China southern airlines

[Cloudbase4812]

Hi, I have noted on flight radar that China southern when flying Auckland to china always fly at flight level 260 at a slow speed. Last night it looked like a Poseidon airforce plane was tracking a china southern flight at F260 as it passed shoalhaven bay. The reciprocal china to Auckland flights are at the expected altitude and speed.

Any ideas why?

[Capt Fathom]

Shoalwater Bay? War games going on there at present.

Last nights flight went out under the jet stream at 26000ft. It climbed up to 36000ft around Townsville.
Previous flights have climbed up to normal levels, so it just depends on the winds!

[ACMS]

They do fly low quite a bit around Asia, I've noticed that they are below FL300 quite a bit across the South China Sea area. Everyone else is up in the mid 30's. Don't know why they do it? Scared of radiation perhaps!!

[Ollie Onion]

I was told recently that there is some kind of pilot union directive/agreement in Chinese based carriers that the cruise level sum total of any three sectors couldn't exceed 100,000ft. Sounds insane but that's what a mate who flys up there told me.

[EDDT]

If that's true and the reason behind it it's the radiation, that doesn't make sense.

As the radiation increases very steep with higher altitude.
So FL390 is not a little more than FL370 , but MUCH more radiation.

The difference in radiation between 300 and 320 for example being not that much.

Do some examples and see yourself

http://jag.cami.jccbi.gov/cariprofile.asp

[Keg]

Was flying with an ex China Southern guy recently. Reckoned they're worried about radiation and subsequent cancers. Still smoke like chimneys though. Go figure!

[CurtainTwitcher]

Still smoke like chimneys though.
Oh the irony Keg! It is the radiation that is the killer, just not the source they were expecting. Who would have thought it to come from the fertilizer used on the tobacco plants themselves?

Polonium: the radioactive killer from tobacco smoke (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19186689)
Abstract

Among all carcinogenic substances contained in tobacco smoke, Polonium 210 (Po-210), with a half-life of 138 days, is one of the most
dangerous, by exerting a devastating, chronic, slow and progressive carcinogenesis activity. The main source of Po-210 in tobacco is
represented by fertilizers (polyphosphates) containing radium-226 (Ra-222) which decades to plumb 210 (Pb-210). Through the thricomes
Pb-210 is concentrated in the tobacco leaves, where it turns to Po-210, which at the cigarette combustion temperature (800-900 degrees C)
reaches the gaseous state and it is absorbed by the micro particles released into tobacco smoke. Thus, smoke becomes radioactive in both
its gaseous and corpuscular components and reaches the airways, where, particularly at the branches level and together with other
substances, it exerts its carcinogenic activity, especially in those subjects with impaired respiratory mucosal clearance. The carcinogenic
risk/one year lifetime of a smoker of 20 cigarettes per day is equivalent to that of undertaking 300 chest x-rays. It is calculated that Po-210
may be independently responsible of 4 lung cancers every 10,000 smokers. During cigarette's combustion, tobacco smoke is also released in
the air, contributing to serious health risks for those exposed to passive smoke.

Polonium 210 was used in a 2006 infamous assassination: Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvinenko)