[ RadSafe ] 10 rem from lightning??

[Kulp, Jeffrey B]

Does the EU still consider their commercial airline crews to be
occupational radiation workers? If so, and the dosimetry they use is
able to detect short "bursts" as they are called in many of the articles
linked by contributors, then there ought to be exposure records that
could be looked at. 


Jeff Kulp
Washington State University
Radiation Safety Office
Pullman, WA 99164-1302
(509) 335-8175


-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at agni.phys.iit.edu
[mailto:radsafe-bounces at agni.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of efforrer at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2010 1:55 PM
To: radsafe at agni.phys.iit.edu
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] 10 rem from lightning??


Before I left UCSC I was working with the group who was doing this
research.  They were having problems actually figuring out how to get
the measurements because the airlines did not want to know about
radiation from lightning strikes near aircraft.  Good thing to keep in
mind this research was not about lightning strikes to aircraft but near
aircraft.  Since they could not get the airlines to work with them in
carrying measurement equipment so they could get information about when
and where a lightning event occurred we played with ideas like
dataloggers which would take periodic readings and record time and
radiation levels.  Coupling it to a GPS was also discussed so they could
figure out where the strike was.  The idea was to Fedex the package and
hope for the best.  Budget problems made this sort of approach too
costly.  I have no idea what they finally used.  Something to keep in
mind is that these radiation events last micro or even nano seconds.  I
am not sure if the 
 dose mentioned in the article took this into consideration.  I asked
the researchers what they hoped to do with the information and they
basically indicated it was purely for informational purposes.  No one
had measured it before.  My concern was they would get these
measurements and then the whole world would get all concerned about
radiation to airline passengers and crew during a lightning storm.

Gene
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