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Comment by RajT88 | Hacker News Reader

Attendants have higher risk than pilots. This kind of makes sense, as my understanding is they don't have pilots fly too often. Meanwhile, attendants are flying all the time.

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> as my understanding is they don't have pilots fly too often

From a quick search, I can’t find evidence of this. If anything, pilots are in the air more of their week/lives vs. flight attendants.

I guess I am going off when a pilot spoke at my high school for career day. (Decades ago...)

In my search, I found that they spend almost an equal number of hours in air like you said - 75-100 hours per month. If that's the case, after adjusting for sex, these numbers holding would throw some uncertainty into the radiation hypothesis.

The fuselage probably has a lot less attention to shielding even if the cockpit seems very exposed.

This is peak HN. Two engineers running google searches without any primary sources speaking up about the issue.

Account created 2021

Collaboratively trying to figure out an unknown. I quite enjoy this type of interaction of strangers versus the typical arguments

According to a bit of Googling (which included LLM responses so if you need to be sure verify what follows), although flight attendants and pilots spend about the same amount of time in the air and so get the same exposure, flight attendants have fewer rest requirements and scheduling protection. This results in them working more erratic shifts with shorter rest windows, which results in more circadian rhythm disruption than in pilots.

Important mechanisms in the body to suppress tumor growth and repair DNA damage are linked to circadian rhythms and are less effective when those rhythms are disrupted.

I wonder if pilots' medical checks would catch some of these early?

Probably not unless there was something presenting, as a Class 1 FAA medical exam is checking medical history, vital signs, vision, hearing, cardiovascular health, neurological function, and general physical condition. There's a urine test for blood, glucose, protein. Last one I had there was no blood test or cancer screening unless it was something showing on the skin.

Interestingly, to me, my last medical was 2 years ago and there was no concern for the spot on my cheek that turned out to be basal cell carcinoma.

It varies with the airline and their staffing needs and your seniority as well. Some might fly you to your legal limits and you might have to get a ride back home on top of that. Some you might be on call but never really called, and might not be formally scheduled for much, and therefore might only fly a couple times a month through some stretches.

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