Wireless Computing and Airplanes?

Echemus writes "The Register has an article speculating whether the fact more and more devices have WiFi/GSM facilities built in will cause Airlines to ban all computing equipment and its like from the cabin. Airlines are ultra-paranoid about cell phones, but is that paranoia justified?"

Comments

Two things:

[afidel]

1)The paranoia is NOT justified, look at the Sept 11th events, tons of people on cellphones on the planes with no problems. If an airplanes electronics are accepting super low power interference from ISM band devices they should be fixed because they will have real problems if they get too close to radar installations.

2)There are several airlines worldwide testing WiFi for in plane access because its hella cheaper than putting ethernet everywhere and they want to recoupe some of the revenue they are losing with business travelers not paying top buck for last minute bookings.

EMI, air-to-ground

[panurge]

To what extent has this been fuelled by the airline's attempt to sell their own very expensive at-seat phone service?

AFAIUI, radio spectrum is supposed to be allocated in such a way that interference does not affect critical bands. There's a regulatory body to do it. In the past, before this became an issue, there were a lot of electronic gadgets that produced quite large broadband interference. Look at early home computers with plastic cases - you could get several volts of signal from some of them just by holding an oscilloscope probe over the case. Then people starting using serious shielding so that only the wanted frequencies got out.

The actual signal levels from Bluetooth, 802.11 etc. are all pretty low and they are in standards-designated bands.

So exactly what is the issue? Does it have, as I suspect, a lot more to do with the convenience of the cabin crew and the airline than the passengers?

Aircraft survive lightning strike. They are locked onto by powerful radar stations. They have transmitters many times more powerful than cell phones. But, seemingly, all terrorists need to do is to keep their cellphones turned on. doh.

Re:Airplanes and cellphones

[garcia]

yeah, living in an area that is under the flight path of many airplanes on approach to MSP I experience FREQUENT call drops. It's people like my father who think that cell phones don't affect anything while on airplanes and refuse to turn them off that causes the rest of us headaches and dropped calls every 4 - 5 mins.

Banning wireless devices absurd

[Enthrash]

Forget the background science, forget the RF engineering, and forget the fact that the pilots and managers creating these policies no absolutely nothing about RF/microwave princples.....consider layman logic and basic engineering principles.

Do you REALLY think, the achilles heel of aircraft made in the last 40 years (little lone last 20) is that turning on a cell phone or wifi card (with only the mW's of power)will interfere with the navigation systems or possibly down the plane? Give me a break. Those creating these regulations should put down their pens and close their mouths and try picking up a book.

Aircraft systems have countless safety factors designed in, and extensive RF shielding around critical systems (i.e. nav, comm, control etc.). The common radio, TV, cell tower would have a far greater impact on interferance than a lower power transmitter on board ever would, and we don't see them re-routing planes around those towers (even on landing or take off) do we? Why? Because it's NOT a problem and never was.

Dear lord.....may the ignorance stop one day....

Rich...

It's not the signals...

[signe]

It's the information. Have you actually listened to some of the things that they're demanding you not use? The last few lists I have heard rattled off before takeoff have included GPS devices. What? GPS devices are passive, they are receive-only. So what does the airline care if I have one connected during the flight?

Plain and simple, they want an information blackout, not a lack of RF signals. They do not want you to be able to talk to an outside party, receive outside news, or receive any outside communications, including the location of the plane, unless they have absolute control over it. That's why you can still have airphones and live DirecTV. The flight crew can cut off those if neccessary.

Now I'm not saying that it's impossible that a phone, handheld device, or laptop has no chance of interfering with the electronics aboard an aircraft. I don't know the systems well enough to claim that. But I'm fairly sure that planes fly in the path of much more powerful sources of interference. For example, why worry about the RF from a milliwatt source, when you're flying by or near cellular towers (and other ground-based RF sources) transmitting at much higher power levels? You can say that the metal skin of the aircraft reduces outside interference, and it probably does. But it's not a solid metal skin, and I still don't buy it. We've got airlines that are now sanctioning using 802.11b devices on the aircraft, let's not forget, by setting up for-pay APs.

I'd be more worried about the security goons confiscating your GPS receiver at the airport security checkpoint than the airlines banning all laptops and handhelds in the cabin. Business passengers would pitch a fit, and I don't think they're going to risk it.

-Todd

I appreciate it

[ElDuque]

It is pretty obvious that the use of cell phones on planes is possible, without adverse effects on the airplane. Maybe there is some trouble with the ground stations, as a previous poster pointed out, but do you know who else bans cell phones? Greyhound and the other bus lines, and they don't pretend there is a technical reason for it.

Can you imagine being on a plane full of people talking on their phones non-stop? Or even just having to sit next to someone gossiping their head off for an entire 3 hour flight?

The airlines ban cell phones for the comfort of their passengers, and I'm glad they do.

Re:duh

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm at a loss as to how a comment this absurd could be modded to insightful.

IF wifi and other broadcast devices are deemed dangerous because of interference, then they need to be completely banned from the cockpit.

Suggesting it now falls upon a crew who should be flying the plane to scan for wireless devices is ridiculous.

Say I leave my 'puter off until I'm onboard and the flight is underway. Do you expect them to do constant scanning, and then devote crew time (or flight attendant time, as if these folks are already stretched serviing an entire flight deck of people) to search for WHICH seat is broadcasting? Then, if I've put my computer back in the bag but left it on, they have to do a bag and pocket search in a limited area to try to determine WHAT device (cell phone, blue tooth, wifi laptop, PDA) is sending the signal out, then turn it off?

Come on mods. Use half a brain.

IF this stuff is truly interefering then there is NO reason to allow people to carry it onto the plane with them. Let the few people who think they deserve special treatment or have documents that need to be in their possesion at all times charter their own flight.

Re:EMI on planes is a problem

[KC7GR]

A CD player affecting modern avionics? Oh, please...

I'm an electronics engineering tech, and I used to work for Boeing. I've seen how the 'black boxes' are put together, and how they're installed in the jets. They're heavily shielded against stray interference, both by their own grounded metal housing and by the fact that every single non-coaxial wire going into the thing goes through at least a bypass capacitor, if not the cap and a ferrite bead, before it ever hits its destination.

Don't even get me started on how many of those wire bundles have shield braid over the inner conductors.

Couple that with the fact that there's a solid metal floor between the 'people' area and the avionics bay, AND the fact that the boxes are all mounted in a grounded rack, and I have a lot of trouble believing that a CD player could so much as create an electronic hiccup in anything more than the headphones of the person using it. If it did, then there was something seriously wrong with the plane's avionics to begin with.

Show me independently-verified lab results that a CD player (or anything else in the cellphone or PDA category) can freak out fully functional and properly installed avionics, and I will cheerfully STFU. Until then, I would consider such a story to be in the same category as the Weekly World News reporting that Edgar Cayce had been reincarnated as a psychic fly.

yeah but what will you ban?

[akadruid]

Things are becoming increasingly complex these days. Manufacturers get a kick out of combing pointless things these days - wait for a 802.11g toothbrush etc.
Training the cabin staff, searching all passengers and risking putting off the punters is a bad move for the airlines.
The only viable route is to approach it from the other end.
Aircraft should be designed and/or modified to ensure that this cannot become a problem. how difficult can it be, given the obstacles that have already been overcome in the field of aviation?

Why the airlines are so "paranoid"

[ninewands]

It's not a matter of paranoia and it's not a question of FCC approval. It's FAA regulations. All electronic items capable of generating any interence with the avionics in an aircraft, private OR commercial, have to be "TSO"d by the FAA (a testing process similar to "type-acceptance" by the FCC but MUCH more stringent due to the public safety implications).

If you are flying in a private aircraft and your non-TSO'd cellphone or WiFi device causes a problem, it's assumed that you'll have the good sense to turn it off, or, alternatively, that you'll have enough insurance coverage to pay for the damage you cause.

On an airliner with 200+ passengers, the cabin crew doesn't have the capability to determine WHICH device will cause a problem, so the only safe choice it require that they ALL be turned off.

Sorry if you find it inconvenient, I'd rather get down in one piece. If you absolutely HAVE to be able to use your wireless device on commercial flights, pony up for one that IS TSO'd (it will cost about 5-10 times what you paid for the one you have), otherwise, quit complaining.

A view from inside the industry

[Embedded Geek]

The company I work for makes in flight entertainment equipment - video projection equipment, in seat audio and video, etc. Even though our equipment serves no role in the safety of the aircraft (so called "Class D" equipment), the FAA makes all our boxes go through very rigorous testing for EMI, vibration, and flamability. Some of the testing can get pretty absurd: I once had to do a software load on a prototype so it could be signed off as being in a flight configuration before it was thrown into an incinerator to test for toxic gasses. All this elaborate testing also skyrockets our costs - a two year obsolete IFE video tape player is going to cost you five to ten times as much as an up to date commercial model.

In all our testing, the FAA took the view that it was not their responsibility to prove that something was unsafe - it's the manufacturer's responsibility to prove that their product isn't. This is the real reason airlines are so paraniod about cellphones, etc. Unless Nokia spends $500K+ per model to certify that there's absolutely no way the device can produce interference even in a failure mode (and provides every consumer with an embossed certificate to that effect), your flight attendant will be asking you politlely to shut the thing off.

There is, of course, always the possibility of a sea change. Perhaps the manufacturers will begin doing real testing of their devices for EMI, although that will increase costs (although much less than for IFE equipment because the volume would be higher). However, that would have to happen on every device manufactured anywhere and require the user to show some kind of certification to the airline. Perhaps the FAA will require even better shielding on critcal equipment, but that implies retrofitting every piece of equipment on every commercial aircraft in the world. Or maybe the FAA will simply come under political pressure to relax their safety requirements, but that will end the second a plane goes down for any non-obvious reason and a herd of lawyers appears screaming "I told you so!"

Unless there is a paradigm shift on one of these fronts (none of which are really palatable), you will see more and more restrictive policies on the use of consumer electronics in the cabin.

Until then? Simple. Leave your laptop powered off and read a book. Maybe you'll learn something...

PS - A pretty amusing cartoon appeared in the New Yorker peripherally related to this topic once. Check it out here.