BootsnAll Travel Community

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did you know that a short 1 hour flight gives you the equivalent exposure to radiation as 4 dental radiographs?

there is a lot of debate on how much radiation one is exposed to while flying. typing some key words into google brings up tons of stuff to read -- It seems to be agreed upon that you get more, but whether or not its 'unhealthful' is where the debate comes in. Depends on how high you fly, how long, and at what latitude. But then what about the astronauts? up there is space above the atmosphere? They must be getting bombarded.

yes, sure, more exposure makes sense. but "glowing from raditation" sounds a little extreme to me. if it were that serious one would expect flight crews to be dropping dead like chernobyl fire fighters, but they're not.

only a decent scientific study could answer that.

my guess would be that the effects for occational travelers, even frequent biz travellers, would be nominal.

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if it were that serious one would expect flight crews to be dropping dead like chernobyl fire fighters,

I, for one, am not glowing (yet) - but only have 4000 flight hours. Senior airline Captains have 20,000 to 30,000 hours -- still a ways to go...

Off beat a little but in 1928 Bert Hinkler flew this plane for 128 hours. Started in London and landed in Darwin. Including stop over times the trip was completed in 16 days.

When you think back to KittyHawk whilst reading this thread, been some century for getting about.

Long haul? Thats two movies (2 hours each) and 4 Simpsons reruns

Our New Zealand tickets in October have us leaving Portland 7am, October 17th, and arriving in Auckland noon, October 19th. Of course, I think the biggest time-loss is due to crossing the international date line, it can't all be fly time. Can it?

Bri & CJ concerned on LHFT.
7am on 17 to noon on 19

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it can't be all fly time. Can it?

I'd reckon it ought to be high noon at the not OK corral.
Like even allowing for 7 am on the 17 being 3am on the 18, I'd think Bri that they have near factored in another orbit for you just to get you in the RTW vibe or are you flying east via London/Europe instead of the short cut over the pole! or the shorter still one heading west over the pond.

If the latter, I'd reckon that noon on the 18 non-stop could be a goer tho I'd have thought a mid afternoon arrival would be more like it.
You ain't been into the bud bikkies agin have you now.

I flew JFK-Singapore once - the food was excellent(and plentiful) and they had those nifty seatback video console thingys so the time went by relatively quickly. What sucked was having to backtrack to get to Kathmandu - when we were flying over the Himalaya I felt like asking the flight attendant "Could you give me a parachute and let me off here?"

Suckiest long-haul flight was 13 hours Beijing - JFK on China Air. No individual video, cramped seats, and every row seemed to have at least one child under 10.

I used to live in Hawaii and traveled to Europe quite a few times - now I live in NYC and travel to Asia. Believe me I have been on some major long-haul flights. To me the definition would begin over 8-9 hours.

My upcoming flight to Nepal(gods help me) is with Gulf Air and is broken up pretty nicely: JFK - Heathrow, Heathrow - Muscat, Muscat - Kathmandu. I think the longest leg is 8 or 9 hours. Total flight time including stops is about 20 hours, excellent for KTM, but I have some tight connections(1-1.5 hours).

I think long haul will be redifined soon with the new long range planes coming out.

I always considered anything over 9 hours to be long haul or a flight where you can get a full nights sleep

Over 10 for sure.

Bus rides, after travelling round South America any bus ride under 15 hours is childs play!!! Did 100 bus hours in a week at one stage.

10 hours

I'd have to go on my own experience... flying from England to South Africa takes about 11 hours, that's not such a bad flight! My longest flight was 18 hours... SA to NY, so that's what i classify as long haul!

I compared it to land travel (ie. bus or in a car) and 7+ hours is pretty longhaul so i chose that one...i hate long trips, i get antsy and bored..restless after an hour

double digits.

For me, any flight where you might want to be able to sleep through some of it, but can't because you can't sleep on planes is a long haul.

Try flying from Aus - UK via Bruneii! One of your legs is a 17 hour flight - NO WAYS! That would be my definition of a long haul flight.

17 hours. wow. i didn't know there were such flights. my longest has been 13, which in itself is insanely long.

When i posted the poll i meant only single legs of an airplane trip. Busses are different. Multi segment trips are also different. :P

I like spiralout's diffinition

What does one do during an 11-18 hour flight

You guys said there is plenty of entertainment? lol

One reads their book, listens to their iPod, watches several movies, drinks waay too much vodka & tonic, takes a nap, eats whatever the meal is, watches some more movies, fiddles with his Palm Pilot, naps again, lets off silent farts, fiddles with the free headphones, looks to see what is in the seatback pocket, gladly recieves a plastic cup of water, reviews the Lonely Planet book which was already read but now starts to read the small-type reference stuff in the back, asks for more bread rolls with the second meal, steals some silverware, watches another movie and prays that the goddamn plane will eventually make it to BKK.

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Originally posted by static:
lets off silent farts

I'm REALLY good at that one!!!

To me long haul flights are read, sleep, eat, watch a movie, sleep, eat, read, sleep, eat.. etc

it seems like one is always eating on those.