Finding the flight…
FlightTrackWeather
For pilots, cabin crew and travelers
Every flight adds cosmic radiation. LogAloft counts yours.
Who are you? We'll show you what LogAloft does for you, and your price.
Checking space weather…
Any airline, worldwide. Past dates use the track actually flown; future dates use the last time it flew.
Every nonstop airline flight between the two airports that day. Pick one to see its dose.
Paste it as your release, ForeFlight, Jeppesen, SkyVector or SimBrief shows it. Speeds, levels, runways and procedures are ignored; coordinates in any usual form. A nav log pasted with a coordinate on each line works too, and resolves every fix on it.
NAT track message for this date
Import a flown track (FlightAware, Flightradar24)
FlightAware: open the flight, then Track log & graph; select the whole table from the header row to the last row, copy, and paste it below (the date is read from what you paste; if it isn't there, set the Date below to the departure date first). Or download its KML file. Flightradar24 (paid plans): in the flight's playback, download the KML or CSV file.
You copy or download it yourself; LogAloft never reads those sites. An imported track stays on this device and is never shared with other users.
At fix
From (h after takeoff)
Flight level
Explore: what changes the dose?
Cruise level
FL300FL370FL430
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Route further north or south
10° southas flown10° north
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Solar cycle
How often you fly it
08 a month20
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Advanced: set the level fix by fix
Set the level from each fix onward and see what it costs in dose and fuel.
From
Flight level
Dose
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Levels
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Fuel
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rough, before wind
Leg by leg — what 2,000 ft is worth on each
| Leg | Time | FL | Dose µSv | −2,000 ft | +2,000 ft |
|---|
Dose rises about a third for every 5,000 ft, more so at high latitude. Fuel is a rough, type-generic figure; 20 kt of better wind at a lower level beats it.
The globe: dose rate anywhere
Colors show the dose rate at the level and date below. Tap the globe for a spot; drag to turn it.
18 µSv/h
Here
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µSv/h
One hour here
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of a chest X-ray
Magnetic shield
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cutoff, GV
Cosmic radiation · this flight
—µSv
— chest X-rays of cosmic radiation · one chest X-ray = 100 µSv
The chest X-ray figure is a routine two-view exam (Mettler et al., Radiology 2008).
Airborne
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Time from takeoff to landing. The rate under it is this flight's dose divided by that time. Climb and descent are included, when the rate is much lower, so it reads below the rate at cruise.
Average dose rate at cruise
The average rate above FL240. It depends most on latitude: the Earth's magnetic field shields less toward the poles. Then on altitude, and on the sun's 11-year cycle (fewer cosmic rays reach us when the sun is active). About 1 µSv/h near the equator, up to about 8 on polar routes. Green is low, red is high.
equatorN. Atlanticpolar
1µSv/h at cruise8
times a month
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Where you flew
Map key
Flown track (darker = higher)Off route○ oceanic fix◆ named fix▲ step climb · ▼ step downFiled route (from the release): the blue track is what was flown
Altitude and dose rate
Route and fixes
| Fix | After takeoff | FL | Rate µSv/h | Total µSv |
|---|
Tap a row to see the weather at that time.
Compare with the route on your release
Full track
| Time | Lat | Lon | FL | Cutoff GV | Rate µSv/h | Total µSv |
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Where the limits are — and pregnancy
Per flight like this one, at the monthly rate above. Limits are for the cosmic-ray dose alone.
| Threshold | Who sets it | Flights | Months at this rate |
|---|
Additional cancer risk
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A career of it
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Your age and years flying
Per flight, per year, and how this is estimated
This flight
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extra lifetime cancer chance
A year of it
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What studies of flight crews have found — by cancer
Crew compared with the general population. SIR = new cases, SMR = deaths, relative to 1.00; the range in brackets is the 95% confidence interval — if it includes 1.00 the difference may be chance. These are whole-crew figures, not the cosmic-ray dose alone.
PilotsCabin crew● significant ○ could be chance— 95% confidence intervalmodel, your career (cosmic rays only)
| Cancer | Pilots | Cabin crew | Most likely behind it | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All cancers — new cases | 1.02 (0.92–1.13) | 1.11 (0.98–1.25) women | No overall excess | Pukkala 2002 · Buja 2006 |
| All cancers — deaths | 0.69 (0.64–0.76) | 0.85 (0.77–0.95) women | Crews are healthier and smoke less than average | Hammer 2014 |
| Cancers considered radiation-sensitive, grouped — deaths | 0.73 (0.62–0.85) | 1.01 (0.88–1.15) women | No radiation signal at crew doses | Hammer 2014 |
| Melanoma — new cases | 2.22 (1.67–2.93) | 2.09 (1.67–2.62) | UVA through the windshield, sun on layovers; not mainly cosmic rays | Sanlorenzo 2015 (meta-analysis, 19 studies) |
| Melanoma — deaths | 1.57 (1.06–2.25) | 0.90 (0.80–1.01) | Same | Hammer 2014 · Sanlorenzo 2015 |
| Other skin cancer (basal cell) | 2.5 (1.9–3.2) | 4.09 (2.70–6.20) women | UV | Pukkala 2002 · McNeely 2018 |
| Breast (women) — new cases | — | 1.50 (1.32–1.69); 1.37 → 1.19 after adjusting for children | Fewer and later children, disrupted sleep; no clear dose link | Pukkala 2012 · Schubauer-Berigan 2015 · Tokumaru 2006 |
| Breast — deaths | — | 1.06 (0.89–1.27) | Found earlier, treated | Hammer 2014 |
| Prostate — new cases | 1.47 (1.06–2.05); Nordic 1.20 (0.92–1.54) | — | More screening in a medically monitored group; rose with long-haul hours in one study | Buja 2005 · Pukkala 2002 |
| Leukemia | 0.89 (0.52–1.44) cases; 0.92 (0.59–1.39) deaths | 1.89 (1.03–3.17) women, cases | The cancer most sensitive to radiation; results inconsistent, small numbers | Pukkala 2002 · Hammer 2014 · Pukkala 2012 |
| Non-Hodgkin lymphoma — deaths | 0.66 (0.41–1.01) | 2.37 (1.41–3.73) men; 0.64 (0.30–1.18) women | Male cabin crew excess tracks the AIDS era, not flying | Hammer 2014 |
| Brain / nervous system | 1.14 (0.83–1.54) deaths; 0.84 (0.50–1.33) cases | 1.25 (0.64–2.18) men | No excess | Hammer 2014 · Pukkala 2002 |
| Lung and other smoking cancers | 0.53 (0.44–0.62) | — | Crews smoke far less | Blettner 2003 |
| Nuclear cataract (not a cancer) | 3.02 (1.44–6.35); +6% per mSv by age 40 | — | Plausibly radiation; one Icelandic case-control study | Rafnsson 2005 |
Pilots: mostly male cohorts. Cabin crew: women unless marked. Highlighted values are statistically significant excesses; the lung row is a significant deficit. Sources: Sanlorenzo M et al., JAMA Dermatol 2015;151:51 · Hammer GP et al., Occup Environ Med 2014;71:313 (93,771 crew, 10 countries) · Pukkala E et al., BMJ 2002;325:567 (10,032 Nordic pilots) · Pukkala E et al., Int J Cancer 2012;131:2886 (Nordic cabin crew) · Buja A et al., Toxicol Ind Health 2005;21:273 and J Womens Health 2006;15:98 · Tokumaru O et al., J Travel Med 2006;13:127 · McNeely E et al., Environ Health 2018;17:49 · Schubauer-Berigan MK et al., Am J Ind Med 2015;58:252 · Blettner M et al., Int J Cancer 2003;106:946 · Rafnsson V et al., Arch Ophthalmol 2005;123:1102 · overview: Cican & Silivestru, J Space Safety Eng 2025;12:615.
