as reported above.
I don’t recall seeing any generic regulation stating that steel cylinders have life x and kevlar cylinders have a life y. Also most metal cylinders used in GA are aluminium (and all those I have ever seen or had were standard scuba models). The 15 year life for a particular composite cylinder which I have is that only 2 tests are allowed and they should be 5 years apart, and it thus has to be discarded at the 15 year point.
Also EASA (or any CAA) has no business regulating portable oxygen systems, so I would expect any regs covering these to be in some national reg, or perhaps some industrial standard (ISO?).
Cylinders in installed oxygen systems are AFAIK always steel (one pilot I know spent 4-5 figures certifying a composite one for a G-reg TB21) and I would expect the test requirements to be in the AFMS.
Original Cessna installations were steel in most cases.
These have a 5 year test cycle and have to be tested by a DOT approved specialist or the correct certification cannot be provided. Once They are on DOT I don’t believe they can be migrated to another regime.
Under normal circumstances in good use and care, these cylinders have no ‘Lifespan’.
Any approved test centre should refuse to test them if not a DOT certified centre.
Aluminium cylinders should also be as above.
It’s the composite and specialist lightweight cylinders that have ‘maximum life’.
As far as I am aware testing should not have a detrimental effect on the lifespan.
There are DOT certified testers dotted about the UK.
