ilovecornfields

Maybe that’s why we got ourselves into this mess. All those lead toys we played with as kids. https://systematicreviewsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13643-022-01963-y Besides flying planes, I used to go to the shooting range a lot as a kid so maybe that explains all my poor life choices as a teenager. Although at some point I do remember them requiring FMJ to reduce the airborne lead exposure. The place I used to go to in college got shut down for contaminating the kids gym next door. https://capitalandmain.com/lead-dust-closes-bay-area-gun-range-and-kids-gym-0504 I’m fine with less lead in the world.

Beautiful panel. Glad you made it back safely. You’re alive and engines parts can be replaced so it certainly could have been worse.

I’m not sure you read the earlier posts. We know exactly what kind of radiation is emitted from CT scans, exactly what the dose is and the part of the body receiving that dose. This is documented on every scan. What we don’t know is the magnitude to which these scans cause long term health effects and in a prior post I explained what it would take to show that and why we’re not going to have that information. With respect to your political comments, I’m not going to respond to them. If that’s how you see the world then nothing I say or do is likely to change that.

With respect to the MRI scan, the answer is usually no. For things like the central nervous system (stroke, tumor) and musculoskeletal system, MR is far superior. For things like pulmonary embolism, most intrathoracic conditions and intracerebral hemorrhage, CT is better. Part of that is speed - I can get a CT in 5 minutes 24/7 but an MRI can take hours (and many hospitals don’t even have them). A lot of people can’t get MRI because of implants, pacemakers, claustrophobia. MRI also takes a long time so if you can’t stay still for 30 min you get useless images. A head CT takes about 15 seconds to acquire. The current thinking is that since MRI doesn’t use any ionizing radiation the cancer risk is negligible. That might change in 30 years so I tell patients “as far as we know now, …” Unfortunately, that’s how science works. You can only act on the information you have available at the time. You’re correct that CT scans now have less radiation than they used to or fluoroscopy does. The problem is the sheer number of CT scans people get now is huge. I’ve seen women with chronic abdominal pain or men with kidney stones in their 40s who’ve had 20-30 CT scans. It’s not unusual to see people in their 20s with 10-15 CT scans. I’ve seen people CALL their doctor with abdominal pain and get a CT ordered without even a physical exam and patients now demand it because their Googled their condition and know what’s best for them (I’m not saying patients can’t decide what’s best for them, just that things are usually more nuanced than Dr. Google lets on). It’s a double edged sword because the CT scanner (“the donut of truth”) can be really helpful in diagnosing life-threatening conditions and very few surgeons will take an adult to the OR without a CT scan. But then the scans are often negative in which case you get the radiation exposure but no therapeutic benefit. There is a calculator to guess at your risk (https://www.xrayrisk.com/calculator/calculator-normal-studies.php) but it’s only as good as the model and, again, the model is not based on ultra-short exposure to higher doses of radiation (like a CT scan). I get it - we all have different values, beliefs, political persuasions and risk tolerance. The part I don’t get is that with all the other crap going on in the world right now why anyone would choose this topic to get all worked up over. Must be nice to have nothing more important to worry about than unleaded AVGAS.

Tell me how I can use this Chernobyl data to tell my patient (or their parent) what the risk of a head or chest CT is and how this changes if they’re 6 months, 6 years or 60 years old. How about male or female? Background radiation can’t be avoided. Radon can be mitigated and is a huge industry. Health effects from Radon (low level, low exposure, inhaled) are likely to be much different from a CT scan (high level, ultra short exposure). Again, very difficult to generalize the effects of one and apply it to the other. Not sure how to respond to your black box comment since I’m not sure how it applies to the discussion. The difference between G100UL and 100LL is like using fire retardant vs. non-fire retardant material for your interior - not like building a plane out of lead (or whatever they make the black box out of.) I agree I am more conservative than most when it comes to risk. I’m ok with that. I meet the less risk averse every day at work. @N201MKTurbo - pubmed is free but most of the articles are owned by the publisher so you need an individual or institutional subscription. If you really want them I can try to pull them up and send them to you next time I’m at work. I think it’s a copyright violation to repost them publicly.

How do you know that GA pilots don’t have higher rates of all these conditions? One of the problems with studying small exposures and long-term effects is that you have to follow a lot of people (or animals) for a long time to quantify the effects. For example, we know radiation is bad but we don’t know how bad. Most of our data on this comes from Hiroshima and Nagasaki but we don’t have good studies to show how this compares to ultra short exposures to high radiation environments (like a CT scan). To quantify this we would need to follow hundreds of thousands of people for their lifetimes in order to determine what effect the radiation has on their risk of cancer. We can’t do that. So we’re stuck knowing there is a risk but not how big that risk is. We do know that any level of radiation exposure can increase cancer risk and that higher radiation exposures further increase this risk so instead we try to expose patients to “as little as possible” in terms of radiation (and maybe use ultrasound or MRI instead of a CT or not get a CT at all if the risks don’t seem to justify the benefits). Lead is the same as radiation. There is no safe established level of lead so (putting my public health hat on) the goal should be to expose people to “as little as possible.” I wear gloves when I sump the tanks, wash my hands afterwards and I barely smell the fuel (I was a chemistry major so I’ve received specialized training in smelling things). I don’t let my son sump the tanks, touch the gas caps or fuel the plane either. I know facts don’t matter these days, but the association between lead and harm is well established and so is the association between people around GA airports and lead levels. I certainly can’t tell anyone how they should spend their time, but as my wife (a psychiatrist) often tells her patients “is this really the hill you want to die on?” You really want to be the last person supporting leaded fuel when there is clear evidence of harm just because you (and I don’t mean you personally, @NotarPilot) are a cheap ba$tard? If $1-2/gal prices you out of aviation then you probably should pick a different hobby. Studies no one will read: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24261063/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21749964/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16181659/

We’ve come to the point in our society where the same arguments for logical fallacies are used by both sides and facts are meaningless, so what’s the point of arguing about it? If someone wants to start a one (or two) man crusade to keep 100LL around forever then go right ahead. Seems more appropriate to be quoting Miguel de Cervantes than Shakespeare on this thread.

But that’s not the choice we have. Pretty much everyone is in agreement that 100 LL is going away. Given that it’s going away, there may be some benefits to using unleaded fuel - like longer oil change intervals, less deposits on valves and plugs. Maybe if the “energy content” really is higher I’ll get so much range out of my 89 gal tanks that I can pre-book my hemorrhoidectomy! My home airport is currently building dozens of houses right off the departure end of the runway. I’m sure the houses will be in the $800k+ range. How long do you think before these homeowner parents do their “research” on the internet and demand that the rich millionaires with their airplanes stop poisoning their children (yes, I see the irony there). That being said, what’s the “safe” dose of lead (or radiation) for small children? The consensus is that it’s “as little as possible.”

Unfortunately the secret is out that this works. Now everyone is doing it. The only argument is who “them” is. When I first heard “alternative facts” I knew we were in for some tough times. 100 LL is on its way out. I don’t see how this won’t happen within the next ten years. I know complaining about it certainly won’t change things. I’m looking forward to using synthetic oil. Hopefully the GAMI G100UL smells as nice as 100LL and not as bad as mogas.

That’s where I learned how to use a mig welder!

I think few do. I had the same in 8th grade although we weren’t allowed to pour the molten aluminum into the cast. Watching people try to strike the arc was always fun. 9/10 times it would just stick the the metal. A few years later they replaced the metal shop with an “electronics lab.”

Is anyone surprised?

$360/year is about 6 times what I spend with my O2D2. I remember my father had his doctor write him a prescription for” hypobaric hypoxemia.” Shouldn’t be that hard to get.

I’ll take the checklist if it’s still available

Have you talked to @kortopates? That’s in his neck of the woods. Reminds me of a cartoon I saw in the Union-Tribune when the Mexican cops were stealing American cars. The question was “How does a Mexican cop stop your car?” And the answer was “he steps on the brakes!” https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1990/06/24/mexican-police-are-using-stolen-cars/b6317ec2-1a9d-4b20-bf1d-951f1fe709b6/

Mountain high O2D2 with whatever tank you like. It’ll make your bottle last forever, automatically goes on at a set altitude and works flawlessly

One of my friends went and said Mike Busch mentioned that owner performed maintenance was going to be expanded to include a lot more than what is currently allowed. Anyone else heard something about this?

I don’t remember. This was about 25 years ago.

My dad’s Arrow lived in a hangar in Carlsbad (CRQ) for 6 years with no corrosion issues. I had it on the ramp in Oakland (OAK) for about 6 months and it had quite a bit of corrosion found on the next annual. I think FL tends to be more humid than CA so I’d probably try to borrow a hangar if you can.

My old sensorcon did the same thing. Seemed to function better as a thermometer than CO meter. Fortunately I have two other ones in the cockpit. i like the idea of the Lightspeed headset with the CO meter. I bet you hear that one with the ANR on!

Absolutely. No matter how you feel about it, the fact is that pulling the “I’m done flying the plane” handle gives you an excellent chance of waking away. Probably shouldn’t be Plan A or Plan B but it seems to accomplish what it was designed to do and perform well within the operating limitations. Won’t help you when you auger in on your base to final turn or smash into something solid but it seems like a nice option to have when the stuff hits the fan.

They can actually do something pretty similar now with IVC filters and catheter directed thrombolytics. That guy certainly does inspire confidence.

About one flight hour earlier.

I agree with sharing this widely (including the SDR). Not everyone will have your combination of skill and luck and have the same outcome you did. Good job getting down safely! https://av-info.faa.gov/sdrx/

I certainly had an annual that felt like I was getting a DRE.