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Found the source of the stats (on page 20):

http://publicapps.caa.co.uk/do...

Among the airlines in the survey, Ryanair is the worst offender by far, Emirates and Virgin Atlantic are also splitting up families more than average. The lowest were TUI and Flybe.

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/1995/CAP%201202UAVsafetyrules.pdf
That link...sorry.

Yes, there is an Airworthiness Directive (caution:pdf) about that little issue. For some some reason, Airbus won't give the pilots an angle of attack indicator either. It is one of the most basic and important things to know when flying a fixed wing aircraft.

Why is this on Slashdot?

Because Airbus makes shitty Angle Of Attack probes (caution:pdf). And if I remember right, they don't even provide an indicator for the pilots! Angle of attack is one of the most basic and most important things to know.

Oh, did you mean computer nerds? Well, unfortunately Airbus (and probably the newest Boeings) is controlled by a computer that can't be overridden when it suffers from bad data input.

I would say that cockpit windows are a solved problem.

You could say that, but you would be wrong. Cockpit windows remain a weak point aboard modern aircraft. Extensive and costly preventive maintenance programs reduce the risks, but they still regularly crack and leak, and occasionally fail spectacularly. A bit of Googling turned up this freedom-of-information response from the UK's civil aviation authority. It lists 88 pages of in-flight incidents of windscreen damage and failure that occurred - just in the UK - between 2008 and 2013.

The state in the UK is if the unmanned aerial system weighs less than 20kg (basically, like most RC models) the regulation is correspondingly light and commercial operation is allowed without the need for certified systems or to put a G-xxxx registration on the aircraft. However, a permit is still required to operate and the operator must have a qualification to fly the aircraft (effectively a "drone pilot license") if it is to be flown in a populated area.

Over 20kg and the UAS needs airworthiness approval.

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP722.pdf

The Civil Aviation Authority, which will have the same requirements as EASA who will be the ones regulating the Airbus A330 as its an European aircraft, only requires the FDR (Flight Data Recorder) to withstand sea water immersion for 30 days, and says nothing about pressure at the depths we are talking about here other than the FDR will withstand crushing forces of 5,000 LBF (22.25 kN) for 5 continuous minutes.

http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?catid=33&pagetype=65&appid=11&mode=detail&id=1229

The Cockpit Voice Recorder has similar requirements.

Its unlikely that after this time the FDR nor the CVR are still sealed.

It's not ticker-tape. The flight details printed onto lightweight card strips that slot into custom-made holders which slot into a custom-made frame in the controller's desk. The controllers can move them around, annotate them, and hand them to the next controller when required. They've been replaced with electronic flight strips in much of Europe. As the article says, there are a lot of backups to cover the situation in the event of failures. The most likely effect of a failure is flow restrictions, which to the passengers means delays, which are a pain in the butt but are the safe failure mode. There will be risks associated with failure -- there always are. CAP670 says what has to be done to show the risks are adequately managed; section SW01 of that document is likely the bit that /. readers will be interested in.

Despite Branson being an irritating beardy nirk, I do have a modicum of respect for him, and in this palaver he has generally done the sensible thing of shutting up about things that he doesn't really understand.

The CAA have for quite some time (since 16th April) posted reasons for the discouragement of flying in volcanic ash, which cites this PDF from a 1993 publication. Which boils down to "ash fucks engines, windows, instruments and paintwork and can generally fuck your plane out of the sky".
So, for a long time (since 1993, if not earlier) the advice has been "don't do that".

Now, there's a general question of why the engine manufacturers, instrument manufacturers, and aircraft manufacturers didn't long ago get their communal posteriors in gear and come up with some more nuanced guidelines than "don't do it". Maybe something like "don't do it at more than one part in 10^15 of ash suspended in air for more than 10 hours of accumulated flight time before stripping down all the engines and replacing the pitot air-speed sensors" (numbers are for illustration only). And the general question has a general answer, "no one considered that the question was important enough to deserve more attention".

There's also a failure of communication here too - us geologists have long (centuries) known that Iceland is a hotbed of volcanic activity, and we didn't think to slap the CAA (and international equivalents) around the face and ask them some awkward "what if?" questions.
But then, we don't generally get the CAA calling us and asking what the consequences of a loaded jumbo jet crashing into a volcano would be. The two fields don't really impinge on each other. Except with a CFIT (when the Terrain normally survives better than whatever does the Controlled Flight Into it; "CFIT" is aviation lingo for "Controlled Flight Into Terrain", but dressed up so as not to scare the paying sheep in the passenger cabin), or as we now know, with a volcano erupting close enough to a major airways nexus for the ash cloud to affect it.

Hmmm, a question occurs : were there any aviation bans associated with the Grimsvotn eruption of 1996/8? No reports that I know of.
What about the Grimsvotn eruption of 2004? Ah, 59 flights cancelled from Schipol and numerous more diverted. That's an unprecedented new meaning of "unprecedented".
I'm slightly surprised to read that report myself - I've known that Grimsvotn has been erupting irregularly for over a decade (it's on the to-do list if I can persuade the wife to come on holiday to Iceland ; but don't tell her!) ; I hadn't heard about the flight impacts until just now. But then, I'm a rock-doctor, not a joy-stick jockey. I had been feeling slightly contrite that my subject (Earth) and my colleagues (rock-doctors) may possibly have not given sufficient reasonable warning to the aviation industry (apart from throwing planes out of the sky, burying military and civilian airbases, etc, etc), but it look as if the Earth has been throwing lumps of rock at planes over the north Atlantic for years. That puts the ball squarely back in the aviation industry's court over why they hadn't foreseen this eventuality.

Oh well. News item : Humans get given plenty of warning of natural events, and humans don't pay the blindest bit of attention.
Well, that's unprecedented (in the new meaning, see above). Sudbury. Manicougain. Nordlingen. Toba. Vesuvius (multiple times). Laki. Krakatoa (west of Java). Tunguska. Galunggung (and it's associated Gliding Club). Nevado de Ruiz. Redoubt. Hurricanes ad nauseam preceding Katrina. Grimsv

Despite Branson being an irritating beardy nirk, I do have a modicum of respect for him, and in this palaver he has generally done the sensible thing of shutting up about things that he doesn't really understand.

The CAA have for quite some time (since 16th April) posted reasons for the discouragement of flying in volcanic ash, which cites this PDF from a 1993 publication. Which boils down to "ash fucks engines, windows, instruments and paintwork and can generally fuck your plane out of the sky".
So, for a long time (since 1993, if not earlier) the advice has been "don't do that".

Now, there's a general question of why the engine manufacturers, instrument manufacturers, and aircraft manufacturers didn't long ago get their communal posteriors in gear and come up with some more nuanced guidelines than "don't do it". Maybe something like "don't do it at more than one part in 10^15 of ash suspended in air for more than 10 hours of accumulated flight time before stripping down all the engines and replacing the pitot air-speed sensors" (numbers are for illustration only). And the general question has a general answer, "no one considered that the question was important enough to deserve more attention".

There's also a failure of communication here too - us geologists have long (centuries) known that Iceland is a hotbed of volcanic activity, and we didn't think to slap the CAA (and international equivalents) around the face and ask them some awkward "what if?" questions.
But then, we don't generally get the CAA calling us and asking what the consequences of a loaded jumbo jet crashing into a volcano would be. The two fields don't really impinge on each other. Except with a CFIT (when the Terrain normally survives better than whatever does the Controlled Flight Into it; "CFIT" is aviation lingo for "Controlled Flight Into Terrain", but dressed up so as not to scare the paying sheep in the passenger cabin), or as we now know, with a volcano erupting close enough to a major airways nexus for the ash cloud to affect it.

Hmmm, a question occurs : were there any aviation bans associated with the Grimsvotn eruption of 1996/8? No reports that I know of.
What about the Grimsvotn eruption of 2004? Ah, 59 flights cancelled from Schipol and numerous more diverted. That's an unprecedented new meaning of "unprecedented".
I'm slightly surprised to read that report myself - I've known that Grimsvotn has been erupting irregularly for over a decade (it's on the to-do list if I can persuade the wife to come on holiday to Iceland ; but don't tell her!) ; I hadn't heard about the flight impacts until just now. But then, I'm a rock-doctor, not a joy-stick jockey. I had been feeling slightly contrite that my subject (Earth) and my colleagues (rock-doctors) may possibly have not given sufficient reasonable warning to the aviation industry (apart from throwing planes out of the sky, burying military and civilian airbases, etc, etc), but it look as if the Earth has been throwing lumps of rock at planes over the north Atlantic for years. That puts the ball squarely back in the aviation industry's court over why they hadn't foreseen this eventuality.

Oh well. News item : Humans get given plenty of warning of natural events, and humans don't pay the blindest bit of attention.
Well, that's unprecedented (in the new meaning, see above). Sudbury. Manicougain. Nordlingen. Toba. Vesuvius (multiple times). Laki. Krakatoa (west of Java). Tunguska. Galunggung (and it's associated Gliding Club). Nevado de Ruiz. Redoubt. Hurricanes ad nauseam preceding Katrina. Grimsv

Here (PDF) are the rules for flying a model aircraft in the UK.

What's wrong over there anyway?

An increasing divide between rich and poor in a society where wealth and possessions are becoming more important than compassion and happiness.

Restrictions on freedom etc are a response to the symptoms of the problem, but don't do anything about the cause. (I'm not sure what the causes are though. Perhaps a more insular society, which perhaps is a side-effect of increasing car ownership and parents working longer hours.)

Is this the response of a butthurt teenage girl? Hey, I'm a Spaniard, and when someone uses a funny stereotype about me (and I do happen to be greasy, though I'm not lazy), I laugh, I don't get all bawwwwy.

First, the pro-tip: Don't use a layman's online Mac mag to get your technical explanations of the mobile phone system and a commentary on telephony in flight. Worse, you told someone to "try reading the article" as if it were more authoritative than a monkey reading Wikipedia.

Now, the detail, or "where the article is right or why I disagreed with it".

1. If you get a text message but can't get calls, it's almost always because of inadequate signal rather than overloaded network. And, contrary to the article, delivery confirmation certainly is possible and implemented. I spend a lot of time in the Scottish Highlands, where reception is patchy. When I or others are driving around we expect a delay of a few minutes before that delivery confirmation, at which time we know the recipient has his message. On-network reliable store-and-forward is far from the impression the article was giving of SMS.

2. Why battery lasts longer - we are agreed.

3. Why not on airplanes - summary of UK aviation authority CAA's opinion: was considered unsafe, but OfCom has approved except at takeoff/landing, to which CAA has offered conditional approval. The FCC may give reasons related to cell tower fuckups, but this is irrelevant as the overriding factor is safety concerns by various countries' aviation authorities. See response to LX498.

You seem like the kind of person who would be angry at someone who performs a summary dismissal of an attempt at a scientific justification of creationism, using the word "wrong" to indicate disagreement with the article as if argument by authority was back in vogue. (Oh, maybe it is...)

Google search for site:news.bbc.co.uk "light aircraft" crash england OR scotland OR wales returns 17,000 results. Even if there's a couple of stories for each crash, that's still loads.

Some UK statistics from the Civil Aviation Authority says about 25 people a year die in small (5700kg) planes.

CAP 756 - Portable Electronic Device Generated Electromagnetic Fields on board a Large Transport Aeroplane
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP756.PDF

CAA PAPER 2003/3 - Effects of Interference from Cellular Telephones on Aircraft Avionic Equipment
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAPAP2003_03.PDF

Boeing Aero 10 - Interference From Electronic Devices
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_10/interfere.html

Still think banned cell phones have nothing to do with navagation interference?

CAP 756 - Portable Electronic Device Generated Electromagnetic Fields on board a Large Transport Aeroplane
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP756.PDF

CAA PAPER 2003/3 - Effects of Interference from Cellular Telephones on Aircraft Avionic Equipment
http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAPAP2003_03.PDF

Boeing Aero 10 - Interference From Electronic Devices
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_10/interfere.html

Still think banned cell phones have nothing to do with navagation interference?

The study, carried out in a laboratory, indicated [section 6.2]that cellphones can cause interference to VOR and ILS indicators and background noise to audio channels.

Whilst section 6.2 does point out that the interference caused problems when the cellphone was very close to the equipment or wiring harness, its not inconceivable that someone using a cellphone on an airliner could be in relatively close proximity to a piece of equiment or more likely, a wiring harness.

There's a lot of comments from people here about what bullshit the whole thing is. Well just remember this - you're in a aluminum tube flying at 500mph at 35,000 feet. It's a two engine airliner and one engine has just failed. The pilots need to divert, and the weather at all the divert airfields is marginal. They will need all of their navigation and comms equipment to land safely...and then some idiot switches on their phone...

The study, carried out in a laboratory, indicated [section 6.2]that cellphones can cause interference to VOR and ILS indicators and background noise to audio channels.

Whilst section 6.2 does point out that the interference caused problems when the cellphone was very close to the equipment or wiring harness, its not inconceivable that someone using a cellphone on an airliner could be in relatively close proximity to a piece of equiment or more likely, a wiring harness.

There's a lot of comments from people here about what bullshit the whole thing is. Well just remember this - you're in a aluminum tube flying at 500mph at 35,000 feet. It's a two engine airliner and one engine has just failed. The pilots need to divert, and the weather at all the divert airfields is marginal. They will need all of their navigation and comms equipment to land safely...and then some idiot switches on their phone...

I was in agreement with you, until you laid down the challenge and I remembered an FAA site. In searching for it, I found some other interesting stuff.

Interference and model jets Ironic?
2002 CAA Omega interference PDF
Did Personal Electronic Devices(PEDs) cause TWA 800 to explode??
US House Commitee
2001 NASA Report PDF
2002 NASA Report PDF

I never could find the FAA listing of aircraft incidents. It showed several cases of problems with avionics that the cockpit crew attributed to PEDs

Because the acronym really does stand for "extended range twin operations" - see for example this. CAA is UK equivalent of FAA in USA. No idea why they don't include the "R" in the acronym.

It was all posted on Slashdot last year some time...

http://developers.slashdot.org/articles/03/06/10/1 31226.shtml?tid=99

http://www.caa.co.uk/caanews/caanews.asp?nid=669

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/750893.stm

The flight crew can't judge the ability of any given device to transmit. In-flight they can go find out who's causing the problem. During landing... the pilot just has to work around it.

Civil Aviation Authority's experimental results for cell phone usage.


The CAA is the British equivalent of the FAA. The FAA has not done the same tests for itself. Instead it has relied on the CAA's data and erred on the side of caution.

And not all of the avionics are located on the flight deck. The avionics, especially things like flight control computers, are distributed throughout the aircraft in a redundant system.

Actually, in Canada the CAA would be the Canadian Automobile Association. :)

Transport Canada, a federal government branch, is in charge of regulating Canada's airspace and air travel. However, you weren't entirely off-track: the CAA is a common acronym for many countries' Civil Aviation Authority, including Britain, New Zealand, and South Africa.

Us Canadians, we just have to be different, eh? ;)

This is a PDF file of a study done by the CAA in the UK (equivalent to the FAA) on cellphone interference against instruments. It was done in a laboratory to model in-flight circumstances.

To quote from the report (6.1) :
The tests revealed various adverse effects on the equipment performance from simulated cellphone interference. Although the equipment demonstrated a satisfactory margin above the original certification criteria for interference susceptibility, that margin was not sufficient to protect against potential cellphone interference under worst case conditions.

So until there is concrete evidence one way or the other, erring on the side of caution may be advisable - its also one of the last places where you don't have to listen to some dickhead chatting on the phone in a loud voice.

Your post illustrates my point beautifully. The bad journalism on academic studies spreads misinformation all over the place. In short, you got trolled by a journalist. If you read the report on the study you will find that the sentence you quoted is wholly incorrect. The experiments did not test cell phone equipment, and the equipment they did use was used in ways in which cell phones would not be.

You did not read the study. You read the article. Once again you are just repeating rabid journalist misinformation and misreporting of bad science.

It's extremely common and equally annoying. Journalists regularly report "The latest study found X" usually without citing the study (at best you get the Uni or other organization that conducted the research and the promise that it was "a recent study" or "the latest." But usually what is claimed in the press releases (in the case of what you cited) or articles is not what is claimed in the study, and even then looking into the research shows serious flaws, if not with the way the search was conducted, at the very least (as in this case) with the claims being made on the basis of the outcome of the experiments.

In this study they used equipment operating beyond the normal capacity of cell phones in ways in which cell phones would not normally be used. Specifically they found that operating a radio device at the theoretical maximum power of a cell phone transmitter continuously at the frequencies of cell phone transmissions within 30cm of the cockpit instruments caused aberrations. It is specifically stated in the study that they did not use actual cell phones for these experiments.

You did not read the study. You read the article. Once again you are just repeating rabid journalist misinformation and misreporting of bad science.

It's extremely common and equally annoying. Journalists regularly report "The latest study found X" usually without citing the study (at best you get the Uni or other organization that conducted the research and the promise that it was "a recent study" or "the latest." But usually what is claimed in the press releases (in the case of what you cited) or articles is not what is claimed in the study, and even then looking into the research shows serious flaws, if not with the way the search was conducted, at the very least (as in this case) with the claims being made on the basis of the outcome of the experiments.

In this study they used equipment operating beyond the normal capacity of cell phones in ways in which cell phones would not normally be used. Specifically they found that operating a radio device at the theoretical maximum power of a cell phone transmitter continuously at the frequencies of cell phone transmissions within 30cm of the cockpit instruments caused aberrations. It is specifically stated in the study that they did not use actual cell phones for these experiments.

If you read the CAA article and download the actual report, you can see it had the following effects:

"-Compass froze or overshot actual magnetic bearing
-VOR and ILS Course Deviation indicator errors with and without error flag
-VOR Navigation to/from reversal
-Instability of indicators"

From the executive summary:

In October 2002, a set of avionic equipment was tested under controlled conditions in a test chamber for susceptibility to cellphone interference. General aviation avionic equipment, representative of earlier analogue and digital technologies, was used. The equipment, comprising a VHF communication transceiver, a VOR/ILS navigation receiver and associated indicators, together with a gyro-stabilised remote reading compass system, was assembled to create an integrated system.

The tests covered the cellphone transmission frequencies of 412 (Tetra), 940 (GSM) and 1719MHz, including simultaneous exposure to 940 and 1719MHz. The applied interference field strengths were up to 50 volts/metre for a single frequency, and 35 volts/metre for dual frequencies.

The following anomalies were seen at interference levels above 30 volts/metre, a level that can be produced by a cellphone operating at maximum power and located 30cms from the victim equipment or its wiring harness.
snip

I am wondering: how realistic is a test which assumes that the phone will be 30cm from the equipment?

Well, the C.A.A. has approved 2 of these sites in Yorkshire with cables extending to 1500m (approx 5000ft AGL).

Now, this is all very good and well until they decide to apply for licences in high aviation traffic areas say: West of the Pennines or anywhere within 75miles of Manchester Airport.

It seems unlikely that the licences would be granted as these things don't just require "Danger-Area" status but a complete DNF area status for serveral miles around. With the U.K. having very little airspace available below the 'airways', this could get to be a major hassle for G/A and Military aviation.

Note: For those of you not in the UK, airspace below the 'airways' is largely populated by Aerodrome Traffic Zones and MATZ due to the small land-mass and (relatively) high density of major airports.

This Paper gives details of the testing of a set of avionic equipment for susceptibility to cellphone interference. The testing was done under controlled conditions in a test chamber. The equipment, comprising of a VHF communications transceiver, a VOR/ILS navigation receiver and a gyro-stabilised remote reading compass system, was assembled to create an integrated system. A number of anomalies were found and are detailed in the report. The test results endorse current policies restricting the use of cellphones in aircraft.

Here's a report (pdf) that discusses the interference effects of cell phones on aircraft: Interference Levels In Aircraft at Radio Frequencies used by Portable Telephones An html version is available on google.

Executive Summary

Measurements made on two types of civil transport aircraft confirm that transmissions made in the cabin from portable telephones can produce interference levels that exceed demonstrated susceptibility levels for aircraft equipment approved against earlier standards. Since aircraft equipment in this class is currently in use, and can be installed, and is known to be installed, in newly built aircraft, current policy restricting the use of portable telephones on aircraft must continue. Recommendations are made to reduce the interference risk and for further studies to understand more precisely the effects of interference to aircraft equipment arising from the use of portable telephones.

In the UK (though I'd wrongly assumed it was intenational) to pass your JAR Class 1 (Professional Pilot) medical.

If you have had refractive surgery, Class 1 certification will not normally be considered until one year after the operation. Please note that:

the pre-operative refraction must not have exceeded +/- 5.00 dioptres;
an assessment by an eye specialist at Gatwick will be required.
from the CAA

For a class 2 license your initial eye sight is ignored it's just the corrected vision that matters (a recent change).

a bit of coax as long as the balloons hoist cable

...except for the losses in the coax. You'd really need to put the transceiver up in the balloon too. However, a plain vanilla wireless AP is pretty light. Perhaps you could run something like a stripped down AP in a lightweight sealed plastic box, with power provided up the same cable as ethernet? Ideally, you'd use fibre to connect it, but since the maximum length of CAT 5 runs is around 300 feet, you'd be running into air traffic control concerns. I refer you to: The CAA's leaflet on Balloon Airmanship, which states that the maximum height a tethered balloon can reach is 60 metres (195 ft) to the top of the envelope. The loss in that length of coax carrying the 2.4GHz wireless LAN signal would just nicely kill all your RF...

Consider the impracticalities duly pointed out :-)

But it would work, to an extent.

TomV

TomV

TomV