What about radiation?

[bravazon]

What is going to happen when , in a number of years, we find out (with the help of new technology) that our bodies has been affected by cosmic radiation?

[CruisingSpeed]

It is already known today.

As cosmic radiation increases exponentially above FL290 it is advisable to stay on Turboprops which are usually capped to FL250.

A lot less cabin altitude changes for your body to adapt to as well.

I never felt better as in my years on the Dash8, think of the higher jet pay as severance / risk premium pay. Why some Cabin Crew put up with all that radiation long term for a pittance is beyond me frankly.

[hunterboy]

What is going to happen when , in a number of years, we find out (with the help of new technology) that our bodies has been affected by cosmic radiation?

The airlines will point to the old regulations that they have complied with and wash their hands of you. The health systems of the world will spend as little as possible to help you, relying on the fact that the longer they procrastinate, the fewer and cheaper it will be to treat you. It is a tough old world out there. Personally, if I'm planned at a high level at a fairly high latitude, I get them to run the fuel plan again at a lower level, say 350 and take that fuel instead. Your health is in your hands.

[captplaystation]

Shouldn't this be in "Medical & Health" forum ? or am I missing something ?

[phantom menace]

Don't go above FL370...bad karma.

[Iwasoneonce]

I think unless your aircrft fuselarge is made of 1 foot thick lead, then you will be exposed to the extra radiation, period.

Too much flying in some types of TP will shake your teeth out.

[wiggy]

bravazon

We don't need "new technology". To see the effects of (or lack of) Cosmic Radiation look at any of the epidemiological (sp?) studies done on Crew Members and cancer. AFAIK the effects are so small as to be almost buried by our general ill health due to nights out of bed, irregular eating/sleeping habits, lack of exercise ( well, in my case), and the effects of our social activities down route .....

Frankly IMHO it's down to personal cost vs. benefit - do you want to fly for a living or drive to work in the rush hour traffic everyday and perhaps increase your chances of dying in a Road Traffic Accident?

[Flare-Idle]

How radiation can damage your tissue...

Radiation refers to energetic particles that deposit their energy, often harmful, into tissue. The particles can be either:

• protons
• neutrons
• electrons (beta)
• 4He (alpha) or other nuclei
• photons (gamma)

To do significant damage, the particles must have energies in the keV or MeV range. The source of such radiation is usually either nuclear (e.g. radioactive material) or cosmic rays. When charged particles travel through tissue they damage tissue by stripping electrons from atoms and molecules, thus destroying their ability to function. Photons also interact principally with electrons, since electrons are much more easily removed from atoms than are nucleons. Neutrons always react first with a nucleus, but even with neutrons, most of the damage is caused by removing electrons from the protons released from the first nuclear interaction of the neutron.
The surface of the earth is in a constant bath of cosmic rays which leave ionization trails through all living organisms. However, biological tissue is remarkably adapt at repairing the damage. Radiation is most harmful when many molecules are destroyed in a neighborhood by concentrated radiation. Thus the damage of radiation is not linear with the amount of radiation received. This makes measurement of the harm of radiation difficult. If a worker at a power plant receives an amount of radiation equal to one-year's-worth of cosmic rays, the health effects are much more serious if the exposure was over a short time span, and more serious again if limited to a small fraction of the body.


However, even a 1 foot thick fuselage wouldn't protect you from being ripped apart on an atomic scale by fast neutrons, instead your body is a neutron "catcher" due its high water content...

[RexBanner]

There was a BBC Documentary on a couple of years back about the benefits of (low-level) radiation on health and how the hysteria regarding radiation has been completely overblown. For instance, they took a sample of rodents living in parts of the United Kingdom and some living in the so-called "contaminated zone" around Chernobyl and they found out that the Chernobyl rodents were actually far healthier and disease resistent than their British counterparts.

Allied to this there was a study that showed there was no direct link between working as a Pilot and higher cancer rates. Interestingly they also showed a map of cancer rates across the USA and plotted it against a map of the USA in terms of areas of highest background radiation. There was a directly inverse relationship between levels of background radiation to cancer rates showing that background radiation (in this instance) was beneficial to health.

The main message was that radiation was (until you got to a certain level) beneficial and we needent be so worried about its effects.

[mphysflier]

Yes, the theory about tha beneficial effects of low-level radiation (called radiation hormesis) is an attractive one, however there was recently another meta-analysis of the long-term health of radiation workers which didn't seem to support it. So for now, the official IAEA model is still the linear no-threshold (LNT) one, which assumes that for later effects like cancer, the risk is directly proportional to the dose received and zero risk only occurs at zero dose.

Current protection regulations are based on a pretty large mass of scientifically produced evidence so, apart from some uncertainty still about what happens at chronic low level doses (as in areas of high background radiation) the risks and effects are already very well known with existing knowledge and 'technology'. The risk to you as a pilot from radiation exposure is just one small risk jostling aong with the many others we all live with day- to-day. Wiggy puts it very well - it's a personal cost versus benefit thing!

However, should you be unfortunate enough to develop cancer for whatever reason, you will at least have the benefit of much development of new (and expensive) technology being used in its treatment around the world today. Far from what hunterboy says, health authorities around the world are devoting large sums of money towards sophisticated radiotherapy equipment and expensive chemotherapy drugs. These developments have greatly improved survival rates and 'quality of life' for modern day patients compared with say, 50 years ago, and the technology is still improving. Of course, they never pay the professional staff enough , but thats another story.......

Cheers

mphysflier