The business aviation industry is on a constant quest to create a more comfortable cabin environment for the traveler, but only in the past several years have aircraft manufacturers tackled the nagging issue of cabin altitude and its physiological effects, and with some success.
Before those efforts, virtually every aircraft cabin was pressurized to the equivalent of an 8,000-foot altitude, which equates to an atmospheric pressure of about 10.9 pounds per square inch. It wasn’t ideal in terms of human comfort, despite Air Force findings that an altitude of about 8,000 feet was tolerable by a normal healthy human. For the most part it was a compromise, considering that an 8,000-foot cabin was also about all the existing technology would allow without structural reinforcement that would make the airplane too heavy. Finally, FAR Part 25 set the upper limit of cabin altitude to the equivalent of 8,000 feet.
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