PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - How unhealthy is flying/Being a Commercial Pilot?
Old 19th Mar 2018, 10:44
  #46 (permalink)  
wiggy
 
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: The Winchester
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There have been umpteen studies done on radiation, there is ongoing work...there is plenty of stuff out there in the public domain but you need to know the subject to know what to Google.... That said the data and conclusions as to the effects of radiation exposure at cruise levels (mainly derived from the epidemology) can appear somewhat inconvenient to some....which is perhaps you'll often hear stories about results being hidden or buried becasue that suits some narratives...but the truth is "out there".....

If you want to track your own exposure you can, using this...

https://www.faa.gov/data_research/re...biology/cari6/

We can also access our own personal data via our company webiste, and if so minded cross check it by running your own flight profiles through your very own CARI or similar programs....

In the 90s some airlines started issuing radiation exposure badges to the crews, I know Fedex had them, but this has not spread to the other airlines.
As I heard it the reason for the badges was the cargo Fedex (potentially) carried..and on the subject of badges certainly the older film badges didn't really give much of a clue as to total exposure at the sort of levels we get in cruising flight due to Cosmic and other radiation ( hence the development of programs such as CARI in it's various iterations).

I'm sure flying for a living has it's consequences, I suspect mainly due to rostering, sleep patterns, diet, lack of exercise...some of this is down to individual control, some of it goes "with the territory"....some ill health is down to the genes ( been there, done that, got the scars) . Now whether everybody here wants to loose sleep worrying about whether this job is going to let you live forever is down to the individual but beyond avoiding the obvious and lobbying (via a union, if you have one) I don't see the point in fretting about the subject... I'm sure there are health consequences to other jobs, e.g. working at heights as a builder, working as a policeman, or commuting into/out of or around e.g. London on a daily basis....without belittling the possible impact of this job there problems associated with other lines of work and we perhaps need to look at the whole deal and do a bit of cost v. benefits analysis.

Last edited by wiggy; 20th Mar 2018 at 07:59.
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