Laser Warnings Planned for Out-of-Bounds Pilots

akadruid writes "No, it's not a new 'Star Wars' system: The US Pentagon and NORAD are using lasers to warn off pilots flying into restricted airspace, according to Wired magazine. I wonder if they got the idea from the FBI, who charged a New Jersey man under anti-terror laws for doing this?" The system is not yet in operation (but could be as soon as next month), and according to NORAD, their system has been found safe for pilots' eyes.

Comments

Why note encode data in the signal

[theDunedan]

By that I mean, why just flash red-red-green. They could also indicate the best direction to turn to get out of the airspace as quickly as possible:

Red-red-green means turn right. Red-green means turn left. Red-red means stay straight. Green-green (for a few seconds) means you are now clear of the airspace.

the Dunedan

Many Laser Sightings Last Year Were Govt Tests

[Ron Bennett]

I'm surprised no one mentioned it here yet ...

Many of the laser sightings last year appear to have been part of U.S. government tests of the system...

And anyone who doubts that, just search news archives of late last year - the U.S. govt publically acknowledged doing tests around the same time/areas of the "mysterious" laser sightings.

Ron Bennett

Low-info article, and puny low-power lasers.

[Shag]

It just says that the light wouldn't be as intense as in the cases where people have gotten in trouble with their laser pointers.

That seems a little hard to believe at first, since a green laser pointer's power is only something in the milliwatts, and the AOPA article mentioned in another reply (this is a fixed URL, incidentally) talks about a 1.5 watt laser. But that's reflected/diffused to create a 100-foot-wide line of light in a circle 10 miles from the laser, so I guess by sending the light off in all directions (not at all like your normal use of a laser) it's possible that it wouldn't be a problem.

Out here in Hawaii, the summit of Mauna Kea is an "informal" no-fly zone. There aren't any major flight paths that would cross it anyway, and since there are telescopes on it, folks have basically just agreed not to go flying over when we're trying to see things.

This has become a little more important in recent years, since the folks over at Keck use a laser to ionize stuff in the sodium layer of the atmosphere and create an artificial "guide star" that they can then measure the light from to correct for atmospheric interference. This is part of their adaptive optics, I think. That's a 15-watt laser, which could really ruin a pilot's day.

And Gemini North, across the summit from Keck, is about to start playing with a big bright toy too.

They've got a pool of "plane spotters" who spend half a night standing outside on the summit with a walkie-talkie. If they see any planes that look like they might get in the way, they radio in to turn off the laser before anything gets zapped.

I'm going to try to do that, one of these days. Goodness knows I'm up there enough as it is.

Re:Low-info article, and puny low-power lasers.

[zardo]

Seems to me this is just a public relations stunt. NORAD was initially formed during the cold war as a quick response system to scramble fighter jets in case a russian bogey entered our airspace. They never had the opportunity to truly flex those abilities up until 9/11, during which they had fighter jets up in the air pretty quick, too bad they flew out over the ocean and flew in circles. So now I guess they've found something they're good at, shining LAZERS (!) at small aircraft.

Seems to me they could shut NORAD down, let the national guard do its job, and the FAA should monitor restricted airspace.

Re:restricted airspace enforced by photon torpedo

[tyler_larson]

The "problem" is more a figment of our legislators' collective fears and feelings of self-importance than anything else.

After 9-11, congress felt that their own office space was definitely important enough to be a terrorist target (strange, I though the terrorists passed up DC and hit the Pentagon instead...), and since our country could not survive without the current set of elected officials, they MUST protect themselves for humanity's sake.

So they decided that any aircraft within a 25000-square-mile area around DC (which includes no small number of airports) must file a special type of flight plan, remain in contact with ATC at all times, and must follow a whole laundry list of restrictions. It's called an ADIZ, and it's a royal PITA, can delay your flight for hours, and has ATC overtaxed to such a degree that flight safety has been seriously compromised on a surprisingly huge number of documented cases. This includes more than a few near-collisions at airports that were avoided only because the pilots were paying closer attention than ATC, while the controllers were busy with these extra restrictions. The situation is a string of disasters waiting to happen. Without the pilots' extra vigilance, the death toll for Congress's arrogance would already be in the hundreds.

In the mean time, there have been a large number of airspace infringements. These are generally caused by things like equipment malfunctions (eg. radio or transponder that goes bad in flight), unintentional flight path deviations (like being blown off course), and sometimes lack of knowledge about how damn huge this protected airspace really is. It's really a unique and unprecidented situation, and some older pilots don't know what to make of it. And on at least one high-profile occasion, the problem was the incompetence of the defense department.

In the near unanimous opinion of us non-congresspeople, the problem is the airspace itself. We're no safer--and in fact, many people's lives are often at risk because of it, including (and especially) all normal air passengers in and around DC. But rather than dismantling the airspace, they're working to strengthen it. This includes the recent addition of missile installations (whose sole purpose is to shoot down Americans), and now this laser warning system--none of which exists even around actual prohibited airspace.

What congress needs to learn--and what they'll never admit--is that congressional elected officials are (a) not a serious terrorist target, and (b) completely and absolutely expendable. We may even be better off if we were to wipe them out and start over.

Ironic subnote: I frequently fly my plane directly over NORAD without violating any airspace at all. In fact, I could fly it right down the tunnel and the only regulation I'd be breaking is the one about "500 feet from any structure, vessel, etc."