Not Becoming a Pilot because of the Radiation
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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....
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....
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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
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
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Re: Not Becoming a Pilot because of the Radiation
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...
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...
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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.
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.
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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)
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)
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..
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..
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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?
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?
