"Dark Lightning" Could Expose Airline Passengers To Radiation 263
mbstone writes "Lightning researcher Joseph Dwyer of the Florida Institute of Technology claims that thunderstorms unleash sprays of X-rays and even intense bursts of gamma rays which could cause airline passengers to receive in an instant the maximum safe lifetime dose of ionizing radiation — the kind that wreaks the most havoc on the human body. Dwyer hopes his sensor aboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, will provide more data."
Hrmmm (Score:4, Funny)
I smell a boost in tinfoil hat sales skyrocketing ....
Re:Hrmmm (Score:4, Funny)
I propose that we should legislate to ensure that all the passengers are wrapped inside one metal enclosure before take-off!
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I always wear my tinfoil hat for this reason. It is a bit of a hazzle to get through security, but after that it's great!
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Tinfoil does not set off metal detectors.
Yes, I have first-hand knowledge of this.
Re:Hrmmm (Score:5, Funny)
Tinfoil does not set off metal detectors.
Yes, I have first-hand knowledge of this.
That can't be right, I saw a tinfoil covered cucumber set off a metal detector in the Spinal Tap documentary!
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A tinfoil-covered cucumber? I wonder what that is being used for...
Taking it past 11, to 12 (inches), obviously
12 inches of ROCK!
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Tinfoil does not set off metal detectors.
Yes, I have first-hand knowledge of this.
Where did you get the tin foil? This is the closest I can find, [amazon.com] but at 0.008" thick, it's more than ten times thicker than standard aluminum foil.
Re:s/aluminum/aluminium/g (Score:5, Funny)
FTFY
You crazy Americans insist on misspelling everything
That's exactly how we spell 'everything', what are you talking about?
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Re:s/aluminum/aluminium/g (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminum#Etymology [wikipedia.org]
The scientist who first named the actual element settled on the name aluminum, which matches the oxide to the elemental name, alumina -> aluminum, as is consistent with other oxides. It is not incorrect, and predates the -ium use.
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which matches the oxide to the elemental name, alumina -> aluminum, as is consistent with other oxides.
Speaking of consistency
Silica -> silicon
minium [wikipedia.org] -> lead
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It's not that we're "misspelling" it; it's that we had a spelling reformer by the name of Noah Webster whose dictionary has been the standard of American English for nearly 200 years.
Given that England has dramatically different ways to pronounce words, and throwing in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales mixes things up even more, I'd expect there to be a more enlightened understanding that distance and time results in different, but by no means incorrect, dialects.
America is over a thousand miles from the British
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No, I just don't give such obtuse attempts at humor anything but derision.
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Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hrmmm (Score:4, Informative)
Just avoid anything that contains the word "benzoate". Any of those substances mixed with any number of acids can produce benzene. Easier to just avoid sodium/potassium benzoate entirely than to worry about combinations.
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I heard they were starting to make them out of plastic.
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Fischer Price airlines has not received FAA approval yet.
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Hate to break it to you all but lots of recent planes are composed of significant amounts of carbon composites.... Not as much as our favorite problem child, the 787, but enough to change the radiation penetration behavior of the fuselage.
That said, neither 1/4 inch of aluminum or composite is going to do much to a high energy gamma ray.
Re: Hrmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Normally I would say Whoosh.
In your case I have to say Douche.
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If he doesn't know that an 1/4" layer of aluminum can stop ionizing radiation, then he's not much of a researcher.
Either that or every airplane has LOTS of holes in them.
Re: Hrmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Gamma rays are stopped by 1/4 inches of aluminum? I can see it messing with radio waves, but gamma radiation? Requiring all passenger planes to include a radiation dosimeter for a while (include it with the black box recorder) and we would have a practical answer.
Re:Hrmmm (Score:4, Interesting)
thunderstorms unleash sprays of X-rays and even intense bursts of gamma rays
From http://science.howstuffworks.com/radiation3.htm [howstuffworks.com]:
Beta particles can be stopped or reduced by a layer of clothing or a substance like aluminum
On top of that, the aluminum body of an airplane has *lots* of holes in it (windows, control avionics, etc).
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While it is true that shielding from Gamma rays on an airplane is basically impractical, that isn't a realistic measurement of how "dangerous" it is. "X feet of lead" is what it takes to block it. What we really need to know is how much the human body absorbs. A body doesn't block gamma rays, and rays not absorbed by the body pass right through doing nothing.
So really, the question becomes how much is absorbed on pass-through and what the rays stopped in the human body do there.
Re:Hrmmm (Score:4, Informative)
If this were actually the case then I can think you would be seeing a disproportionate number of pilots and flight attendants getting cancer. Anyways it's something that is hopefully already being considered anyways as it's a fact that flying at higher altitudes increases your exposure to radiation anyways because of the lack of shielding from the atmosphere.
Also concord planes*(at least some) have radiation dosimeters any spikes caused by dark lightning must either be extremely rare or are not being announced by people who operate the sensors on planes.
*http://www.iaasm.org/documents/Cosmic_Radiation.pdf
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FUD summary as usual (Score:5, Informative)
It's an interesting claim and I look forward to hearing more about it but there is effectively no risk to people flying being suggested. Unfortunately /. has decided to focus on the non-existent risk rather than the rather interesting properties of 'dark lightning' and what study of it could help us to understand.
Re:FUD summary as usual (Score:5, Interesting)
Not so fast, mister cynic. First the article says "one dark lightning occurrence for every thousand visible flashes" and then shortly afterward "thunderstorms produce about a billion or so lightning bolts annually".
So that's one million "dark lightning" incidents every year, and how many global aircraft flights? Avoidance of thunderstorms or not, odds are it's been happening and we didn't know to look for symptoms until now.
Re:FUD summary as usual (Score:4, Interesting)
we didn't know to look for symptoms until now.
Still, if you have to looking for symptoms, it can't be that bad.
Re:FUD summary as usual (Score:5, Insightful)
Still, if you have to looking for symptoms, it can't be that bad.
The symptoms, in the form of radiation damage, don't appear until many years afterwards. Like the damage cigarettes cause, for example.
How do you associate your cancer to the airplane rides you took 20 years previously?
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Most cancers from cigarettes are I believe caused because the layer of tar prevents the body from repairing itself normally. After a couple of years off them the tar and other negative effects should have dispersed for the most part.
What I don't get about this research is why they don't just stick a few geiger counters and recorders on planes and fly them near thunderstorms, surely that would be the best way to test the theory? Also, is there any chance this could lead to the return of zeppelins, because th
Re:FUD summary as usual (Score:5, Interesting)
Rewind the footage to about 5:00 when the airplane is at about the cruising altitude, it is that bad, even without the pesky thunderstorms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2IMEk1dvNw [youtube.com]
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Even the high reading of 2.9 microsieverts/hour in that video isn't that bad for a short duration.
The naturally radioactive beaches of Guarapari, Brazil are 10-15 times hotter than that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvgAx1yIKjg [youtube.com]
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Well, I guess having the whole thing go down in a blaze and burning everyone inside to ashes is one way to ensure they don't get cancer.
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Well, I guess having the whole thing go down in a blaze and burning everyone inside to ashes is one way to ensure they don't get cancer.
The majority of people got off the Hindenburg. Jokes are funnier when they're based on truth.
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Not to mention that any modern dirigible would use Helium for a lift gas rather than Hydrogen, and not be coated wit rocket fuel.
The Hindenburg was designed for Helium, but we didb't want to give/sell them any. The USA had a monopoly at that time.
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Not to mention that any modern dirigible would use Helium for a lift gas rather than Hydrogen, and not be coated wit rocket fuel.
Disagree and agree, respectively. Hydrogen is everywhere and Helium is running short and getting more expensive. New hydrogen barriers are developed all the time, and Helium requires special barriers as well.
I recently had an idea which would make for some nice scenes in anime or something; homes that convert into dirigibles so they can be moved. The weather only plays along for a couple months a year, of course. I'm imagining a big structured net bag full of separate hydrogen bags, connected to a compresso
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Heh. Your point is that a careful assessment of modern technical capabilities would conclude that hydrogen-filled lifting bodies can be built and operated relatively safely, and have technical and economic advantages, and therefore will be used.
Now, let me introduce you to the nuclear power debate.
Denied! (Score:3)
Of course they'd need radiation shielding. Something like lead?
LZ (Score:3)
They have tethers. They can be led.
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You don't. Of course you may have been hit with a much larger dose just now and don't even know it. Some cosmic rays are quite energetic. [wikipedia.org]
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"How do you associate your cancer to the airplane rides you took 20 years previously?"
Well mostly lung cancer from them allowing smoking at that time....
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Well, your impression isn't exactly concordant with the facts (it's complicated [cancer.gov]):
Between 2000 and 2009, overall cancer incidence rates decreased by 0.6 percent per year among men, were stable among women, and increased by 0.6 percent per year among children (ages 0 to 14 years). During that time period, incidence rates among men decreased for five of the 17 most common cancers (prostate, lung, colon and rectum, stomach, and larynx) and increased for six others (kidney, pancreas, liver, thyroid, melanoma of the skin, and myeloma). Among women, incidence rates decreased for seven of the 18 most common cancers (lung, colon and rectum, bladder, cervix, oral cavity and pharynx, ovary, and stomach), and increased for seven others (thyroid, melanoma of the skin, kidney, pancreas, leukemia, liver, and uterus). Incidence rates were stable for the other top 17 cancers, including breast cancer in women and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in men and women.
Re:FUD summary as usual (Score:4, Insightful)
Well this should be easy enough -- there are tens of thousands of retired lifetime commercial pilots already. Do they have increased cancer risks?
Stop blathering and look into it. I would think such would have been discovered already, in fact.
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Why bother? Since the risk here is directly proportional to the time spent flying, just compare cancer rates among pilots and stewardesses vs. the general population.
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As I said, the research is interesting and I look forward to seeing
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“Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.”
Terry Pratchett, Mort
NOW what do you say.
Re:FUD summary as usual (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, to make it a million to one chance he'd need to have one pilot blindfolded while a stewardess dances a waltz down the center, with the airplane going directly through a thunderstorm.
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I wasn't giving it undue weight; I know it's more likely to be maimed some other way. It just seemed to me to have non-zero probability, not non-existent.
Regardless whether you liked the article's tone and focus or not, it's obvious we'll be reading more about it later, including the physics behind it. Since we already have obsessed storm and tornado chasers, I predict that some rich dudes with their own private planes will outfit them with gear and start flying them right into lightning storms just to se
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So that's one million "dark lightning" incidents every year, and how many global aircraft flights? Avoidance of thunderstorms or not, odds are it's been happening and we didn't know to look for symptoms until now.
I think it'd be interesting to find out if whole plane-loads of cancer patients could be traced back to individual flights — and to consider that this phenomenon could have been occurring since the beginning of the airline industry.
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I don't get why the guy wants telescope to do the job though.
just put some sensors on the airplanes...
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"So that's one million "dark lightning" incidents every year, and how many global aircraft flights? Avoidance of thunderstorms or not, odds are it's been happening and we didn't know to look for symptoms until now."
You can't just dismiss avoidance of thunder storms, have a look at this map:
http://geology.com/articles/lightning-map.shtml [geology.com]
You're far more likely to be close to a lightning strike led in your bed at night, than you are in a plane on a transatlantic flight or whatever because as the map shows, the
Why haven't we seen the effects then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Should be really easy to study - are aircrew more likely to suffer the ill effects of ionizing radiation, whatever those are.
It would be the sort of thing that an established Airline and staff (or air force) would probably already have noticed, particularly any that fly through and around the intense storms in the tropics. The fact that they haven't leads me to think that this may be a non-story.
Re:Why haven't we seen the effects then? (Score:5, Informative)
Should be really easy to study - are aircrew more likely to suffer the ill effects of ionizing radiation, whatever those are.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/557340.stm [bbc.co.uk]
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Re:Why haven't we seen the effects then? (Score:5, Informative)
It's been studied. Airline pilots get more melanoma than the rest of us, probably from hanging out on nice beaches too much. They don't get any of the other cancers you'd predict from large bursts of x-rays or gamma rays any more than anybody else.
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Except glass is really good at filtering UV..
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Should be really easy to study - are aircrew more likely to suffer the ill effects of ionizing radiation, whatever those are.
It would be the sort of thing that an established Airline and staff (or air force) would probably already have noticed, particularly any that fly through and around the intense storms in the tropics. The fact that they haven't leads me to think that this may be a non-story.
I have an uncle who used to drop nuclear bombs for the USAF when they were doing all those open bomb tests in Nevada, the Bikini islands, and what not. According to him, every survivng man in his unit has had to have the major arteries in their legs some 30-40 years after they did those bomb tests.
No Dosometers on Board (Score:5, Interesting)
If they do not carry dosimeters, why not? Ground level radiation workers have to by law. I am a nuclear engineer and do so on visits to plant - yet my total life dose over some years of this is tiny, less than typical aircrew would have I believe.
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If they do not carry dosimeters, why not?
It's an avoidable business expense. As most airlines are either bankrupt or teetering on the edge, they don't spend a red cent more than they absolutely have to.
Re:No Dosometers on Board (Score:5, Insightful)
If they do not carry dosimeters, why not?
It's an avoidable business expense. As most airlines are either bankrupt or teetering on the edge, they don't spend a red cent more than they absolutely have to.
Plus why carry something that could only give your airline bad publicity, and open up the possibility of being sued for "not taking sufficient evasive measures".
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Maybe there is a lot of money in owning bankrupt airlines. In all seriousness we do see endless parades of airlines coming and going out of business. If they are such an awful monetary risk would we really see them cropping up? One way or another airlines make money whether the books and "official" paper work indicates it or not.
It is rather like a valley full of farmers who know
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There is a difference between the company making money and the executives getting salary + options. See what happened to Nortel in Canada, company was bled dry to the point of no money left in the disability and pension funds, and executives were giving themselves $200 million bonuses. When there is that much money to suck out of a company, there are plenty of people who see it as viable.
Re:No Dosometers on Board (Score:5, Interesting)
There are dosimeters on board. I have completed several radiation safety courses during my work and radiation levels for airline crew are monitored and tracked just like they are for workers in nuclear and other research fields. Frequent fliers are not monitored and tracked. I work at CERN and I know exactly how much ionizing and neutron dose I receive during my work, but I also have to travel between my home at Fermilab and CERN and I have no idea how much dose I receive on my trans-Atlantic flights. The pilot of the plane is monitored and his dose is tracked. That pilot should also have access to his personal dose, but I don't know what the level of transparency is in the airline industry. So if there were a significant likelihood, the data is there.
Speaking from a physics point of view, a huge acceleration is need to produce x-ray and gamma rays. And they aren't hard to detect. It would seem that a balloon experiment flying some CsI or other crystals in some thunderstorms would quickly detect this phenomena even if it is 1/1000 or even 1/10000.
Number of photons? (Score:2)
(Taking the opportunity that there's a physicist around)
And what about the numbers of photon? (Sorry, not the correct term, but I think you see what you mean. I'm an MD and currently too lazy to dig the correct terminology).
I mean, yes X-Rays can be highly energetic and Gamma even more so. But I'm under the impression that the higher the energy, the lesser the amount of produced rays.
Ultimately, we might find real proof that indeed very high energetic Gamma rays might be produced occasionally, but practical
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"There are dosimeters on board. I have completed several radiation safety courses during my work and radiation levels for airline crew are monitored and tracked just like they are for workers in nuclear and other research fields."
Unfortunately for them, typical dosimeters only detect BETA(energetic electron) radiation. Gamma radiation(high energy photon) detection requires 3D type sensor with significant mass (large crystal in light tight box).
Gamma energy level photons have a tendency of passing thr
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theres a huge difference, both type and quantity, between the radiation a fligth crew is possibly exposed to and the radiation a nuclear plant worker is possibly exposed to.
The article (Score:2)
The article basically says no one has probably ever been hit. The incidence of dark lightening is about 1/1000th the incidence of visible lightening and pilots avoid thunderstorms.
implausible (Score:3)
People have been flying for many decades. Epidemiologically, there is a significant increase among airline pilots only of melanoma and breast cancer, not of other cancer types. That's not consistent with occasional large bursts of x-ray and gamma radiation (it may be due to leisure activities).
Nope -- Leukemia too! (Score:3)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/557340.stm [bbc.co.uk]
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One study with a significant result isn't sufficient to demonstrate an effect. Lots of other studies have seen no effect on leukemia. The only significant increase seems to be for melanoma (and breast cancer in women).
Does it really exist? (Score:2)
As usual I wikipedia something like "dark lightning" that i've never heard of before. Nothing found, but wikipedia search is pretty crap.
Anyway the best I could find was Relativistic-runaway-electron avalanche [wikipedia.org]
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As usual I wikipedia something like "dark lightning" that i've never heard of before. Nothing found, but wikipedia search is pretty crap.
It sounds similar to and is probably as dangerous as the dark quickening. Now imagine *that* happening to an airplane full of people!
regulations (Score:5, Funny)
Airlines should be subject to the same regulations as nuclear power. All planes should have a few meters of lean and concrete shielding to protect the passengers. Anything that saves one childs life should be done.
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Yes... Or simply load the luggage above the passengers, not below...
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What is this "maximum safe lifetime dose"? (Score:3)
Radiation damage isn't cumulative. If it were, you would see greater incidences of cancer in areas with higher naturally occurring background radiation, or in workers with greater exposure. Unless you overwhelm your body's repair mechanisms, the damage is essentially harmless and repair is a natural part of everyday life. Low levels of radiation are much less dangerous than ordinary carcinogens and particulate that we are dumping into our environment by the billions of tons every year.
Granted, this so-called dark lightning may exceed safe levels over short periods of time. Then again, if you are struck by lightning, you will also probably exceed a maximum safe number of electrons transiting through your body. This would appear to be an extremely rare, if not entirely imaginary problem. To my knowledge, there have't been any planefuls of people who have died of acute radiation exposure.
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Radiation damage isn't cumulative. If it were, you would see greater incidences of cancer You are committing the logical fallacy of asserting the consequent, without a shred of proof for anything you say. Moreover, death is not the only possible result of radiation exposure.
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Radation dammage comes in two forms. Massive doses can cause acute dammage; 'radiation poisoning' and kill you quickly.
Radiation exposure can also trigger cancers at any dose.
Nuclear regulatory agencies use the "linear, no threshold" model for guaging radiation exposure risk. Essentialy, any ionizing radiation absorbed by your body has a chance of triggering a cancer. The more exposure you have, the more chances you have.
Think of it this way: every unit of radiation exposure is like a cancer lottery tic
Worse with use of "Composite" aircraft (Score:2)
Intense bursts of gamma rays? (Score:5, Funny)
Then don't get those flight attendants angry. You wouldn't like them when they're angry.
The LAT is not Dwyer's sensor (Score:2)
Dwyer hopes his sensor aboard the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, will provide more data."
The "sensor" referred to in the article appears to be the main instrument on board the Fermi spacecraft: the not very imaginatively named Large Area Telescope,
or LAT. This was developed by a very large international team, including NASA and the DoE in the US. However, Dwyer, as far as I know, was not
a member of this large team. (And I don't think the article or Dwyer actually claim this.)
The data obtained from the LAT are made public as soon as possible, usually within much less than 24 hours,
after being ob
Be afraid. Be very afraid. (Score:2)
However, because there’s only about one dark lightning occurrence for every thousand visible flashes and because pilots take great pains to avoid thunderstorms, Dwyer says, the risk of injury is quite limited. No one knows for sure if anyone has ever been hit by dark lightning.
In space yes, but in the atmosphere less so (Score:2)
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Most commercial aircraft cannot fly high enough to fly above CB clouds, especially in the tropics where the are at their most intense and where the tropopause is higher. The only avoidance route is to fly around them. Simply put, thunderstorms are too high to fly over them. On the other hand, normal rain showers can be easily avoided by flying over them.
Re:Flying abobe clouds (Score:5, Informative)
Don't most planes fly above the storms?
Not necessarily. Airliners in which I have flown commonly go no higher than 36,000 feet - occasionally perhaps 40,000 feet. The tops of thunderstorms often reach 55,000 feet and can be even higher. One extreme case reached about 70,000 feet. Moreover, it is necessary to fly well above the tops of the visible clouds, as bad things can happen up to a mile higher. Check out, for instance, http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/tech_ops/read.main/152684/ [airliners.net]
So pilots almost always opt to fly around storms instead.
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Airliners in which I have flown commonly go no higher than 36,000 feet - occasionally perhaps 40,000 feet.
I thought flight levels were odd-only starting at and above FL290 — or do the airliners in which you fly not adhere to flight levels?
Re:Flying abobe clouds (Score:5, Informative)
I thought flight levels were odd-only starting at and above FL290 — or do the airliners in which you fly not adhere to flight levels?
Not since 2005 in the U.S. - under a program called Reduced Vertical Separation Minima, the 2000-foot separations apply at FL410 and above. Below that, it's based on heading (or actually ground track); 0-179 will be assigned odd FLs; 180-359 get assigned even FLs.
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I was on a plane flying near NYC when they were having a thunderstorm and we climbed to 41,000 and it was still apparent the cloud tops were even higher. I love how awesome thunderstorms are.
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thats just the thundercell itself, essentially the motor that drives the rest of the storm system. the rest of the storm system will still produce rain and lightning without rising higher. the thundercell is essentially a self-reinforcing vortex (though vortex isnt really the right word) that builds and builds on itself, and provides the energy to the rest of the storm.
Thunderstorms reach into the stratosphere... (Score:3)
...and no commercial passenger airplane can fly that high, only some very special aircraft (hint: some spy planes... by now replaced by cheaper satellites, though).
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AMAZING X-MEN! gotta catch them all! (Score:2)
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Pilots (I am one) live longer because of the strict medical requirements imposed upon them, and the fact that the moment a pilot shows any sign of sickness, especially with respect to the most common health problems in the US (Heart Disease, Diabetes, and Hypertension), they are grounded and do not get included in the long-term studies of pilot lifespan.
The studies of pilot lifetime have the unfortunate bias of the FAA weeding the unhealthy from the sample group long before the "bad" samples can be included