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Cell Phones on Commercial Flights by 2006?
NetCurl writes "I heard the news on MPR's Marketplace today. Apparently the non-profit Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics is studying the effects of wireless and other portable communications devices on commercial airliners. I've already noticed that a couple airlines have loosened requirements on when you can use your cell phone on the ground. Is the next step wireless access in the cabin, and loud cell phone chatter in the skies over the mid-west?"
They will find some way to charge you for the privilege of using your own cel phone.
How is this any different from someone talking to the passenger sitting next to them? Airplanes aren't movie theaters where people are expected to sit stoically and quietly. Many people are social on airplanes and I don't see how this is any different at all.
Hmmm... screw cell phones, how about WiFi? I'd much rather have WiFi on a plane than a cell phone and other people using it wouldn't really bother me.
Feel free to mod me "-1 - Angry Jerk".
When you have AirFones, which actually make the airline a LOT of money. Why would they want any part of cell phones?
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1-800-759-0700
Given that there's already a way to communicate when needed, there is no reason to allow cellphones in airplaines. When the price of the calls becomes cheap, the amount of people calling their friends saying, "oh I'm over Michigan right now...I might be flying over your house, look up!" is going to become a real disruptive thing that will only serve to make my trips even more unconfortable.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
The reason that cellular phones cannot be used during flight is not about safety. When you're driving along, it's not a big deal to transition from the range of one cellular tower to another. When you're in a plane not only are you within a direct line of NUMEROUS towers, but there is also the problem of changing towers almost constantly.
Since when did a Laptop, Gameboy or a Walkman become a triggering device on a weapon of mass destruction? I mean if the planes are so delicate should we really be flying in them? If all OSAMA needs is his sprintPCS, laptop, and a walkman turned on at takeoff to bring down a plane why didn't they try it long ago? What would freak out americans more then watching a plane crash every day? And if it was really a safty issue wouldn't they ban them from the cabin.. ala GUNS, KNIVES? The Generic reason given to turn all this stuff off at take off and landing is that it *MAY* interfer with ILS. Now I have a few tips on how to handle this. FIRST upgrade ILS.. if gameboy and walkmans are fuxing it then it needs to be upgraded.. there are several ways to get around this.. I mean if my CELL PHONE can connect me.. with a BILLON other CELL PHONES without jumping on to the wrong call then you think ILS could be upgraded to freqecny hop as well. Second what about some sheilding around the cabin? Wrap some tin foil around the cabin.. that seems to keep the aliens out of my head. Finally don't realy on ILS in the first place.. I know its tough being a pilot these days.. but put the damn drink down.. grab the big dealy between your legs and look out the shiny thing infront of you. If you can't handle it and need to get drunk on a flight buy a ticket and sit in the back with the rest of the damn drunks.
Why are everybody so strung up about this?
Are you all flying more than 100 times each year? Are all your flights transatlantic, or even longer? Are you so indespensible to your company that it would be a disaster if you were out of reach for some hours?
I fly a lot, and the last thing I need is sitting next to a jabbering idiot for hours without end. It's already a pain in cinema theaters and public places like restaurants.
If you happen to be a compulsive jabber, please consider your surroundings and get a phone that doesn't require you to SHOUT INTO IT.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
Boeing and Intel have been working with several airlines on installation of paid-access WiFi on commercial airliners. As for cell access ... even if it is determined that there is no safety threat (and there probably is not), cellphones aren't designed to work at 550 miles per hour and 40,000 feet in the air. They're flaky enough on the ground. They may work on approach or takeoff, but airliners don't waste any time getting to altitude, where engines operate more efficiently in the extremely cold air.
How about the 'valley girl' next to you who just got the best nail job in the universe and she just has to tell all her friends?
My thoughts exactly.
The main reason I prefer to fly between New York and DC rather than taking the train (total price and travel time are roughly equivalent) is that cell phones are not allowed on the plane.
There is sometimes a quiet car (no cell phones allowed) on Amtrak but not on all trains and enforcement is spotty.
If there were no similar provision on the plane then I'd probably just start driving it.
I cannot think of a greater annoyance than having to listen to half of other people's inane conversations screamed from every direction. It makes it impossible to think.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
This recent slashdot article also covered cell phones on airplanes. If we already know that they are dengerous, then the question is will electronics manufactures redesign their equipment so as not to be harmful? Or will air plane manufactures build their planes so as not to be suceptible to this type of interference? With all the terrorist stuff going on these days, I would think the latter. But since we are still using the same planes for 30 years ago, it isn't going to happen anytime soon. --jdan
Have you ever heard of ear plugs? They are really nice even now on flights, they help deaden the constant drone of the engines.
Anyway, the airlines will probably just install personal noise cancellation devices in each seat (like these active noice cancelling headphones. Then the real trick is just to charge you for the comfort of silence--you get to use your phone for free.
--jdan
As a commercial pilot and electronics geek, I'm concerned with the proliferation of electronics on board airplanes. No, I can't say what the effect of a cell phone is on the incredibly complex system of both analog and digital systems on the typical airliner. The problem is, no one else really can, either. Sure, the frequencies transmitted by cellphones are quite a bit different than avionics. But so is an FM radio. Next time you're talking on your cell phone, hold it next to your FM radio and see just how much interference you get. I'm not aware of any detailed studies on the effects of modern consumer electronics on navigation equipment, but with the speed with which new devices are always coming out, you can bet that even if one was done, it would be obsolete within a year. Sure, the technology exists for protecting and shielding electronic equipment. Given that it would cost the manufacturer more $$$ in the long run, who really thinks that any of that technology would be voluntarily implemented without being mandated by the government? Maybe going a mile off course at 35,000 feet is no huge deal, but think about that the next time you're sitting in the current generation of airplane shooting a CAT-III ILS approach down to near-zero/zero visibility. You're descending through 100 feet, you can barely see the wingtip through the fog, and you hear the cellphone that the guy next to you put in the overhead baggage and forgot to turn off, ringing......
Cell phones are electricaly noisey. A GSM phone sends out all kinds of nasty chips that get into everything. The problem is when a plane is in the clouds, there isn't much keeping it on course. There are a few gyros and the VOR (most planes still don't have GPS). At altitude, drifing off course isn't much of an issue but during an ILS approach, it could be a major disaster. An ILS approach is the pilot is looking at the instruments. There is a glide slope indicator (which a phone can mess up, I've seen it), an altermter which is based on ice not getting on the static port outside of the plane and the inner marker which is a low powered AM tranmitter. If your on the glide slope and you don't see the runway before the plane gets 200 ft above the runway (which should be when you pass the inner marker), you can't land. A modern airport will use lasers to measure the lowest level of the clouds and if they are 210 ft above the runway, they will let planes land.
So I can see the point where people get used to using their phones in the air and then some joker decides that since its ok most of the time, its ok to make a short call just before landing and flips on the phone as the plane hits the 200 foot from the ground mark and interfeers with something giving a pilot a false sense of position.
I see allowing more cell phone in a plane as setting a bad precedent.