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Risk Management For Electronics on Aircraft
Phronesis writes "M. Granger Morgan and his graduate student Bill Strauss have a nice article in Issues in Science and Technology about the risks posed by electronic devices in flight. Unlike most articles on the subject, this one neither pooh-poohs the risks ('We have estimated that reported events are occurring at a rate of about 15 and perhaps as many as 25 per year') nor exaggerates them ('RF interference from consumer electronics is unlikely to have figured in more than a few percent of commercial air accidents, if any at all, during the past 10 years.'). Instead, it presents a sensible plan for dealing with the risks that will accompany the inevitable expansion of the range of electronic devices passengers will use in flight, including cell phones and wireless computer networking."
I doubt it. Most flight attendants, and people working at the airline aren't going to be on top of technology enough to know the difference.
Granted in a few years when the majority of phones are airline friendly, they will probably allow all phones to be used again with exceptions to the few people with older phones.
At least I hope they do this, it sure would be nice!
Gibble: Descriptive of an emotional state in which one's mind is scrabbling for some purchase on reality
Not only in-flight risks, but all types are discussed here. It's one of the more lucid discussions on the net. I've been following this newsgroup for the better part of 20 years.
Although there may be a small risk of a cell phone interfering with an airplane's avionics, the people complaining about cell phone use on airplanes are at the FCC, not the FAA.
See, when you're on the ground, your cell phone picks up one or two signals that have line-of-sight to where you're standing. This is how the system is designed. But at FL330, you're going to be in line-of-sight for many, many signals, and your phone will connect to all of them, essentially DoSing the cellular network. And since your cell phone transmits all sorts of identifying information when you use it, it's fairly simple to track you down.
(citation: Say Again Please: Guide to Radio Communications by Bob Gardner. Can't remember the page number ottomh)
The problem is (mainly) not due to wiring.
The problem is in fact that the radio navagation aids 'navaids' operate at low frequencies and use geo-displacement / frequency modulation as part of the navigation method. The most common example, the VOR, or 'very high omnidirectional radial beacon' sends out a radially sweeping signal at 3600hz. This is such a low frequency that it can be affected by non-primary frequencies in small electronic devices. For example: CDMA/TDMA cellular phones, while operating at (at least one of them) 1900Mhz (AFAIK), they have polling frequencies that could be very close to 3600hz.
I would really like it if GPS was the primary navaid, but it is not. GPS was just recently approved (in the last two weeks) for IFR approaches, and until now, it wasn't even legal to conduct a full flight to commercial minimums (I think it's Category III ILS) - making it useless to commercial air carriers. Further, it's going to take the FAA at it's current rate, over a decade to convert the terrestrial navaid approaches and nav plates to include GPS routing and approaches.
Thus - here's just one example, where it's not the routing, and hopefully this will clear up the radio frequency problem... When I take off with my CFI into IFR (clouds, zero vis), I guarantee you that we both turn off our cell phones! (and that's in a 4 seater cessna 172)