OT: Recycle air, pilot question

[Bahowe1]

I'm at a conference down in Florida and the guy beside me is hacking up a lung. Says he gets sick at this thing every year because of the flight. Made me curious. Is the cockpit air and the cabin air the same? In my work, our main guys controlling 'operations' have a different and secured supply of air. I was wondering if they do the same in planes for obvious reasons?  ... so that a floating air biscuit never dissipates.

[94touring]

If you fart in the back, I breath it up front.   More specifically on my plane the right pack supplies 70/30 to the cabin and cockpit, while the left pack supplies 70/30 to the cockpit and cabin.  If both packs fail then I open up the ram air and we get what we get from a duct through the main supply duct work.  Pressure relief valves modulate cockpit pressure automatically or I can do it manually if the auto function fails. Cabin air is vented out the valves as new air is supplied from the packs off the 10th stage bleeds. 

Edit: if we lose pressure you get oxygen mask that fall from your overhead. These are oxygen generators and last approximately 22 minutes.  Up front we have mask that are fed from an actual bottle of oxygen.  Max pressure is something like 1850psi and we get a caution at 1410psi. 

[Jims5543]

[94touring]

Lol good reply.  At least I know someone read what I wrote.

[MtyMous]

you guys run LOX? Interesting.. wonder if the long haul overseas guys have on board generation for emergency. 22 minutes doesn't do dick if you're over the ocean. I guess it would be enough time to get to a low enough altitude, but still

[Bahowe1]

It still sort of amazes me too.  I would have thought cockpit air is filtered 'protected' air.  I guess this means we are relying on TSA.  Not too comforting to me.