[ RadSafe ] Fwd: Pilots UV-A radiation exposure

Mon Dec 22 21:49:05 CST 2014

Joe, 

     I guess there's an Ed Bramlitt.  I also  believe there's a Bramblett, 
Ewing and Bonner --- inventors of Bonner Neutron  Spectrometry.  See 
Patterson and Thomas's Accelerator Health Physics.   See also Cossairt's 
Accelerator Health Physics course notes/manual.

        Joe Preisig

PS  Badges are OK in airplanes....but one really needs a Neutron  
Spectrometer (for thermal neutron to 20 MeV energies) and a plastic scintillator  
(n,2n reaction) for 20 MeV to 400 MeV neutrons.  Scintillator see the back  end 
of Patterson and Thomas's Accelerator Health Physics book (McCaslins's  
plastic scintillator lab exercise).

 a message dated 12/21/2014 2:36:32 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
jjshonka at shonka.com writes:

Hans

I am quite interested in your badge results, and  what would be a 
significant radiation exposure.  You have an unusually  high number of frequent flyer 
miles.  If we assume total neutron plus  gamma of 500 mrem  (5 mSv) per 
100,000 frequent flyer miles or per year,  and 15 rem over a  3 million mile or 
30 year career, I have the following  questions:  (1) were your badges 
neutron sensitive (80% of GCR dose is  due to neutrons)?; (2) how often were 
they read out (quarterly, monthly?); (3)  were many of your miles extra credits 
rather than actual miles flown (e.g.  first class gets 2X miles)?; (4) were 
your miles collected evenly or did you  travel more extensively during some 
fraction of your career?; (5) what would  you say the reporting limit or 
detection limit of the badges was (e.g any  reading less than 10 mrem (0.1 
mSv) reported as 0)?; (6) were your badges used  for work and did they have 
measureable exposure from sources other than  background plus your flight time?

Ed Bramlitt and I have a note in  the January, 2015 issue of Health Physics 
that discusses intermittent sources  of exposure to aircrew, including 
solar proton, neutron and gamma events and  terrestrial gamma flashes.  About 1% 
of the 1200 Terrestrial gamma  flashes that are large enough to be detected 
by satellites that occur each day  (world-wide) approach estimated doses in 
aircraft of up to 30 to 100 mSv, for  example.  Although rare, these likely 
would have been observed on your  badge.  The more numerous dose of 10 mSv 
or greater (my estimate of the  lower limit of detection for the GBM 
detectors on board FERMI) might also be  detectable, however, presumably even more 
numerous but undetectable lower dose  TGFs (below 10 mSv) might not be 
detected.  I am interested in how large  one of those events could have been 
without your noticing an unusual  reading.   

I assume the background control badges were  at your place of employment.  
Finally, (7) For example, if you typically  had 12 flights per quarter, and 
one of those flights encountered a source that  provided 1,000 mrem (10 mSv) 
80 % of which was neutron and only 200 mrem (2  mSv) was gamma, would you 
have noticed it as an unusual badge reading?  

Joe Shonka 

Sent from Windows  Mail

From: Hans J Wiegert
Sent: ‎Saturday‎,  ‎December‎ ‎20‎, ‎2014 ‎7‎:‎18‎ ‎PM
To: The International Radiation  Protection (Health Physics) Mailing List

For what it's  worth.

I am not so sure about this. During my career I traveled almost  3 million
miles on various airlines with my seating preference being a  window seat.
Never noticed anything like this. As a side note, on almost  all of those
trips I carried a film badge on me and in recent years the  Landauer Luxel
OSL badge.  The badges never showed any significant  radiation exposure.

Best Regards,

Hans

*Retirement is,  when the only day you have to set your alarm clock is
Sunday - so you are  not late for church!*

On Thu, Dec 18, 2014 at 2:19 PM, Chris Alston  <achris1999 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This is easy to  believe.  I, as a passenger, have gotten a pretty good
> tan,  mostly on one side of my face, on just one trip from Seattle to
> San  Diego.  Fortunately, I had a window seat on the other side of the
>  aircraft (DC-9 family, for whatever it is worth) on the northward
>  return flight, to "touch up" the other side of my face, else I would
>  have looked like that arch-criminal in the Batman comics.
>
>  Cheers
> cja
>
> On Wed, Dec 17, 2014 at 8:36 PM, ROY HERREN  <royherren2005 at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > Hopefully the  following isn't too "off topic", given that the article 
is
> dealing  with UV-A radiation.
> >
>  
http://media.jamanetwork.com/news-item/airline-pilots-can-be-exposed-to-cockpit-radiation-similar-to-tanning-beds/
>  > Airline Pilots Can Be Exposed to Cockpit Radiation Similar to  Tanning
> Beds
>  _______________________________________________
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