Richard McCracken

To keep up with the demand.

Do you think Australian pilots, because I mean, I often get on planes in other places and other countries and I hear Australian pilots speaking over the address system.

Are Australian pilots up there in terms of their training and their ability and their experience relative to the rest of the world?

Okay.

And then finally, my final question is this, and I've always been interested in this, given exposure to, what's the word, exposure to, not radioactive, radiation?

Radiation.

Given exposure to radiation, is it true to say that

Well, it is true to say that every time we go up an aeroplane, we get exposed to a certain amount of radiation and that in a lifetime, we should only have a certain amount of radiation exposed to us in a lifetime.

Otherwise, we run a risk of personal illness.

Is it true, therefore, that pilots have to retire early because they're probably in the air more than anybody else and therefore being exposed to radiation at a greater rate than everybody else?

No.

Because it's interesting because I did read somewhere or heard somewhere, not in relation to this podcast, but that I think in a lifetime, and that's obviously fungible, but in a lifetime, we try not to be exposed to more than 50, I think it's CBITs of radiation per person and an individual, but that's over a lifetime.

And then they can measure how much you get exposed to just walking outside on the street.

At sea level, then there's another, you know, if you're at Mount Everest, there's another level, greater.

If you're flying in airplanes, even greater again, et cetera.

And then, of course, we've got things like X-ray machines, you know, not MRI machines, but CT scans, walking through the security at the airports, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Are these real issues that pilots think about?

That's interesting.

Well, Richard, I'm so glad to have you back in here again.

I think it's probably, I don't know, six or seven years since our last meeting in the old days when I didn't even have this podcast.