Drawing No. EH–NR–001 // Nuclear Engineering & Radiation
Reviewed August 2026
Estimate cosmic-radiation dose from direct or connecting flights and total it across a year. Search airports by city or code, add up to two stops, import a CSV flight history, and compare route distance, airport elevation, cruise altitude, latitude exposure, flight time and effective dose in SI or US units.
Add direct routes or connecting journeys with stops, or import an annual route list from CSV. Airport coordinates and elevations are stored in the page, so calculations do not depend on a live airport-search API.
Add recurring direct or connecting journeys manually, or import a CSV history. Annual dose is the sum of every one-way journey occurrence; the flight-leg count separately reflects individual take-off-to-landing segments.
| Route | Annual legs | Distance / journey | Time / journey | Cruise altitude(s) | Dose / journey | Annual dose | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No annual routes added yet. | |||||||
The calculator exposes the three dominant variables instead of using one fixed dose per kilometre.
Earth’s atmosphere is a radiation shield. As an aircraft climbs, less atmosphere remains overhead and the cosmic-radiation field increases. The model therefore integrates a climb, cruise and descent profile instead of treating the whole flight as cruise.
Earth’s magnetic field provides stronger shielding near the equator and weaker shielding toward higher latitudes. The model samples the great-circle route and applies a transparent geographic-latitude correction as a proxy for the more complex geomagnetic effect.
Dose accumulates with time. Longer routes spend more time at altitude, while very short flights spend a larger fraction of the journey climbing and descending at lower altitudes.
Pilots and cabin crew can accumulate substantially more cosmic-radiation dose than occasional passengers because exposure repeats across hundreds of airborne hours. This calculator can screen a roster, but occupational programs should use validated route-dose software and employer records.
ICRP treats cosmic-radiation exposure of aircraft crew as occupational exposure, while passenger exposure remains public exposure. ICRP Publication 132 recommends a graded protection approach and identifies a dose reference level typically in the 5–10 mSv/year range for the most exposed individuals who warrant specific attention; this is a reference level for optimisation, not a universal worker dose limit.
In the European Union, Directive 2013/59/Euratom requires undertakings to assess aircrew exposure where crew are liable to receive more than 1 mSv/year, take dose into account when organising schedules, and inform workers about health risks.
What is the health concern? Cosmic radiation is ionising radiation, so repeated exposure contributes to cumulative lifetime dose rather than causing an immediate effect after an ordinary flight. CDC/NIOSH notes that aircrew are exposed on every flight and that ionising radiation is a known carcinogen and reproductive hazard. Epidemiological studies have reported higher rates of some cancers in aircrew, but cosmic radiation is not the only aviation exposure: ultraviolet radiation, circadian disruption, work schedules and other factors can also matter. Normal commercial-flight doses are far below levels associated with acute radiation sickness.
This altitude-related issue applies mainly to aircrew and others who spend substantial working time in flight. Ground-based airport, maintenance and office staff do not receive the aircraft-altitude cosmic-radiation field simply because they work in aviation.
Illustrative reference points for interpreting the annual result. They are not all regulatory limits.
UNSCEAR estimated a worldwide average annual effective dose of about 2.7 mSv for civilian aircrew in 2010–2014; individual doses vary widely and this is not a target or threshold. Individual crew dose varies with routes, altitude, latitude, solar conditions and roster.
The model is intentionally inspectable. It is not a hidden “dose per mile” lookup.
The page contains a compact airport dataset derived from OurAirports public-domain data, including airport name, municipality, IATA/ICAO code, latitude, longitude and field elevation. Distance is calculated along the great-circle route, then increased by the entered route allowance.
Airport elevation is used as the starting and ending altitude of the simplified climb/descent profile.
A journey with stops is not treated as one continuous long-haul cruise. Each airport-to-airport segment receives its own distance, automatic cruise altitude, climb, cruise and descent profile. Segment doses are integrated separately and then summed.
This matters because two shorter segments normally spend more total time climbing and descending, and may cruise lower, than one direct flight covering a similar geographic distance.
Automatic cruise altitude increases with route length because short regional flights often cruise lower than long-haul flights. Airborne time is estimated from route distance, representative jet cruise speed and climb/descent time. Users can override the cruise altitude.
This is a teaching profile, not airline schedule or dispatch data.
The screening dose-rate model interpolates an altitude-response curve and multiplies it by a latitude factor. The latitude correction is intentionally limited to about a twofold polar-to-equatorial contrast, consistent with FAA guidance for galactic cosmic radiation at the same altitude. The curve is also benchmarked against the published CARI-7 route examples in FAA AC 120-61B and the broad UNSCEAR range for commercial aviation.
The actual FAA CARI methodology is much more detailed and uses atmospheric radiation transport, magnetic-field and solar-condition information. This page does not reproduce CARI.
The low/high values simply apply ±25% to the central result as a sensitivity band. It is not a statistical confidence interval. Real variation comes from cruise altitude, routing, geomagnetic position, solar modulation, aircraft profile and occasional solar-particle events.
FAA AC 120-61B reports 15.1 µSv for a Washington DC–Los Angeles flight at a maximum flight level of FL350 and 27.3 µSv for London–New York at FL370 under the stated January 2000 quiet-solar assumptions. These provide more appropriate validation points for this screening model than any single generic public comparison.
UNSCEAR gives 0.03 mSv as a representative ten-hour aeroplane-flight dose comparison. High-latitude or higher-altitude flights can be larger, while lower-latitude routes can be smaller.
Repeated flying can accumulate dose in the millisievert range. For aircrew, ICRP treats this as occupational exposure and recommends a graded protection approach; airlines and regulators may use validated route-dose calculations and roster records rather than a screening calculator.
Quick answers: These questions cover connecting flights, imported rosters, unit conversion, aircrew exposure and the limits of the screening model.
It depends mainly on flight duration, altitude, latitude and actual flight profile. Commercial-flight effective dose rates are typically a few microsieverts per hour, but route and solar conditions matter.
Each airport-to-airport segment is calculated separately. A Tallinn–Frankfurt–New York journey therefore has two independent climb/cruise/descent profiles. Their distances, airborne times and doses are added for the one-way journey; a round trip then doubles that journey occurrence.
The supported columns are From, Stop 1, Stop 2, To, Trips per year, Trip type, Route allowance %, and Cruise altitude ft. Stops are optional. IATA or ICAO airport codes are the most reliable identifiers, although searchable airport or city names are also accepted.
Distances switch between kilometres and miles, airport elevations between metres and feet, and cruise-altitude labels between kilometres and feet. Dose and dose-rate displays switch between µSv/mSv and µrem/mrem, while the annual total also shows the alternate radiation unit for comparison.
Yes. Aircraft crew accumulate repeated cosmic-radiation exposure at altitude. ICRP treats aircraft-crew exposure as occupational exposure. EU radiation-protection rules require assessment for aircrew liable to exceed 1 mSv per year. Employer procedures and applicable national rules govern actual occupational management.
Pregnancy requires individual occupational-health and regulatory consideration. CDC/NIOSH advises aircrew to consider reducing long, high-latitude and polar flights and to be aware of solar particle events. This calculator does not determine whether a work roster is acceptable during pregnancy.
No. The elevated cosmic-radiation field is primarily an altitude exposure. Pilots, cabin crew and other workers who spend substantial duty time in flight accumulate it occupationally; airport, maintenance and office personnel working mainly at ground level do not receive the aircraft-altitude dose rate.
No. FAA CARI-7 uses detailed atmospheric radiation transport, route, altitude, geomagnetic and solar-condition data and is more appropriate for formal or occupational dose assessment.
No. The central estimate represents ordinary galactic cosmic-radiation conditions. Solar particle events can temporarily increase exposure, particularly on high-altitude and polar routes, and are not represented by the ±25% screening band.
Include the inputs and assumptions used.
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