Cosmic Radiation Measurements in Airline Service

Abstract

Ionising radiation monitoring equipment is installed in all Concordes and much data have been derived. To validate the measurements from the on-board monitoring equipment, a programme of measurements on Concorde has been carried out using passive dosemeters in association with the UK National Radiological Protection Board. Data from a typical month (in this case October 1997) shows an arithmetic mean dose across the British Airways Concorde fleet of 12.9 (±0.4) μSv.h -1 . Results from the NRPB measurements for the same month give a dose of 11.4 (±0.5) μSv.h -1 and application of the CARI 3Q programme gives a dose of 9.6 μSv.h -1 for the same month. The effective route dose between London and New York gives a mean value of 43.1 μSv for the Concorde detectors. The NRPB results give route dose of 38.9 μSv whereas the CARI 3Q programme gives a route dose of 32.5 μSv. Measurements have also been performed on the Boeing 747-400 aircraft on the high latitude ultralonghaul direct London-Tokyo flight and these give values in the region of 6 μSv.h -1 , against the CARI 3Q estimate of 3.7 μSv.h -1 .