Re: Airliner Dose Rates

[Chris Alston <alstonc@odrge.odr.georgetown.edu>]

Otto

A round trip Seattle - New York City gives you ~7 mrem. At cruising
altitudes, 50 - 75% of the DE is from fast neutrons; so partly what's
happened to the dose estimates is a result of the increase(s) in the
"quality factors) for neutrons (I believe). There was a very useful paper
published several years ago: Health Physics Concerns in Commercial Aviation,
Barish RJ, Health Physics Vol 59 No 2 (August), pp 199-204, 1990. It's great
to cite during inservices, especially for pregnant women and members of the
general public.

chris alston
alstonc@odrge.odr.georgetown.edu

At 01:57  05/12/98 -0500, you wrote:
>May 12, 1998
>Davis, CA
>
>Dear RadSafers:
>
>Now that we are concerned about neutrons as well as gamma rays, I would
>appreciate some good rule-of-thumb estimates of the radiation dose rate
>aboard U.S. commercial airliners at normal flight altitudes (e.g. 30,000
>feet). It seems that 1 mrem/hour may be about right, so that a
>transcontinental flight of 5 hours would involve 5 mrem one-way. That
>sounds a lot higher than previous estimates. What do you think?
>
>Thanks for your advice on this...
>Otto 
>		*****************************************************
>		Prof. Otto G. Raabe, Ph.D., CHP
>                [President, Health Physics Society, 1997-1998]
>		Institute of Toxicology & Environmental Health (ITEH)
>		     (Street address: Old Davis Road)
>		University of California, Davis, CA 95616
>		Phone: 530-752-7754  FAX: 530-758-6140 [NEW AREA CODE]
>		E-mail ograabe@ucdavis.edu
>