Instrument radiation?

there is the (albeit possibly slim) chance of you breathing in the dust, thereby getting non-degradable radioactive material into your lungs, with all that entails.
If museums buy a Geiger counter, and supply visitors with dust-proof sprayers’ masks and over-suits, which can be destroyed after use, maybe 100% access might be regained, but don’t hold your breath.

Hmm.. DO hold your breath. That’d also work.

Looks as though the Boscombe Aviation Collection better close down then,on a visit last year to their Old Sarum site we spent many enjoyable hours sat inside Canberra,Swift and Hunter cockpits.
How far do we go with this, in Somerset it is well known there is background radiation that permeates into the atmosphere life is a risk we just need to be sensible.
A couple of weeks ago I was in a position (the right hand seat) to carry out a practice display in a Hunter T7 above Duxford with the aircraft age 50 + and all that radiation some would say a risk too far.

Post-war, instrument paint was changed from luminous to fluorescent (which isn’t radioactive.)

I could sit in ML417 at Dux for free in 1988 or 89. No problem. 🙂

As has been posted above in this thread it’s not all instruments!

I’m sure that BAC will have checked their cockpits to make sure they don’t present a risk to anyone going in them.

Looks as though the Boscombe Aviation Collection better close down then,on a visit last year to their Old Sarum site we spent many enjoyable hours sat inside Canberra,Swift and Hunter cockpits.
How far do we go with this, in Somerset it is well known there is background radiation that permeates into the atmosphere life is a risk we just need to be sensible.
A couple of weeks ago I was in a position (the right hand seat) to carry out a practice display in a Hunter T7 above Duxford with the aircraft age 50 + and all that radiation some would say a risk too far.

[QUOTE=JDK;2153753]

When researching my book on the subject, I was refused access to the RAF Museum’s Supermarine Seagull V specifically for that reason, and limited to 15 minutes inside the Supermarine Stranraer. The Stranny had its instrument panel ‘lifted’ sometime before the museum acquired it, so (then) over 30 years without anything to originate Geiger clicks…

QUOTE]

One has to wonder what is the point of having something preserved for ‘future generations’ if you can’t actually see it?

Paul

Be careful when buying or selling these instruments over the internet as due to the security issues we face in the world today parcels are being scanned, any parcel identified with potentially radio active material is being halted from further progression. I seem to remember looking at the post offices prohibited articles leaflet and aircraft instruments with radium dials are mentioned. Can be a costly experience as WWII instruments tend not to be cheap!

Some instruments were made with ONLY radio-luminescent paint on their dials. Some instruments with both radium and PHOTO-luminescent dials, and some with photo-lume only.

It can sometimes be difficult to determine which type an instrument is which (usually helped by translating the part number), but as a rule, the radium-based instruments show ugly brown dial markers now because the luminescent paint (zinc sulphide) has been degraded by the radioactive element (radium 226), and these dial faces no longer lume, which novices then believe to mean that they are no longer radioactive. The paint also flakes and crumbles, which makes it more dangerous as it can be ingested. Photo-luminescent dials are usually cleaner and don’t show the brown staining but not always.

And it should be remembered that it is not just instrument faces that have radio-luminescent paint. Some decal plates/placards can, which can be hazardous because they are not contained under glass, and in fact some instruments have been found with external markers/datums which are ‘hot’ (triple brake pressure gauge as an example). I have also come across some ROTAX-type toggle switches that have a radium bead in the end, inside the plastic, presumably so the toggle would glow. That was found only after a survey of a panel with a counter when all other instrument sources had been ruled out.

Finally, the early P-type compasses can be extremely ‘hot’ and the alcohol contained within can be hazardous if drained out to be replaced as it will contain particles of the paint.

The only sure-fire way to ensure an instrument is not radio-luminescent is to get it tested, and if it is a wartime era gauge, then you’d be safe to assume it IS until it has been checked out. I’d also say that ANY Eastern Bloc instrument of any era is suspect, and even instruments that have been recovered from a dig and have been in the ground will still be quite hot even if there is no evidence of original paint on the dial (as one of the forum members who regularly posts here will testify – no names unless he wants to comment).

Depends on the instrument. The vast majority of instruments available are quite safe.

If its the instruments that can “possibly” be the issue, how can the vast majority of them which are available be safe? I’m not been funny just a general question for a future project I m thinking about.

Quick question………………The same appllys to instrument panel projects?

Depends on the instrument. The vast majority of instruments available are quite safe.

The danger does not come from “radiation,” but from the paint itself; over years it deteriorates, and partially crumbles into a fine dust, and this shows up as apparently brown paint, often with black specks in it.
If the glass is cracked, or chipped, or the case is cracked (and that’s very common, since many are made of Bakelite, which cracks in a heartbeat when screws are over-tightened,) or the rubber seal, under the glass, has perished (and rubber has only a 5-year CAA “life,”) there is the (albeit possibly slim) chance of you breathing in the dust, thereby getting non-degradable radioactive material into your lungs, with all that entails.
.

Very sound advice but please also remember Radium (a solid) decays to Radon (a gas) which will leak out from even a well-sealed instrument. The Radon gas, which is bad for you, will then decay and turn into solid Polonium which is really, really nasty (used in tiny quantities to assassinate people!), before it decays into safe lead. With a collection of instruments in a poorly ventilated space, the Polonium deposited outside the instruements can build, and because it’s so nasty, it may become a hazard. The moral of the story is keep collections of luminous stuff in well-ventilated spaces to allow any radon to disperse;- maybe museum A/C should be stored canopies open?

And were they faced with instruments with damaged glasses, cases and seals, with 70-year-old deteriorating paint?

I would guess that it is was the least of their problems with the incoming cannon shells coming through their cockpits and fuselage.

Hmmmm Are any WWII Spitfire pilots still about having sat for the best part of a number of years in these radiated cockpits?

And were they faced with instruments with damaged glasses, cases and seals, with 70-year-old deteriorating paint?

Quick question………………The same appllys to instrument panel projects?

Watch the ‘cigarettes don’t give you cancer because uncle Charlie smoked until he was 100’ arguments…

The (mis-)application of health and safety as Bruce’s said can be an issue. On the other hand (nice to have two, all complete, isn’t it?) you don’t seem to see the cripples around that you used to.

Bear in mind also that the radiation management issue isn’t a UK only one. There are comparable approaches and issues – I’m sure touched on in some of the thread’s TwinOtter’s posted – in other countries such as the US and Canada to my certain knowledge.

Meanwhile in other radiation exposure opportunities:
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/europe/travel-tips-and-articles/76503

Regards,

Hmmmm Are any WWII Spitfire pilots still about having sat for the best part of a number of years in these radiated cockpits?

Its worth noting that some private organisations have been offering a sit in a Spitfire for a fee – warts and all.

Bruce

I told them this specific fact. They just shrugged and said “they have taken it to a business level”.

Even so, they even started with arguments against this rule which leads me to belive someone, somewhere have told the museum to follow the rule.

I remember back in 1986 someone sitting in the very same Spitfire. I guess he’s dead now. By radiation 😛

Indeed, being pragmatic, one has to operate within the strictures of the appropriate regulations.

Those regulations are not wholly prescriptive; it could be possible for museums to develop a policy to allow visitors to sit in cockpits which have radioactive instruments, but it would be necessary to develop a whole range of procedures and policies to do so, in order to ensure that if the visit came, that the rules had been correctly followed.

If you consider the amount of time and energy this might take, then it is clearly much easier just to have a policy that says ‘Non’ when asked.

It may well be the case that this is classic nanny state politics, and that the danger, realistically, is low. However, unless and until the rules are reviewed, museums have little choice but to follow them.

My point above was flippant, but was making the point that very often, it is easy to cry ‘Health and Safety’, using it as an excuse not to do work which would allow something to happen. What people tend to mean in such situations is ‘I cant be bothered to do the risk assessments and write the policies that would allow ‘x’ to go ahead’. A modern day malaise.

Its worth noting that some private organisations have been offering a sit in a Spitfire for a fee – warts and all.

Bruce

Whether individuals like it or not in the UK the topic of radiation is covered by law and people have to adhere to the rules or risk prosecution.

Ionising Radiation Regulations 1999 (IRR99)
Radioactive Substances Act 1993 (RSA93).
IAEA Regulations for the Safe Transport of Radioactive Material (TS-R-1)
The Carriage of Dangerous Goods and Use of Transportable Pressure Equipment Regulations 2009

Also on this forum we’ve been ‘here’ before – many times; a few links follow (there are no doubt many more):

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=97355&highlight=health

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=96695&highlight=health&page=2

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?97884-Confiscated-WW2-Aircraft-Instruments

From a museum perspective prosecutions have been made so I suspect many are cautious about how they deal with the topic.

Two such prosecutions were detailed 14 years ago, this was at the time of the change from IRR85 to IRR99;
http://www.hse.gov.uk/radiation/rpnews/rpa18.htm details a prosecution of the Science Museum; whilst this link http://www.hse.gov.uk/radiation/rpnews/rpa19.htm details a prosecution of the Natural History Museum.

This is (or can be) an emotive subject, and needs input from those involved in the aircraft industry.
Nearly nine years ago, I retired from working on aircraft instruments, and the company operated (and still operates) a strict policy of not touching any instrument to which their Geiger counter reacted above a certain level.
The danger does not come from “radiation,” but from the paint itself; over years it deteriorates, and partially crumbles into a fine dust, and this shows up as apparently brown paint, often with black specks in it.
If the glass is cracked, or chipped, or the case is cracked (and that’s very common, since many are made of Bakelite, which cracks in a heartbeat when screws are over-tightened,) or the rubber seal, under the glass, has perished (and rubber has only a 5-year CAA “life,”) there is the (albeit possibly slim) chance of you breathing in the dust, thereby getting non-degradable radioactive material into your lungs, with all that entails.
If museums buy a Geiger counter, and supply visitors with dust-proof sprayers’ masks and over-suits, which can be destroyed after use, maybe 100% access might be regained, but don’t hold your breath.