I measured a staggering 22 CPS (Clicks per Second) on flight to Chicago. Since background (on my Geiger which is a Radiation Alert Inspector) is around 30 CPM, or .5 CPS, that is 44 times more. So for 3 hours FLRE Full Load Radiation Equivalent, that is 132 hours of background or like 5.5 days.
So if you flew this 6 times a year, it would be like 33 extra days of background, not even 10% more than 365 days.
What about the flight crew, say they get 80 hours per month and 70% of this is FLRE, so 56 hours at full load?
My data logging at altitude shows that we are often around 13 to 15, sometimes as low as 6 at 30,000 to 35,000 feet, and just recently I logged 22 peak, with 18 average.
Let's call it 14 CPS average at the 30,000 to 35,000 foot range.
That's 28 FLRE hours per hour of full height fly time, using 56 Hours per month, is 1568 hours of background. Divided by 24 is 65 days of equivalent background radiation. This is extra radiation per Month!
So flight crews get 784 extra days of radiation per year. Tripling the "nominal real" background of 2 mSv per year, to over 6 mSv per year.
A nukist, with a bit of sarcasm (playing the "radiation is common" lie) commenting on a "Power The Future" media 'article' said
chuck428 16 hours ago I better not eat anymore bananas, take a ride in an airplane, hike a round a canyon with Granite rocks, or ever be anywhere near a cigarette. Thanks Nuke Pro
stock here
I advise to stay away from cigarettes, and the health benefit of being in the great outdoors and exercising would likely offset any minimal dose from hiking in granite.
If you have to fly, fly.
If you are considering a career in aviation or as a flight attendant, with all the extra radiation and heavy metals put into the air by Fukushima, and now the cooling efforts of geoengineering with aluminum into the air and such.....hmmmmm, maybe try organic farming instead? You might not "have as much fun", but you will have a healthier life.
BTW 8 of 10 females surveyed find organic farming and healthy living is sexy.
nuff said. Get the facts.
While it may not be commonly known, airline flight crews are currently classified as "radiation workers," a federal designation that means they are consistently exposed to radiation. Flight crews on high-latitude routes, in fact, are exposed to more radiation on an annual basis than nuclear plant workers.
ReplyDeleteNOTE: Prior to Fukushima, airline flight crews were covered under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA).
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/AGU-NAIRAS.html
Cisco
Raising the exposure rate is all the more reason why nuclear should be banned, not 'normalized'.
ReplyDeleteAvoid medical xrays, especially for the young, as it is much more hazardous than we have come to believe. Herman J. Mueller showed xrays damage genes back in 1927 paper, Nobel awarded 1946.
Also about that time, Bulletin for Atomic Scientists, first many issues.. Solar was considered 'too expensive' and nuclear was promised to be 'safe' - when it is clearly note, that had already been proven as well. Nuclear medicine got it's start because the US govt awarded research grants to anyone who could find uses for nuclear to combat cancer --- which is sickly ironic -- radiation causes cancer!
And airplane flights do increase radiation exposure - external exposure. It is not nearly as serious as INTERNAL exposure from the radioisotopes that are increasingly in our water and food supply. Radiocesium, for instance, did not exist in our environment until the first atomic bomb test.
As for medical procedures, the excess use of Medical tests for heart patients is responsible for the 'average' exposure -- so much so, that a cardiologist has issued a voice of alarm
"Cardiologists ,,, are responsible for 45% of the entire cumulative effective dose of 3.0 mSv (similar to the radiological risk of 150 chest x-rays) per head per year to the US population from all medical sources,"
"The "radiation issue" is the need to consider possible deterministic effects (e.g., skin injuries) and long-term cancer risks due to ionizing radiation in the risk-benefit assessment of diagnostic or therapeutic testing. Although there are currently no data showing that high-dose medical studies have actually increased the incidence of cancer, the "linear-no threshold" model in radioprotection assumes that no safe dose exists; all doses add up in determining cancer risks; and the risk increases linearly with increasing radiation dose. ..."
http://www.cardiovascularultrasound.com/content/9/1/35
thanks for the comments. How true is your internal versus external comment.
DeleteIn Japan they want to re-"settle" people into areas with less than 50mSv external.
This IS A CRIME. Much of this will become internal. These poor people could be getting 500 mSv to 1000 mSv per year!
10 times more than the MAX allowed for a nuke plant worker under emergency conditions!