Re: Airliner Dose Rates

["Gary T. Pepper" <gpepper@capitalnet.com>]

At 01:56 PM 5/12/1998 -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
>
>

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Hello All,

Just some additional food for thought....

I would imagine that the dose rate received on a commercial airliner, at a
given altitude, also varies with the lattitude of the flight path and
whether it is day/night.

A little bit off topic, however, in some older aircraft (especially
military aircraft), the cockpit instruments are equipped with radium dials.
 In some cases, I've heard that pilot/co-pilot would receive a much greater
dose from his instruments than from any "atmospheric" dose (surface
exposure-rate measured at the glass face of the instrument was measured to
be approximately 10-15 mR/hr).

Regards,
Gary Pepper

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
e-mail: gpepper@capitalnet.com