Not Becoming a Pilot because of the Radiation

[Douglas DC 8]

When you decide if you want to become an airline pilot, do you take the unknown effect of Galactic Radiation in consideration, too? I'm afraid of this Radiation and the effect that it will provoke.

[easondown]

If you are that afraid then don't become a pilot.

[scroggs]

Is this a wind up? Do you ever travel in a car, or cross the road, or expose yourself to the various viruses and germs of the general public? Do you go out in the sun on holiday - and do you fly to your holiday destination? Or do you wrap yourself up in cotton wool at home and feed yourself only pasteurised, homogenised, guaranteed organic, fat-free, non-carcinogenic or toxic foods?

The airlines monitor radiation absorbance, and pilots have a legally limited maximum annual exposure to it, similar to radiographers. Currently, in my airline, the calculated received radiation is about 5% of the maximum annual limit. There is no evidence to suggest that pilots have an increased risk of cancer as a result of cosmic (not galactic) radiation.

Rather than running scared from a subject you have no knowlege of, why don't you do a bit of research into the relative risks that daily life presents? Although, you never know, you could get killed in a car crash on the way to the library. 3500 people in Britain were killed on the roads last year, more than twice the number of people killed in air crashes in the world. Makes you think - I hope.

[Lucifer]

There has been some very high level research into the topic, however the last time that I read an article on it, the conclusion was that there was negligible impact on crew health, and increased cancer tended to come from sitting around the pool once at the destination.

Anyway, most of us have been exposed far more by Chenobyl and the like than radiation from space. If you are that worried about health from it, don't do it because of a more documented reason such as DVT, terrorism or fear of alien attack.

[Douglas DC 8]

First of all, thanks for the replies.
I did a little research on the internet the last days about this topic and I found interesting sites where they try to bring more light into these facts.
Some pilots say that they even accept to fly on lower levels just because of the lower radiation. Some pilots are afraid , as I read. The trip Newark-Hong-Kong complies to 3 chest x-rays. Is this not dangerous at the long term?

[Superpilot]

Average pilot life span somebody?

[bow5]

I'd bet my bottom dollar, if I had one :rolleyes:, that you nuke your food in a microwave without a second thought :D

[blueskys]

MY FRIEND,YOU WILL DIE A THOUNSAND DEATHS ON THE GROUND, BEFORE YOU DIE AT AGE 80 ,WITH A THOUSAND MEMORIES OF FLYING.:)

[tinyrice]

Well sport, if radiation scares you, God knows what effect a maintenance department will have on you..................

[El Desperado]

Well.. in all fairness to the topic starter, some of the guys I fly with have a 'family jewels' FL370 limit.

Personally, I think this is pointless. The difference between 370 and 410 is, what, 1000m ? What difference is that going to make to radiation that's already come x-lightyears !

Interestingly, the doc at my last C1 reckoned that most pilots expired from cancer in their late 70s/early 80s. Nothing to do with radiation, just the fact that (aside from oddities) the only two things that get you are heart disease and the aforementioned cancer. As we are a reasonably healthy and fit group, compared to Joe Average, heart disease is not the primary cause of death, hence..... dah dah dah.. cancer.

I believe he was about to publish a paper on the subject and that may have influenced his ramblings :)

And yes, it's indoubtedly a wind-up topic !

[FRIDAY]

Well I don't believe its as bad as radiation from a mobile phone or some telecoms transmitting equipment, I work now as a telecoms engineer and if I am not buried in a base station I am on the phone, I am packing it in to embark on the rocky road to flying in a microwave yadda yadda yadda plus I am spending countless hours on the net (PPRUNE AND ALARM CLOCK SNOOZE BUTTON ARE DAMAGING TO MY WELL-BEING). So I will probably be the first to experience some kickback down the road due to this radiation but I doubt it will happen to the extent they claim. If what the medical experts say is correct about mobiles I should have a hole in my left ear by now.:p

[Cyclic Hotline]

I never fly without my aluminium foil pyramid on my head. Not only does it protect me from radiation, but it increases my mental capacity!

I used to wear a full body lead-suit to prevent the rays hitting me, but my C-150 couldn't get airborne anymore!

Probably more likely to die in a plane-crash than from radiation poisoning - and the likelihood of dying in a plane-crash (of your own devices or not) is extremely low. Probably more likely to die from the rays of the sun, than radiation, in real life.

[spitfire747]

wow - what a post, but i gotta tell you, statistically, I have got more chance of

* Being run over by a bus being driven by a three legged labrador
or

*Being able to to my PPL in a B747
or

* Being able to get from Hong Kong to London in 14minutes
or

* Being electrocuted by bedside alarm clock !


Than I have of contracting a fatal form of Cancer derived by exposure to the sun at flying altitude.

[Giorgio]

DDC8,

read this http://www.pprune.org/go.php?go=/pub/tech/CosmicRad.html

available here on pprune :D

I wouldn't give it a second thought, far more dangerouse things to worry about here on Terra-Firma, and before anyone asks i'm not a pesimist or a hypocondriac!! ;) :p

regards

G

[Douglas DC 8]

Thanks for the replies!!
Gorgio I read this report, interesting, thankyou.

I found another site, where different questions are answered.


<http://www.hps.org/publicinformation/ate/Cat38.html>


What do you think? Well, 1 or 2 questions are a bit exaggerated in my opinion.

[GearUp CheerUp]

The company for which I work says the following:-

The International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) recommends a maximum exposure from occupational sources of 20 mSv (20,000 Sv (microsieverts)) per year (averaged over a period of 5 years)

Occupational exposure for flight and cabin crew will depend on the route, altitude and aircraft type. On average, dose rates received will be in the order of:

Long haul aircraft - 5 Sv (microsieverts) per hour;
Short haul aircraft - 1-3 Sv (microsieverts) per hour dependent on the altitude reached.
On the basis of work already carried out at the airline, we expect that:
long haul crew will have an annual exposure of approximately 1/5 of the recommended dose limit, ie. 4 mSv per year;

short haul crew will have an annual exposure of approximately 1/10 of the recommended dose limits, ie. 2 mSv per year.

Hope that helps

[Dynamic Apathy]

What a WHIMP you must be Douglas. I'll tell you what: How about you get yourself one of those sterilised plastic bubbles big enough to get some basic furniture in, zip yourself into it and stay there for the next 20 years, until the global warming gets so bad it melts the plastic, and hey presto, you've had a life devoid of all danger, irritants and bugs.

In the meantime, stop thinking about such a dangerous occupation as flying and leave that up to the obviously derranged few who like a risk now and then, and perhaps even a beer or two.

GET A LIFE MY FRIEND.............

[clear prop!!!]

Well , over the last few months we’ve heard loads of reasons why not to choose a job in aviation.

Firstly, there’s the lack of jobs right now,…fair enough!

Then there’s the risk of hijacking ..again fair enough!

Crap hours…fair enough again!

Airline food…bloody good reason!

RADIATION?????...

If that’s a worry, then, basic salary for a train driver is now £28K!
;) ;)

[ILS27R]

This guy does have a point. I'm not sure why people are trying to argue with him. I agree though that cancer is just another risk you have to accept with the job.

True to say that more studies need to be done looking into cancer and the link with flight crew, but I can say now that flight crew do have a higher incidence of cancer compared to per head of the population.

A link to the BMJ for those interested can be found here:

http://www.studentbmj.com/back_issues/0400/news/95b.html

It would have been interesting if someone had posted about the consequences of DVT in the airline industry back in the early 1990's. I wonder what kind of response that person would have received!!!!!:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[scroggs]

ILS27

Not a very illuminating article, I suggest. It would seem logical to me that a group of people who have access to lots of sun (as we do) would display an increased risk of malignant melanoma. UV has a very difficult job penetrating an aircraft's fuselage! The suggestion that there might be an increased incidence of leukaemia amongst aircrew has slightly more credibility (in the context of cosmic radiation exposure), but the depth and scope of such studies as have been made are insufficient to draw any reliable conclusions.
It is true, however, that the incidence of cancers of all kinds is increasing in all sectors of the population. This may well be down to two things: firstly, our increased life expectancy makes it more likely that cancer will be the thing that finally kills us; secondly, improvements in medical analysis often now identify cancer as the culprit when it would have been put down to something else in earlier times.
The fact is, life is dangerous and will eventually kill you. You cannot avoid death, however much you try and protect yourself. There are reasonable precautions that people can take to avoid excessive risk, but if you want to live any kind of fulfilled life risk will inevitably be present. I have competed in motor-racing, ridden motorbikes, smoked (a long time ago), spent 22 years in the military with all that that entails, and engaged an a myriad of other 'risky' activities over the last 46 years. I'm still most likely to die of simple old age, closely followed by being run over by a bus. Somewhere up there may be getting killed by my lover's 25 year-old husband while I'm on the job (I wish). The risks to my health presented by radiation exposure in my aeroplane are miniscule by comparison.

[ILS27R]

Scroggs,

The problem is that causal relationships are very hard to prove as there are so many factors at work. As you say pilots are exposed to more sunlight or a greater intensity than the average person. How you could exactly quantify that and use it in a study would be hard. Although in time I think we may see the courts exploring this; but this is just my belief. To be honest a greater threat to mainly long haul pilots flying esp to Africa is the debate about insect vectored AIDS, but thats another story.

Yes I agree theres more to life than worrying about this kind of thing:)

Regards,

ILS27R

[Waldo P Barnstormer]

To add a scientific opinion to this topic, check out the following peer reviewed articles.

http://www3.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?db=0&form=1&term=aircrew+cancer

Cumulatively these articles do not categorically state a link between aircrew and cancer due to ionising radiation but do highlight that as aircrew you are (often considerably) more likely to develop cancers than the average person. I would not however let this influence the direction which your life takes as it is possible to reduce your chances of developing cancer via a variety of strategies (altering diet etc.) You can of course dismiss these cancer risks by pointing out that by simply getting out of bed in the morning you vastly increase your chances of dying. It is a matter of risk assessment, in making a particular choice only you can decide whether the benefits outweigh the dangers. In this particular situation, living ones dream and becoming a pilot pales the elevated risks of developing cancer into insignificance for the vast majority of people. I agree with you ILS27R, I think that this subject will eventually find its way to the courts.

[steamchicken]

As Hemingway put it:

"So being a man is hard?

Yes, and few survive it!"

[Paddington*]

One of our Captains used to avoid flying at high flight levels when he was trying to start a family.

[oxford blue]

How about this for a hypothesis? I'm not saying it's right, or has any scientific provenance, because I've just invented it.

But it seems to me just as likely that one of the reasons that aircrew may suffer from a slightly higher incidence of radiation-induced cancer is because the job involves a fair proportion of rest days down route. And as many of these are in sunny areas, because that's where holiday makers want to go, the rest days were spent exposing your pink body to the sun beside the hotel pool.

Just as likely as any other theory!!

[Dynamic Apathy]

Hey Douglas,

As I implied before, if you don't like it then don't do it. I am positive that regardless of this tiny risk there'll be plenty of takers to fill your boots.

Get on with your life and accept death when it comes and however it gets you.

Look at some of the profiles of the people on this site: even the old favourite sex can bite hard!

[Lucifer]

Perhaps somebody could look at how many E3-D Sentry crews have been unable to conceive. Or maybe what the product has been!

[FlightSimFreak]

I was told by a radiation technologist that works at the local nuclear plant (Hanfor, WA) that flying a 1 hour x-country flight at FL230, you get 3 times your standard, sea level amount for that same day. Not too bad. He also said that studies show that a certain amount (above what you normally get) is actually benificial to health.

[stormywx]

If something as small as this makes you worry about becoming a pilot then its time to pick another career anyway!

For the record Douglas, if you used your mobile phone today or microwaved your dinner you just did 10 SYD-LAX trips radiation wise....! (Per Use!)

You can't worry about all these little things or you'll never enjoy life!

[Douglas DC 8]

Thanks for all the replies.

stormywx, you said that if you microwaved your dinner, you did 10 times SYD-LAX. Is this really equal to this, I can't believe it?

[Superpilut]

You know what?
Let time tell!
We are now in the time that pilots will fly most of their career at high level. I think it would be naive to say there is no increased risk when you fly for,say, 35 years at level 300 and above. The reports.... Of course there have been reports by NTSB etc. but maybe it would be of too great economical damage to get the whole truth figured out.
Am I paranoia? No, just realistic.
How many times did you see in the media the consequences of highly flammable wiring insulation on airliners? Not that often, except for one or two times on Discovery in the time of the Swissair crash.
Maybe extensive research would have shown that the wiring should be redone of every existing airliner... Do you think the industry itself is then coming with a thing like this? Of course not!
The same with radiation.
What do we really know about it?
Nothing I would say.
Again: let time tell, in 30 years the first generation of jet-only pilots is maybe still ok, maybe a high amount dies of funny radiation related diseases.
I accept this risk now, but I'm not blind and therefore will not claim there's no harm.
So please guys don't bash to hard on people fearing this, because it's not unrealistic.

Cheers.:)


(edited for typo!)

[Aircart]

I Know a guy that used to fly the big stuff and had skin cancer on his face, prob. due to exposure in the flight deck!!!
Maybe there is some truth out there :confused:

[Dynamic Apathy]

And maybe he just spent too much time sunbathing !!!!

[stormywx]

Douglas,

Yes that is correct, was in an article I read late last year.

[MThead]

Try my current job(s) - (Mental health by day, firefighting by night) flying too close to the sun has to be less risky.

[Aircart]

Don't forget what they say; A 4 hr flight above 35000ft is the same as having a full chest X-Ray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Douglas DC 8]

hey buddies, look what I found, for those of you who understand a bit of German:

Nach der Berechnung von Wissenschaftlern erhalten die Passagiere bereits bei einem einzigen Nordatlantikflug eine Strahlendosis, die sich mit der Strahlenmenge von zwei bis drei Röntgenaufnahmen des Brustkorbes vergleichen lässt. Ein Pilot oder Flugbegleiter erhält demnach im Schnitt *pro Jahr* die Dosis von etwa *200 Röntgenaufnahmen*.

Umweltminister Trittin will die Grenzwerte für die Belastung der Bevölkerung mit radioaktiver Strahlung zum Teil drastisch herabsetzen. Noch in diesem Jahr soll nach seinen Plänen eine neue Strahlenschutzverordnung in Kraft treten. Folgen dieser Verordnung könnte laut Trittin die Neuordnung der Dienstpläne für Flugpersonal sein. Er wies daraufhin, dass die durchschnittliche Belastung mit natürlicher kosmischer Strahlung bei einem *Hin- und Rückflug über den Nordatlantik etwa 100 Mikrosievert* beträgt. Damit hätte eine schwangere Stewardess nach zehn USA-Reisen ihre Jahresdosis von einem Millisievert erreicht. Das ist der geplante Grenzwert für die Strahlenbelastung von Normalbürgern „aus einer zielgerichteten Nutzung radioaktiver Stoffe“, gemeint ist etwa der Betrieb von Atomkraftwerken. Für beruflich strahlenexponierte Personen soll die Höchstgrenze *von 50 auf 20 Millisievert* fallen.


So perhaps it's not that innocuous.

source:<http://yavivo.lifeline.de/News/0_Archive/20000707/20000707_3.html>

[bigbeerbelly]

This is about the funniest post I have read in a long time!

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Just wait until your hands are dripping and itchy with glycol! galactic radiation, that's good! rofl

BBB:D

[Semaphore Sam]

I really don't have a clue as to exposure, or its effects. Potential problems I've heard about:

1. Solar radiation, as a function of (a. Daytime vrs. Nighttime exposure)(b.Altitude [again,safer to fly higher at night?])(c.Proximity to North/South Poles[I. Less atmospheric protection at poles for given FL's?][II. Earth's magnetic field more powerful at poles?]

2. Wx radar radiation (a. Do older sets use more radiation?)(b.In older aircraft, shield effectiveness [misplaced/cracked?])(c.In all, just how much radiation gets to flight deck?)(d. Better to turn it off in obvious VMC?)

3. Ozone exposure (a. More critical at poles?)(b. Effectiveness of converters in Pnumatic systems, given low mx priority)

As far as the latter, in the 747-400 there are 2 cataltic converters to remove ozone from cabin air. I had never heard of any danger; now I hear it's important enough to put cc's in the system. If it is that important, what have I been doing for the last 30 years without cc's? Are they efficient? Does maintenance actually check their effectiveness?

I've heard much medical opinion on this thread; what are your medical qualifications, ladies & gents? Who has the answers? Not me! But, at least I'm interested.

[Douglas DC 8]

Semaphore Sam, interesting questions, would be good if anyone of you could reply.

Have the cataltic converters only been installed in the B747-400 so far? I've never heard anything of them.

Semaphore, on which aircrafts do/did you work? I guess you have worked on these exciting early jets, such as DC 8, B707...

[maxy101]

I do wonder if some of the posts have hit the nail on the head. Already in the last 20 yrs, governments have revised the safety limits downwards, sometimes drastically. Also there is a world of difference flying for 30 yrs in a turboprop at 25000 ft and 30 yrs @ 900 hrs a yr at 37000 ft.
Already , some of the European countries are taking a lead on this and questioning the perceived wisdom re. radiation exposure. As for listening to airline managements' views on the subject, well I don't have much faith in them. I asked our BA managers how they calculated our occupational exposure,
and was told they didn't really know, but IM had written a program to cover their legal obligations. I use the NASA CARI program to check BA's results and I'm finding BA are about 50 per cent low.
There appears to be little awareness of the risk during high sunspot activity, where if caught at the wrong place at the wrong time, you could get 10 yrs dose in one flight.
All in all, I wouldn't be in a hurry to denigrate a newcomer for asking these questions.....after all the only stupid question is the one no one asks....

[Paddington*]

Quote: 'But it seems to me just as likely that one of the reasons that aircrew may suffer from a slightly higher incidence of radiation-induced cancer is because the job involves a fair proportion of rest days down route. And as many of these are in sunny areas, because that's where holiday makers want to go, the rest days were spent exposing your pink body to the sun beside the hotel pool.'

It would be interesting to compare short-haul versus long-haul pilots' medical records 10 years down the line.

Personally I'm open minded on the subject. Possibly flying at high altitude is risky (medically) but we don't yet know and it'll take years to get any meaningful medical results. In the meantime I'm sure there're a lot more dangers on the ground!

P

[epsilon9854]

I think you'll die of the food they serve you before you run into any trouble with radiation...

I agree that radiation is an issue if you fly as high as the ISS, but not at altitudes reached by airliners, including Concorde. Otherwise people in Peru and Tibet, who spend all their lives at high altitudes, would already by extinct...

[arcniz]

ILS27R - The story about 10x greater melanoma in Icelandic pilots is interesting, but you need to consider that the Icelandic genome is carried in a very homogeneous population which has lived in the same place near the cloudy Arctic circle for the last thousand years - and thousands more for their fair-skinned Scandinavian forebears.

Something every traveler figures out very quickly is that equatorial sun toasts a lot faster than that at 80 North. Every time a flying Icelander gets an involuntary skin peel in Majorca, his risk of melanoma goes up at least 10x. The operative principle here is that more travel = more opportunity for mischief. Of course, Icelanders never engage in that.


DC8 - My opinion: You're more likely to pack it in from too much butter on your Roesti than from normal solar rads. And every now and then there's a really bad day out in the galaxy when everybody on the planet gets toasted in special ways that the statistics do not really process well.

Radiation is a little like marriage - good points and bad:

In regard to Darwinian genetics - radiation is a formative influence. Some it kills, the rest it makes stronger. Radiation is appreciated by some as a cure for the discomforts of age - probably because it kills cells and stimulates the immune system. An encouragement is that populations which have been nuked don't all die young.

In regard to individual cancers - a roll of the dice. I read recently (while pondering dna mechanics) that the normal sea level planet earth background rad level ensures that the nucleus of each and every cell in your bod will experience between 2 and 5 hits by a particle of ionizing radiation in the course of a year. That's a lot. Life on earth has evolved in the context of significantly higher rad levels than we have currently. Our genetic structure has a lot of rad-tolerant resilience built in. Of course, that's the same structure that doesn't seem to take much interest in our survival after ten or fifteen thousand suns pass by.

Kerosene, beaches, b**ches, and beamers are going to get you faster than altitude. Go for the Icarian thing every chance you get.

[Avtrician]

If the Crews of the E3-D Sentry are affected by radiation, it will be from that thundering great Mirowave Oven on the roof and not Galactic (Cosmic) radiation.

Just had a wild thought, maybe the Antenna on the roof when powered up acts like a magnifying Glass for cosmic radiadtion. After all, it is lens shaped. (VTIC) :eek: :D

[Thomas coupling]

Douglas, I think you've got a point here. However,most pilots are fairly gregarious by their very nature and tend to be quite analytical. Questioning their deliberations leaves them with a bad taste in their mouths!
Qantas did research on their retired pilots and determined that they had a 4 times higher than normal incidence of brain cancer. Finland did a survey on their cabin crew and found females were 11 time more susceptible to ovarian cancer compared to the general population.
Why is a concorde pilot's roster controlled by the dosimeter readout rather than his FDP limits?
If gamma radiation is exponential with height, I sure as hell wouldn't want to be a busy corporate pilot cruising at FL45+ for a living...
Those references given in the last 2 threads certainly provide food for thought...there is no smoke without fire with this issue..

[380]

DC8

uhm, sorry for coming off topic, do you fly that plane? just curious if we know each other.

[Douglas DC 8]

380

No, unfortunately not. I admire this plane a lot and would like to fly on it once. But I guess it won't be possible anymore.

Why did you say "just curious if we know each other" ? Do you work on that plane?