Pax O2 does not offer respiratory protection from fumes. This gets asked every year on our SEP exam.

Well some might say that if it ever gets as hot as the water in the galley used for making tea, then it's too hot. How hot does yours get?

Well tepid is good, because above 150 degrees C, various unwanted degradations can occur according to one technical bulletin from ExxonMobil

IIRC the Concorde had radiation monitoring on the flight deck and crew routinely checked for probability of solar flares prior to departure.
Though, I also remember Brian Trubshaw writing that the only time that he saw the needle in the red (whatever that may have indicated) was when flying over certain known "sensitive" areas on the ground. I think that he mentioned Iran, at that time.
Would this problem not be more applicable to high-flying military aircraft? Or is their shielding more effective, of necessity?

Setpoint..thanks for the link.

WIngnut


Back in the day most of the mil weren't at very high levels long enough for cosmic radiation to be an issue, and in my military days we certainly didn't clock up anything like the hours at high level the airline guys did. That said there will always be exceptions like the U2.

Concorde was a game changer in some ways in being at very high level for relatively long continuous period but I believe there was only one recorded instance of a descent being needed because the alarm went into the red...anyone confirm/deny?

As far as cancer risks are concerned, under pinning all this is the happy fact/statistic that about 30% ( yep, about 1 in 3 ) of the general non flying ground level living and working population will at some time in their lives suffer from cancer. Despite the inevitable anecdotes the general informed opinion seems to be that any small increased incidence of cancer due to radiation exposure in flight is almost immeasurable against the general background incidence.

Yet again, sorry for the thread drift.

Wiggy .... Back in the day most of the mil weren't at very high levels long enough for cosmic radiation to be an issue .............


Actually, for the military aircraft, I was thinking more along the lines of the shielding for ionising radiation (and electromagnetic pulse) associated with nuclear weapons.

Once the bomb has dropped, planning for the long term affects of radiation exposure always seemed a little optimistic...:bored:

How to calculate your radiation exposure
 

True, wiggy. The following info will put things into further perspective.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates that Americans receive an average radiation dose of 620 millirem per year, about half each from natural background radiation and man-made sources, and that this dose level “has not been shown to cause humans any harm.”

The American Nuclear Society “Personal Radiation Dose Worksheet” allows you to calculate your annual dose based on numerous variables, such as where you live (altitude, geography, proximity to a power plant), how you live (including a dose estimate of 0.5 millirem per hour in the air for “jet plane travel”—admittedly an approximation, given variations in flight altitude, latitude—the Earth’s magnetic shielding is weaker over the poles—and solar activity level), food/air/water intake (e.g., radon), and medical tests:

http://www.ans.org/pi/resources/dose.../dosechart.pdf

The NRC has its own (online) annual dose calculator, which factors in dose from airline travel differently, by total miles traveled (1 millirem per 1,000 miles traveled):

NRC: Personal Annual Radiation Dose Calculator

Here is a printer-friendly worksheet version of the above:

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-...-worksheet.pdf

According to a meta-analysis in the January 2015 JAMA Dermatology:

Risk of Melanoma in Pilots and Cabin Crew | Dermatology | JAMA Dermatology | The JAMA Network

“Pilots and cabin crew have approximately twice the incidence of melanoma compared with the general population.” It surmised, however, that the cause was not cosmic rays but could be UVA exposure, and that regarding lifestyle factors, pilots and cabin crew did not have “more sunny vacations,” etc., than the general population.

As I mentioned previously, low-level radiation exposure has been shown to actually reduce cancer rates. Here is a dramatic example of that, from the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Vol. 9, No. 1, Spring 2004:

http://www.jpands.org/vol9no1/chen.pdf

“An extraordinary incident occurred 20 [now 32] years ago in Taiwan. Recycled steel, accidentally contaminated with cobalt-60 [sources] (half-life: 5.3 y), was formed into construction steel for more than 180 buildings, which 10,000 persons occupied for 9 to 20 years. They unknowingly received [total] radiation doses that averaged 0.4 Sv [40 rem]—a ‘collective dose’ of 4,000 person-Sv [400,000 rem].

“Based on the observed seven cancer deaths, the cancer mortality rate for this population was assessed to be 3.5 per 100,000 person-years [of exposure]. Three children were born with congenital heart malformations, indicating a prevalence rate of 1.5 cases per 1,000 children under age 19.”

By comparison, “The average spontaneous cancer death rate in the general population of Taiwan over these 20 years is 116 persons per 100,000 person-years. Based upon partial official statistics and hospital experience, the prevalence rate of congenital malformation is 23 cases per 1,000 children. Assuming the age and income distributions of these persons are the same as for the general population, it appears that significant beneficial health effects may be associated with this chronic radiation exposure.”

This sort of thing drives the anti-nukes bonkers.

Wingnut

Still off topic but to quickly answer the question: .

As I understand it amount of radiation released at the instant detonation is very much dependant on the weapon, many are relatively (I stress relatively clean) at the sort of distance the delivery aircraft would presumably plan to be at the moment of detonation. The radiation at short range and also from any fallout is another matter ...as is EMP.

Canute also makes a valid point.....certainly peacetime rules regarding level of exposure etc would be long gone.

That simply doesn't follow, setpoint. Your "evidence" no way supports your conclusion about health benefits from chronic radiation exposure. Seriously!? All it shows is that statistically, the occupants of a few score buildings is an unreliably small sample amongst a population of tens of millions...But if you'd like to prove the benefits yourself with an exposure trial....? What's more worrying is the implication that the radiation risk experienced by flight crew is very low, indeed almost laughable. The very high incidence of skin cancer among pilots (for which I agree causality hasn't been established) makes it very hard to argue this is somehow beneficial

Unfortunately this is a perfect example of the kind of methodology that's been used to prevent the issue of toxic chemicals in cabin air being addressed.

There is a very high incidence of skin cancer in professional drivers ( Truck Drivers Face Risk of Skin Damage From Years of Sun Exposure ? TransForce, Inc. Study: Driving May Contribute to Left-Side Skin Cancers | TIME.com ) skin cancer is caused by UV mainly UVA radiation not ionizing radiation.

In my last airline the crews were pretty good at entering any "smelly sock smell" in the tech log.
I never saw or heard of an aircraft being grounded (AOG).
So should sometime in the future the link to organophosphates & medical complications be proven. I wonder how the airlines & the individuals who released the aircraft fair in the inevitable compensation lawsuits. This post intentionally controversial so please discuss.

Cancer risk is in the low 40% for white males. Death from cancer is in the low-mid 20%'s.
Maybe 230/1000. Aviation induced is about 2/1000.

Exposure is 1/4 to 1/7 of the annual limit so the airlines didn't stop monitoring because they were trying to hide data, they stopped because it was a waste of time.

Yes interesting stats. As a matter of interest as of now nor at the time did I suffer any known reaction. However one of my co-pilots did. Although not to a detrimental extent.
So yes your figures are proberbly right but will those (if proved in future) have a case?

The crews may well have been "pretty good at entering any 'smelly sock smell', but in any subsequent "inevitable compensation lawsuits", one imagines the first question asked of those claiming compensation may well be along the lines of: "Captain Bloggs, having detected that unusual smell, why didn't you follow the smoke/fumes checklist, and immediately don your oxygen mask? That would have provided you with significant protection, would it not?"

Protecting yourself is in your hands. Nobody else's!

Can't imagine that donning O2 mask would have been my first thought if informed of 'sweaty sock' smell (Nor my second, third or fourth).

Can't imagine that donning O2 mask would have been my first thought if informed of 'sweaty sock' smell (Nor my second, third or fourth).

Having heated discussions with my wife, on return home, might be; but then again not.

Then the only question to be asked is why they are entering their (or their colleagues) sweaty socks, in the tech log?

Ho ho! Except the smell denotes lethally toxic gas causing life-shattering or fatal injuries down the line Unfortunately it's only quite recently that such entries started getting much in the way of priority for treatment or rectification.

I realise this is a serious issue and might have been brushed under the carpet for too long, but.....the list of amusing tech log entries & replies is now becoming longer.

1. Funny smell in cockpit:.....We all checked it out, had a laugh, and sprayed air freshener. Funny smell departed.
2. Smell of old socks in cockpit.......Old socks removed (from under seat- what are you guys doing in there?) sprayed with air freshener. Ground tested found satis.
3. Strange smell of engines in cockpit.........Smell of engines perfectly normal and side window closed.

Note: Air freshener now added to list of cockpit equipment and no-go items. MEL allows one sector to a station where Air freshener can be replaced.