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Radiation During Airplane Flight


Brotoro

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I brought my radiation detector on a airplane flight from Phoenix to Seattle last weekend. Below for your amusement and edification is a plot of the radiation level vs. time during the flight. The cruising altitude was supposedly 40,000 feet (as announced by the pilot). I assume the slow increase of the radiation level during the cruise phase was due to the way the Earth's magnetic field causes more cosmic rays to hit the atmosphere the closer to the magnetic poles. The peak value measured was over 58 times the background measured on the ground.

1m4T3T0.png

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I can see the tabloid headlines already. "Forum Regular Uncovers Airline Conspiracy."

But yeah, about what one would expect. The increase from Phoenix to Seattle can be brought on by many things, including such trivial things as humidity levels and pressure. Or you might not have held constant flight level despite claims to contrary. I wouldn't make conclusions about magnetic field without comparing data from multiple flights. For instance, you'd expect ground radiation levels to reflect such a difference.

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I can see the tabloid headlines already. "Forum Regular Uncovers Airline Conspiracy."

But yeah, about what one would expect. The increase from Phoenix to Seattle can be brought on by many things, including such trivial things as humidity levels and pressure. Or you might not have held constant flight level despite claims to contrary. I wouldn't make conclusions about magnetic field without comparing data from multiple flights. For instance, you'd expect ground radiation levels to reflect such a difference.

Weather often make them change attitude, humidity and pressure is also factors. Long distance close to the poles would be more interesting.

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Attitude or altitude? Because attitude changes due to weather are absolutely minimal in cruise. They are far more critical on approach.

On the other hand, flight levels are based on pressure altitude, and "40k feet" likely really means FL400. The actual altitude of FL400 will, indeed, depend quite a bit on weather.

Interestingly enough, if air was of uniform composition at all altitudes and locations, this wouldn't make a difference on radiation levels. Your shielding literally depends on the "amount of air" above you. So does the pressure. So if there were no other weather effects, or humidity, or pollution, the amount of radiation at FL400 would always be the same, even as pressure varies.

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This video by Veritasitum also gives great information about Radioactivity, in my opinion, including flying.

(11 minutes)

Bonus Info: Uses Banana for Scale

Edited by Val
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Those figures are quite similar to what I saw when I visited Chernobyl in 2007. The radiation detector shows 5.59 µSv/h and 5.74 µSv/h in pictures taken near the monument close to the reactor 4 sarcophagus. Many areas were only something like 1-2 µSv/h, while the most contaminated areas were 15-20 µSv/h even inside the bus.

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Nice video, I have to admit, I had a minor panic attack watching that guy standing so close to that pile of fireman's clothing and the radiation meter clicking like crazy.

I my mind I know it's just short term exposure, but that sound still freaks me out.

So If I understand this correctly, if I eat 20,000,000 bananas all at once I'll die of radiation poisoning.

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Nice video, I have to admit, I had a minor panic attack watching that guy standing so close to that pile of fireman's clothing and the radiation meter clicking like crazy.

I my mind I know it's just short term exposure, but that sound still freaks me out.

So If I understand this correctly, if I eat 20,000,000 bananas all at once I'll die of radiation poisoning.

All at once! I think radiation poisoning will be the least of your problem....

but:

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Does Earth magnetic field protects us from radiation?

http://www.livescience.com/46694-magnetic-field-weakens.html

If magnetic field is unstable it can cause radiation spikes even on ground level?

What about additional heat, is it possible that part of Earth where magnetic field is weaker is bit hotter... source for climate change and weather anomalies?

Also what about "safe" radiation limits they where increased during last 50 years, does weaker magnetic field can pass enough radiation to be source of cancer on global scale?

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Nice video, I have to admit, I had a minor panic attack watching that guy standing so close to that pile of fireman's clothing and the radiation meter clicking like crazy.

I my mind I know it's just short term exposure, but that sound still freaks me out.

So If I understand this correctly, if I eat 20,000,000 bananas all at once I'll die of radiation poisoning.

I'm just going to asume that he was wearing lead pants.

Interesting video. Never thought smokers would receive the most radiation. I feel like we'd have alot less smokers if that small fact was more known, with the general public already panicking constantly over everything radioactive

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Attitude or altitude? Because attitude changes due to weather are absolutely minimal in cruise.

Are you kidding? Nobody likes turbulence, and people get downright upset flying through a thunderstorm.

(Sorry, I couldn't help it.)

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Phoenix's airport is at 1,135 ft. elevation. Seattle's airport is at 433 ft. elevation. I was getting readings of about 0.08 microSieverts per hour at both places in the plane.

I live at an elevation of 6,320 ft. in New Mexico, and I get about 0.13 microSieverts/hr here.

Edited by Brotoro
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I brought my radiation detector on a airplane flight from Phoenix to Seattle last weekend. Below for your amusement and edification is a plot of the radiation level vs. time during the flight. The cruising altitude was supposedly 40,000 feet (as announced by the pilot). I assume the slow increase of the radiation level during the cruise phase was due to the way the Earth's magnetic field causes more cosmic rays to hit the atmosphere the closer to the magnetic poles. The peak value measured was over 58 times the background measured on the ground.

http://i.imgur.com/1m4T3T0.png

So.... During flight when an aircraft goes above FL180 (18,000 ft) it changes from Baro pressure at the nearest airport to 30.15 IIRC. The craft is no longer referenced to the ground pressure anymore. If the craft flies from an area of low pressure to high pressure it can rise up a couple thousand feet in elevation at 40,000 feet.

As for the radiation. Most areas of the world are radiation cold spots, there are hot spots and people do live in them with no observable ill health consequences. One of these areas is in Northern Iran and there is no increased tendencies in cancer or birth defects with radon sourced radiation about 10 fold higher than normal. During a flight you have 5 fold higher than that, and it probably puts some of the fastest growing cells at risk, for a man if you were to say conceive in the next 48 hours your child might have a slightly higher risk for birth defects. And pilots who concieve after the age of 40 would have a much greater risk.

Other than that nothing unusual or to be worried about.

The types of exposures that greatly increase are the absorption of certain isotopes into the body, such as following chernobyl. These isotopes concentrate in the body in places where they can do excessive damage or next generation risk. This is not solely restricted to radio-isotopes, a much bigger problem in places with high rates of uplift (e.g. India) is the level of chemicals (such as arsenic a phosphorus mimic) that occur and can cause damage over time. The environmental risk areas with chemical hazards are much greater than radioactive damage, and whereas the bodies damage repair generally recognized radiation stress, it does not always recognize chemical stress until its too late.

Now if you were to increase the rate of radiation exposure by increasing the planes altitude to say 3Gm from earth and then accelerate it in the direction of some local recent super nova, that story would change rather markedly since you would be not only increasing the amount of energy of particles hitting but very much reduce the shielding.

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...I know that people living within 10 miles of "3 mile island" get a regular dosage of 80 Micro-Sieverts...

I doubt that. Residents may have gotten that total dosage if they were living in that area during the event, but it's not an ongoing thing.

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