Iran's airline starts first weekly flights to Saudi Arabia in 18 years
     JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia (September 20, 1997 8:33 p.m. EDT) -- Iran
 Air's first regularly scheduled flight to Saudi Arabia in 18 years
 landed in Jiddah Saturday, a further sign of improving ties between
 Tehran and its Arab neighbors.
     The Boeing 747 was less than half full, and the most senior
 Saudi official waiting to welcome its 195 passengers was a deputy
 director of civil aviation. But Iranian officials were pleased.
     "The resumption of flights is a fine achievement for the re-
 lations of two Muslim countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia,"
 Iran's ambassador to Riyadh, Mohammad Riza Nouri Sharoudi, told
 The Associated Press.
     Iran has long sought to revive ties with Gulf Arab states, who
 are still wary of Tehran's attempts to export its hard-line vision
 of Islam.
     Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have accused Iran of supporting insur-
 gents in their territories. The Saudi government briefly broke ties
 with Tehran after Iranian pilgrims clashed with Saudi police during
 the 1987 hajj in Mecca, leaving 402 people dead.
     The United Arab Emirates also has a territorial dispute with
 Iran over its occupation of three shoals and islets in the Gulf.
     Iran's new foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, said last week that
 the promotion of better ties with Gulf states was "a priority of
 Iranian foreign policy."
     "This flight can not only promote relations between Tehran and
 Riyadh, but it will also be a suitable route for the Muslims of
 southeast and central Asian countries," said Hassan Shafti, Iran
 Air's managing director.
     Jiddah is the landing point for the hundreds of thousands of
 pilgrims who make the annual hajj, or pilgrimage, to the holy cities
 of Mecca and Medina. Iran Air's weekly flights to Jiddah will ease
 the journey considerably.
     Until now, pilgrims have flown to Jiddah in chartered planes,
 but getting a seat required applying for a special passport issued
 by the Hajj Pilgrimage Organization.
     More than 200,000 people apply for less than 100,000 passes
 available for the senior hajj, a major pilgrimage. As a result, some
 Iranians wait for years to make the pilgrimage.
     With the advent of weekly flight service to Jiddah, anyone hold-
 ing a plane ticket may apply to the Saudi embassy in Tehran for a
 visa to make the pilgrimage.
 ----------------------------
--- DB 1.39/004487
DB>DB>One of the hot items in SCUBA diving is enriched oxygen mixtures,
DB>generally called NITROX.  Do you suppose carrying a 50/50 O2/N2
DB>mix would be signifigantly safer than 100% O2?
DB>CM> Got my doubts about that. Nitrogen is a no-no for
DB>Scuba diving.
DB>Are you folks in SC using something other than
DB>air for your scuba diving?
    I didn't go into a detailed explanation of SCUBA
diving because it is off-topic. If one SCUBA dives
with either compressed air, or a 50/50 mix below
certain depths, the risk of bends must be taken into
account. For depths at which bends is a risk, the ascent
time must allow for nitrogen to exchange without fizzing
like a soda pop. For depths deeper than that, something
other than nitrogen must be used as a mix with the Oxygen.
DB> The air up in this part of the country is about
DB> four fifths nitrogen.
    I'm beginning to wonder what the other fifth is. 
DB>As we figured out in a previous post, Nitrox 50 wouldn't help much
DB>at airliner cruising altitudes which means that compressed air would
DB>be dead weight.
    A 50/50 mix would extend the allowable time for a safe
descent - above the ambient air mix of 79/21 - and the 50/50
mix would be safer with regard to fire/flame than 100% O2.
   It's just that my personal opinion is that with an
explosive decompression, the aircraft might be damaged
to the extent that speed must be limited, which would,
in turn, require a slower rate of descent.
    Since the emergency breathing system must also be
capable of guarding against smoke, pure air is required.
Combining the two requirements of pure air and higher
O2 content, and guarding against the higher hazard of
a pure O2 content, seems to me that 50/50, or some such,
would be a logical compromise.
    For what it's worth, I used to remove my oxygen
mask for periods of 10 - 15 minutes at a time if the
cabin pressure was 15,000 or below, and in a descent from
altitudes of, say, 35,000 feet, I would remove it about
5 or 10 minutes prior to starting the descent. If I was
in formation in the weather, of course, I couldn't do
that. But I wanted to. 
..
---
 * SLMR 2.1a * - Once you've made all the mistakes, you're an expert.
--- WILDMAIL!/WC v4.12 
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