LowSlowT2

My great grandmother smoked 2 packs a day until she died at 94 and drank like a fish. Jim Fixx died at 52 after his daily run. Go figure.

Death is inevitable, unfortunately.

All that aside, in Air Force Special Operations Command, it's not pilots, but loadmasters who seem to frequently get brain cancer and die. I personally know three and have heard of four more (two who were not loadmasters - one flight engineer and one pilot). AFSOC did a study, but basically said it was within the statistical numbers for 'normal'...and I always trust everything the military says.

In the end, something's going to get you - no sense worrying about it.

Tomorrow is promised to no one.

NERD

I may get the quote wrong but:

Yesterday is a memory
Today is a gift
and
Tomorrow is a mystery

Timbo

Were the 5 AFSOC guys all based in the same location, or spread out far and wide?

I was in the NH Air Guard at Pease AFB from 1984-1992, and when the DOD budget cuts/base closures in 1992 came, they closed the active duty end of the base. Some developers wanted to build some stuff there, but get this, first, they would have to pay for a special "Clean Up" of all the dirt around the ends of the runway.

For years the AF had been dumping jet fuel out there. It was common practice when a KC 135 didn't 'get water' on take off, to abort, taxi back, and dump about 10,000 (or more) of gas out the boom, onto the grass, to get lighter for a no-water take off.

Well, after about 20 years of this, and the base closure, the EPA started checking the ground water around the base...guess what? High levels of Benzine in the ground water...the same water we'd all been drinking for years!

Long story short, no developer wanted to spend that kind of money, and -hope- the EPA would then approve their project...but only if the ground water was cleaned up.

My two closest friends who both had the brain cancer both flew out of Pease as well...

Coincidence? Perhaps, but I'm betting every KC135 base around the world was doing the same thing, (dumping fuel off the side of the runway) back then, when the Water Wagons were flying. So maybe your crew chiefs were once stationed at a KC 135 base with well water?

LowSlowT2

Spread out - different MDSs as well...all deployed to similar locations over the years though.

That was the done thing back in the SAC glory days. Fill 'em full for alert. On scramble, figure TOLD while taxiing out, dump what you couldn't take off with.

Tankers still dump more gas every day than a squadron of Herks carry! They just do it airborne now - 'adjusting gross weight'

Timbo

I was a 135 guy back in the day, but shortly after I got in, we got rid of the water wagons and got the E model (JT3D engines, with Thrust Reversers!).

A few month back Delta had a couple 747's in one month, about a week apart, both coming out of DTW going to Asia, both had to turn back just after takeoff.

Each one dumped somewhere around 250,000 lbs of fuel all over Michigan...I hope those crews didn't run their APU's more than 5 minutes prior to pushback. We wouldn't want to waste even more fuel.

There was a picture of one of them spewing fuel posted on the inter-tubes somewhere.

hesitant

Well you know, recently I read an article that claimed Icelandic pilots had higher skin cancer rates that the general population. Other reports indicated a higher risk of AML for pilots. This is a very serious and mostly uncurable form of lukemia.
I would be careful before drawing any conclusions. Cancer rates vary greatly by age and many other factors not mentioned in either article.

UAL T38 Phlyer

Your friend's quote is accurate. I looked up the rates; found a study from the UK. This study was the UK as a whole, not pilots. For people in the pilot working-age group (25-65), it is between 1 in 30,000 (young) to 1 in 10,000 (older).

I was stationed in Germany for 6 years. During that time, I knew about 200-250 pilots, backseaters, and their wives. Of them, 5 got cancer; three were brain cancer. About 50-50 between flyers and their wives, so it didn't seem to be about flying...more about location.

The Eifel region of Germany has a lot of limestone. Limestone often has radium, and with it, radon gas. I wonder if our homes had radon, or if the local water (which came from local wells) had radium dissolved in it. All I know is for my group, at one locale, the rate seem to be at least 100 times normal.

Timbo:

The strength of the electric field from your headset is nothing compared to being swept by an ATC radar at close range, or taxiing in front of an airliner with its radar operating. (Or maybe even sidelobes of your own radar). For all the time I spent in a plexiglass cockpit, locked-up by the radar of another fighter, I should be called Orville Redenbacher---my popcorn should have popped by now.

sulkair

Incidence of cancer among Nordic airline pilots over five decades: occupational cohort study

Incidence of cancer among Nordic airline pilots over five decades: occupational cohort study

This made me feel a little better about it.

N9373M

The AMA has just published an article that indicates saliva causes cancer, but only if swallowed in small amounts over a long period of time.

Humor is the best medicine!

strikeagledrivr

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