Assessment of the cosmic radiation exposure on Canadian-based routes

As a result of the recent recommendations of the ICRP-60 and in anticipation of possible regulation on occupational exposure of commercial aircrew, a two-phase investigation was carried out over a 1-y period to determine the total dose equivalent on representative Canadian-based flight routes. In the first phase of the study, dedicated scientific flights on a Northern round-trip route between Ottawa and Resolute Bay provided the opportunity to characterize the complex mixed-radiation field and to intercompare various instrumentation using both a conventional suite of powered detectors and passive dosimetry. In the second phase, volunteer aircrew carried (passive) neutron bubble detectors during their routine flight duties. From these measurements, the total dose equivalent was derived for a given route with a knowledge of the neutron fraction as determined from the scientific flights and computer code (CARI-3C) calculations. This study has yielded an extensive database of over 3,100 measurements providing the total dose equivalent for 385 different routes. By folding in flight frequency information and the accumulated flight hours, the annual occupational exposures of 20 flight crew have been determined. This study has indicated that most Canadian-based domestic and international aircrew will exceed the proposed annual ICRP-60 public limit of 1 mSv y(-1) but will be well below the occupational limit of 20 mSv y(-1).