Big Bad D,
I'll try and keep it simple - as it is important.
When you start an APU on a 146 it is very easy to mistakenly fill the entire aircraft with visible or stinky invisible oil fumes.
I have many testimonies from pilots who will confirm this. This phenomenon is actually referred to in BBC Panorama - 'Something in the air?'
here At the bottom of the home page.
So if one flew for 16 years it would be say 10 minutes exposure to these fumes X 3 days per week = 30 minutes per week X 40 weeks per year = 1200 minutes = 20 hours per year X 16 years = 320 hours exposure to breathing visible oil fumes. Divide it by 10 for reality = 32 hours.
Over 24 hours breathing visible oil fumes in a confined space spread repetetively over 16 years.
You can put various numbers into the above equation but you are left with people (pilots and Cabin Crew) breathing visible smoke in a confined space - repetetively.
So the question is, what is in the fumes? We have been asking the DfT for the chemicals and concentration for over 2 years now and guess what? Nobody knows - well they do, but it is bad news so they don't want people to know.
This information would provide the filter manufacturers with a very good idea of how to make their filters and what to filter out.
None of this is 'knee jerk' - they are cold hard facts waiting to be published one day and the industry is in total denial of the danger of these fumes and what's worse, they know it.
How do they get away with it? Well the fumes cook ones brain to the point that one can't rationally deal with it. The perfect crime?
Any bleed air aircraft can create visible oil fumes - another fact.
DB
PS. I also had a full blown fume event in 2002 when the whole a/c (not the cockpit) filled with thick white smoke for around 5 minutes after t/o - I felt really ill (I was already seriously ill at the time from 1989) for months and years afterwards until I finally quit flying in 2005.
I knew nothing of this subject at the time and would not know anything about it until mid 2006 - please learn from my experience, if you value your health?