Warbird Information Exchange

The AN-2 is a very versatile aircraft as most of us know. However, there are a number of "secret" uses for the AN-2 that are rarely talked about in the West. There is little need for electrical lighting in the cockpit, you can read a newspaper or an approach chart using the glow given off by the instrument dials and radium tipped switches. A side benefit of the high level of ionizing radiation involves the cockpit's use as a sterilizer. You may find some cockroaches but not many E Coli germs. I have actually seen the cockpit of an AN-2 being used to cook fish, like a pseudo-microwave oven. It takes a while to actually cook them but it really works and I have a photo to prove it.

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Albert Stix Jr.
"Work is the curse of the drinking class"

Huh?

And you guys thought I was making this up.

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Albert Stix Jr.
"Work is the curse of the drinking class"

dude, that's not radium cooking them, that's the greenhouse effect. Not sure i'd want to fly in that bird though.

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"I knew the jig was up when I saw the P-51D-20-NA Mustang blue-nosed bastards from Bodney, and by the way the blue was more of a royal blue than an indigo and the inner landing gear interiors were NOT green, over Berlin."

why don't they just hang fuzzy dice, dingle balls, or especially 1 of those tacky air fresheners from the cockpit!! those fish are about the wackiest thing i've seen in a cockpit!!!

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

Ok, you got me. Still, the funny thing is that these guys in Moscow were trying to sell me this AN-2. They just forgot to pull the drying fish out of the cockpit the day they showed the plane to me. They tried to seal the deal by throwing a little beer and dried fish party in the hangar that evening. I guess the fish were supposed to cover the taste of the bad beer or maybe it was the other way around. So maybe the ionizing radiation from the Radium was not cooking the fish, but it was certainly sterilizing the fish. Yes, as a matter of fact, the cockpit did smell. This whole deal was rather "fishy".

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Albert Stix Jr.
"Work is the curse of the drinking class"

If I had known this thread SMELT so bad, I would have not clicked upon it...

Unless you live surrounded by these dials, I would not worry too much.

"A typical radium dial watch produces somewhere between 2 and 20 mrems per hour from its face, and less than 2 mrem/hour from the back. The steel in the watch back is very effective at stopping beta radiation, so the majority of the particles emitted from the back are gamma rays."

400 rem is considered lethal, 20 mrem/hour x 50 hours =1 rem

50x 400= 20,000 hours

Your get around 400 mrems/year from the environment

So, you'd have to wear your watch, and your body would have to not repair itself to cause major problems. The biggest risk is inhalation/ingestion. If you have a broken instrument/watch, spend the money and take it to the pros.

BTW, if you have a Geiger counter, and a granite counter top. You may be surprised......