My back of the envelope calculation, please check!
Radiation dose per hour in air plane ranges from 0.001 mSv to 0.01 mSv, per hour, depending on many variables (latitude, solar phase, altitude, etc), so call it 0.005 mSv, as an average. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(radiation)
The Backscatter scanners are supposed to operate at less than 0.00025 mSv per use. http://www.fda.gov/Radiation-EmittingProducts/RadiationEmittingProductsandProcedures/SecuritySystems/ucm231857.htm
So you'd need twenty scans to equal one hour at altitude.
Or, one scan equals three minutes of air travel.
Really? Must of done something wrong in my math.
links
http://www.hps.org/publicinformation/ate/faqs/commercialflights.html
http://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/safety/index.cfm?pg=sfty_xray#part2
http://www.fda.gov/Radiation-EmittingProducts/RadiationEmittingProductsandProcedures/SecuritySystems/ucm231857.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_computed_tomography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sievert
http://www.hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q444.html
Best one so far:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(radiation)
Yet another edit/update:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/...
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Links: UPDATED with calculation