LOL. My "observations" are from a 1995 study of 1494 pilots over 25 years. A 1999 British study of 7362 pilots and F/E's had the average life expectancy 4-5 years greater than the typical male. A 1996 Flight Safety study stated that a review of 2,327 Japanese pilots showed a lower mortality rate. That's 11,000+ pilots. When does it stop being "anecdotal"?

What source do you have to support that pilots die at the average or younger? I found one a 1992 preliminary study from the Flight Safety Institute that said the average pilot aged 50-74 died at 61 years of age. Any pilot who's lived to that age knows that's not true in our, or our father's, generation of pilots. If anything it's the exact opposite as we were stunned when a 69 yr old friend just died. It's like the studies show most of our retired peers chug along into their 80's.

Drinking? All the online stuff I saw said there's no difference among pilots vs the general population. Pilots just make the headlines.

Cigarette smoking? Pilots that smoke are unicorns. Flying with a pilot that smokes is a very rare exception. Overall it's 13% (US males 2021). That's 1:12. I don't think I've flown with 10 smokers in the last decade and it's been zero of the last 35 pilots I've flown with.

 

I was an ad hoc member to our Aeromedical Committee's inflight radiation sub-committee.

The risk is vastly overstated. It's not zero. I estimate my risk of death from 'occupational exposure to ionizing protons' to be 0.6%. Keep in mind about 43% (46%?) of us while get cancer and 23% will die from it. So with 28 years of w/b flying my cancer death risk might be 23.6%. That's a 2.6% increase over a non-pilot. That's not something I'm going to worry about.

Rough estimates for 700 hrs a year flying at FL370 (domestic guys fly lower, 787's, A350's, 777-200's average higher) the mSv exposure is -

ORD-LHR - 4.9 mSv
Transcons - 2.75 mSv
MIA-SJU - 1.75 mSv

Annual limit is 20 mSv

I forget the exact percentages but Europe 787 flying will be 40%(?) higher. 777-200 was 20%???

If it's a concern fly southern U.S. domestic flying. Or really any U.S. domestic flying. You'd be hard pressed to get more than 100 mSv's in your career. That's a death risk of 0.4%. Fly Europe for 30 years on a 777-200 and you'd be looking at 150 mSv. That's a 0.6%. Oh, oh, oh....the w/b's death is risk 50% higher than n/b flying!! Stay away from that!! That's the drama filled answer. Or you can look at it as 23.6% vs 23.4%. That's a 0.8% (less than 1%) increase in cancer death over your life time.

Focus on SPF 30, or SPF 50, and have fun. Or lay awake at night worrying about flying w/b's is increasing your death risk by 0.8% over a n/b pilot.

Aviation death risk by lifetime aviation mSv (ioninzing protons) exposure -
50 mSv - 1:500 0.2%
100 mSv - 1:250 0.4%
150 mSv - 1:170 0.6%
200 mSv - 1:130 0.8%

mSv calculator - http://ww
w.cami.jccbi.gov/radiation.html

 

It's AA pilots. AA didn't have as much long haul flying back then

The British Airways study looks at long haul vs short haul flying. The results are a bit surprising - long haul was +4-5 years longevity and short haul was +2-3 years.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10373044/

 

Cigarettes? This isn't 1975. And we're talking North America.

Overall pilots get a very a significant longevity boost from being upper-middle class or even upper class professionals. Better diet, exercise, healthcare, life choices, limited substance use.

Work environment I'm sure takes us down a little bit, IMO that's mostly circadian which is to a large degree controllable... seniority might dictate circadian flops at certain points in your career, but seniority also gives you flexibility. I avoid circadian stupidity like the plague, not chasing money (ex cargo widebody) at that cost. Anybody who flies on the wrong side of their clock for a whole career made a choice.


21st century pilots (specifically USA airline pilots) benefit greatly from upper middle class demographic. And if we're doing it right, we have less stress and more time and flexibility to be healthy.

 

This checks with the math I did with a relative who's a physicist.

Barely measureable increased risk. If you really want to worry about radiation, a big solar flare might be a good time to call out sick... you can get a couple years worth in a couple hours.

Again, circadian flop is the biggy IMO.

 

Exactly. We have the life expectancy of white, educated, well paid, professionals.

 

Cracks me up - years ago a pilot posted "I told the Captain about the solar flare and convinced him that we should fly to S. America at (IDK, FL280? FL310?). It was a non-ionizing solar flare. He had more risk from shaving compared to the solar flare. The type of flare matters.

Or the 'aviation expert' who testified in court ($$$) as such. Flew around S. America and wouldn't go higher than FL330(?). Had the same rule for flying to Europe - not above FL330. Head shaking about 'experts'......you can't get as much mSv's going to S. America at FL410 as you can going to Europe at FL330.

Don't take my word for it. The CAMI-6 radiation calculator will allow you to see the data for specific city pairs in a given month. It lags the calendar by about 2 months. S. America to the U.S. mSv exposure at FL330 was something like FL230 (??) going to Europe.

 

Interesting enough the British study showed long haul pilots living 4-5 yrs longer vs short haul pilots living 2-3 yrs longer.

 

I'm actually quite leery of foriegn studies... there may be significant differences in rest rules, and route structure. North-South vs. East-West obviously matters a lot...

Also how do you segregate long haul from short haul? In the US you could use NB only airlines for shorthaul, and some cargo for longhaul but at the big three most pilots will mix and match fleets over their career.

If your short haul pilots all work for lower-tier airlines, maybe they have less rest due to contracts, more stress, less money, etc.