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Electronics In Flight — Danger Or Distraction?
another similar writes "IEEE Spectrum has a blog post revisiting the debate on whether electronic devices pose a risk to flight avionics spurred by a NY Post article about Arianna Huffington's refusal to power down her Blackberry during takeoff. The post points out the EU's removal of their own ban on cell phone use in 2007 and the likelihood of significant non-compliance daily in the US — and curiously, planes haven't been falling from the sky at a similar rate. While the potential exists for there to be a problem, it would appear the risk is low. Ever bent the rules? Is an app for landing commercial jets somewhere in our future?"
Personally, I find it hard to believe that a cell phone or wireless device can bring down an airliner. Why would a terrorist use a bomb? Why not simply turn on your iPhone?
It is in our past. It's called ILS and the big jets are outfitted to auto-land on it. The smaller planes just get brought on the right glidescope and at decision-height the pilot takes over.
Over the last few months I have been on a few EU carriers and they have the same restriction of no personnal electronics during take off and landing, same as when I was on the US carriers.
A few seasons back, Mythbusters did some tests and found that none of their phones were able to affect even remotely the instruments of a plane. It makes sense after all - we're not exactly seeing terrorists trying to sneak twelve cell phones on board and try to text each other into crashing the plane.
...then they would make more of an effort to have you turn them off instead of just asking politely.
Ideally, passengers shouldn't be distracted / "in their own world" (headphones) during takeoff or landing, when even a small delay can reduce the odds in case of an emergency.
Hypothetically... because from what I've seen recently, an old style (yup, compact cassette) Walkman tends to be quite openly accepted by cabin crew. Despite it being visibly a late model / with some microcontroller / perhaps spewing around more EMP than a cellphone in offline mode.
One that hath name thou can not otter
or a call and just before any speakers nearby make that classic clicking sound... That's the reason you're meant to turn them off during take off as it can interfer with the pilot's communication with the ATC.
Who gives a shit about cell phones on an airplane, I want to know when I'll be able to use my remote control car during flight.
Monstar L
It's a load of over-sensitive could-possibly-be-thought-might-happen crap. Like using a mobile phone in a petrol station - the risk is actually from dodgy, illegally imported batteries installed in such things which might "spark" if dropped, nothing to do with the phone itself somehow magically igniting vapours. Most petrol station fires are caused by static sparks from people re-entering their cars while they are fuelling (which in itself suggests inattention to the pump pushing litres of a flammable liquid at high speed into your car) or just plain carelessness (i.e. smoking on the forecourt).
At some point, there probably WAS a time it could interfere with a piece of equipment not designed to take account that mobile phones were nearby (even if that was just audible chirps being recorded on the cockpit tapes because the mics picked them up like mics tend to do with mobile phone "check-in" broadcasts). If you're seriously using planes which are not designed to cope with mobile phone transmissions now, you're in a serious breach of due diligence as regards safety and hazards. For a start, it's too easy to leave one on, whether in the hold, or the overhead compartments, or your pocket, or even the pilot's pocket, and secondly you are going to be flying OVER mobile phone masts (with a lot more power output) and getting very, very close to them and mobile phones whenever you come into land and taxi.
The mobile phone thing is most probably, as has been recorded in several of the EU discussions, more about radio licensing - because having lots of mobiles suddenly appear in the air can mess up OTHER things. Like I can join a ferry's maritime network but only when it's switched on when we're out at sea, not near the coast. In terms of safety, if a mobile phone, or even a thousand mobile phones, can interfere with the operation of an aircraft, then you have much more to worry about that mobile phones themselves. For a start, any transmitter, any static, any friction at all. Same for wireless, bluetooth, and anything else that operates on similar wavelengths. Hell, most aircraft that serve food have a microwave or similar heater on board - bet that churns out a million times more "Risk Assessment" than the pilot's mobile phone.
Wonder if she threw a teeth-grinding "you are all a bunch of loons" temper tantrum like Governor Rendell did?
Thanks for representing my state.
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7220372n &client=seamonkey
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Good news is mythbusters found a link between themselves and terrorists. They blew themselves up to try to prove the point. In other news. Electronics on aeroplanes are fine, but printer cartridges are lethal!
The risk may be "low," but it's not as low as the threat of another 9/11 attack -- and we're spending hundreds of billions on security theater purportedly guarding against that.
By comparison, a few minutes electronic shutdown at takeoff and landing are pretty small change.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
if I put my engineer hat on I'd say the odds of a cell phone, laptop, etc interfering w/aircraft electronics in a way that caused an actual adverse event (even as benign as an aborted take-off, waived-off or diverted landing, much less crash) is damn close to zero. personally, I'm more concerned about getting brain cancer than my plane crashing and I'm not losing too much sleep (i.e. ANY) over that...
if I put my "baseball cap" (/fedora/etc) on I'd say I wouldn't mind them leaving a voice call ban in place just to keep down on the air rage. since virtually all phones support email, sms & even IM there's no justification for subjecting adjacent passengers to a voice call. I get (and am somewhat sympathetic to) the "it's my right" argument but given the risk of a diverted flight (cost to airline, taxpayers for arrest/prosecution, lost time/$ for passengers) I'd say it's a reasonable restriction given that there are ample alternate (i.e. text based) means of communicating with the outside world from inside an aircraft...
The ban on cellphone usage during takeoff and landing is for your safety. The ban on cellphone usage during cruise is due to weaknesses in the cell network and your sanity.
The reason we tell you not to use your phone for takeoff and landing is because those are the point during the flight when the aircraft is most likely to encounter problems and also when our navaid usage and workload is at its highest. We are trained to assume that the airplane will crash on every flight and act accordingly - Complacency Kills! You should be in the same mindset. First, there's the matter of the crash. When the aircraft goes from flying speed to nothing in a few seconds, the G-forces are going to make that iphone/laptop/whatever that you are holding in your hands suddenly weigh several times its normal weight. You WILL NOT be able to keep ahold of it. It's going to become a projectile and injure or kill the people sitting near you. Next is longer-term survival. The fact is, most deaths in air crashes happen not during the impact sequence, but in the post-crash environment. People panic and stampede. They don't know which way is out. The aircraft is dark and possibly filling with smoke or water. Situational awareness and decision-making ability are KEY to both your survival and that of your fellow passengers. Having to get your headphones off or figure out where your laptop went is not going to help. If you weren't paying attention to things before the crash you won't know where you are now and what direction you need to go. You probably ignored the safety briefing too. See where this is going? Finally, if you are alert and paying attention, the amount of information you will be able to provide to the crash investigators after the crash will be of higher quality. Those of us at the pointy end of the aircraft probably died in the impact. Being able to give information to the investigators could uncover flaws in the aircraft or our procedures, and by correcting those save hundreds of lives. We take this flying stuff seriously. You should too.
I've heard that cell usage during cruise overloads the cell network by switching cells too often - I'm not an expert on the cell system so I'll defer to a cell tech on that. In my eyes, the ban on cell usage during cruise is for reasons of everyone's sanity. Do you really want to hear the guy in the next seat shouting into his phone about the BIG IMPORTANT EXECUTIVE THINGS BIG IMPORTANT EXECUTIVES LIKE HIM DO, or THIS THING ON MY NECK IS GETTING BIGGER, or whatever other inane thing he wants to rattle on about at maximum volume? It's bad enough everywhere else, why must we suffer too? (Misery loves company?)
Anyway, that's the score. I've repeated this I don't know how many times now and it never sticks. STICK, DAMMIT!
Everyone knows people on /. have no lives so must be dead. You can't kill that which is not alive.
What? The plane crashed? I didn't notice. I was on my Blackberry. Neither did I notice the guy sitting next to me who was hitting me so I would get out of his way. I'm going to send him a nasty text message.
I've been on the corporate plane a few times. No such rules. I'm sure the little jet had a 'little' less in terms of avionics compared to a jumbo jet but we still could use our electronics and phones in any phase of flight. That said, cell phones work like crap at altitude.
The power button breaking on Nexus Ones is an unfortunately common problem - design defect (otherwise, great device). With a custom ROM, you can set it so the trackball button wakes the screen, and any other functions the power button has can be duplicated on screen.
But - the only way to turn it on once it's off is to remove the battery, plug in a power source, and put the battery back in (sometimes a couple times before it decides to turn on). A bit of a hassle, to say the least.
Normally, one doesn't need to turn it off. I leave it on for weeks at a time without even a restart. The only time it's necessary is during takeoff and landing. I fly fairly frequently, and have flown twice since the button broke a couple months ago. If I want to use it in flight to listen to music or something, it's not a *huge* deal to take out my laptop to plug in the USB cable for power, though annoying. The thing that's tough is if you need to make a call quickly once you land. Realistically, there is time to take out your laptop again to plug in the USB cable before the doors open. But, it's annoying to have to do that. Likewise, you could hunt for a power outlet in the terminal (if you have time to). Again, a big hassle just to turn on your phone.
So, I just put it in airplane mode and silent mode and left it on. It's quite clear that it's not going to cause any problems if you understand how your devices work. I appreciate their caution, though, since most people aren't going to realize if their devices transmit or not. Still, I'd guess at least 5% of cell phones get left on - not in airplane mode - by people simply because they forget.
One thing that always bothered me is their list of items you can and can't use. I'm an amateur photographer with fairly expensive cameras, and I like to take photos out of airplane windows sometimes. Take-off and landing are some of the best times to get interesting stuff. But if you look in the safety brochure regarding electronic devices, cameras are never mentioned. They mention basically every other type of electronic device possible, but not cameras. In the US, if they see you using a camera they'll tell you to turn it off. They changed their speech a few years ago to say "any device with an on/off switch" to reduce this confusion. On Asian carriers, they don't care if you use a digital camera even during takeoff and landing. A Korean Air stewardess did make me turn off my Sony e-reader - while I was deeply engrossed in a story - for takeoff, though, and that's a much, much less complicated device. It is true that the well-known models of e-book reader feature wireless connectivity so I guess it's fair.
[citation needed]: some of the above post sounds made up. Please clarify with facts.
Is it really that difficult to stop using your cell phone during takeoff and landing? I mean, I could understand it if you were someone important, like a President, or a hospital doctor giving advice during an emergency. But most of us really aren't that important. However, lots if folks like to think that they are important.
Flight Attendant: "I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to turn that off during takeoff. We'll be up in the air in a few minutes, and then you can turn it back on."
Passenger: "But if I don't send this Twitter right now, the world is going to end!"
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
The wiring should be shielded to withstand a lightening strike. A cell phone should have no effect. If it does, the design is defective or the electronics/wiring is damaged. If there is damage/design flaw, there is a lot of interference and other signals coming from radar, power sources, the earth, weather, etc. My guess is that something else will trigger a problem before some cell phone or wifi connection does.
OK, so maybe the phone won't take down the plane but, if I'm stuck in an aluminium tube for 8 hours with some nitwit with verbal diarrhoea, then I'm going to get peeved. I can understand that people have different coping mechanisms for dealing with the forced confinement but you've got to give it a rest at some point - the world won't end if a call goes unmade or unanswered. If an action is likely to increases the stress levels of your fellow travelers, then you probably shouldn't do it.
In Ariana Huffington's case, I think the point could be made by asking her to move so she's not in aisle seat - and tell her it's because I wouldn't want to be stuck behind her ignorant, dithering fat ass in case of an emergency.
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors - Plato
At least one study has shown that it isn't out of the question that electronic devices can have an impact on cockpit GPS systems. Inherently this is really only vital for landings.
But the rule isn't really the problem. The problem is cheating.
Day in and day out we all abide by questionable rules not because we agree with them, but because we are civilized human beings. Flaunting rules which could, even in the most remote chance, endanger not just your life but the lives of everyone around you is bad. Forget politics, forget gender, forget class, forget intelligence. If you aren't going to abide by the rules, then don't play the game.
http://windows.scares.us
I didn't see the episode. Did the radio receiver get loaded with static and as a result, communications unintelligible?
Many years ago when I had the money, I was on a training flight with my instructor - C172. While still parked and listening to the ATIS, she all of a sudden had to listen to her messages and while she was doing it, I just heard static at varying volume.
She was up front in the cockpit with me, which means she was right on top of the radio. Now, if someone was sitting back in coach, would that happen?
[...] one of the multiple reasons is passenger attention.
That's what a pilot told me too. If passengers are listening to music, for example, they won't hear announcements made on the speakers.
It's not that the inability to hear announcements is a direct threat to the safety of passengers. But it's one of those cases where you want to eliminate anything that can potentially make a bad situation become worse.
Most plane crashes, it seems to me, are caused by a combination of small incidents that—combined together—create a deadly situation. When reviewing those incidents, they never seem so serious if considered separately.
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20080424
V for Vendetta: People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.
I'd like to see tests proving that. EMF/RFI shielding isn't rocket science. The electronics in cars are hardened against pretty much everything - cell phone towers, high voltage power lines, microwave repeaters, terrestrial radio transmitters, etc... I don't see how flight avionics, which also have to be hardened against increased cosmic radiation and RFI from operating closer to the ionosphere, are so sensitive to relatively low power transmitters.
Are they using interference as the reason? Another non-electronics reason could be because that in the case something happens during take off or landing (the two most likely times IIRC), then you want passengers to be aware of their surroundings and ready to scramble to the exits.
If people have their laptops out and are paying attention to their emails--and haven't bothered to figure out where the closest exit is--then if something should happen there's a higher chance of chaos instead of a orderly evacuation.
Planes are quite safe statistically speaking, but shit does happen, and being reasonably prepared for it is prudent IMHO. Besides, turning off your device for 10 minutes during take off and 10 minutes during landing is not going to cause you to miss much in the world outside the plane. I have an EE and work in IT, so I probably like gadgets and being connected as much as the next person, but seriously, switch off and chill people.
There are many possible reasons why electronics of various types should be turned off, most of the covered by the discussion here. However, most importantly, THEY SHOULD BE TURNED OFF BECAUSE THE RULE IS TO TURN THEM OFF. That's right, I'm advocating obeying the rule just because there is a rule. Sounds like I'm some kind of wuss, huh?
We like to think that we are a nation of laws, not men (read about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law or here http://robertdfeinman.com/society/men_not_laws.html. A fundamental premise of this is that everyone is supposed to obey the law. I'm sure everyone can cite examples where this is not so (police giving other police a pass for infractions, etc.) but in general it is a very useful and egalitarian way to order society. We order society so that society is possible. Without order there would be chaos. One way to order society is to have multiple classes of people - you know, the nobles and the peasants. There are some who feel that this is the rightful order of things. Others don't. In the United States, one of the basic premises of our society is that everyone follows the rules. Sure, we know its not always true. But the more we pursue the ideal, the greater the chance that we will come close to it.
I get aggravated every time I see someone flaunt their disrespect for the law, such as when driving in traffic. We've all seen someone cut to the head of a line, etc. Why do we get angry? Well, its not fair, for one thing. For another, most of us recognize that its extremely easy to break the law and we probably wouldn't get "caught" (i.e., punished by some enforcer of the law), but we obey it anyway. We are frustrated with those don't, in part because most of us are smart enough to realize that if we all disregarded those laws, we would have chaos. The rule breaking only works if a very few people do it. So those few people have anointed themselves as somehow being above the rest of us. Nothing is more sure to tick a person off then another person placing themselves above that first person, especially in a society that believes it is egalitarian.
So think about it the next time you are breaking a rule, probably because you think you know it is a harmless infraction. Who are you ticking off with your self-importance? How much are you encouraging others to also choose to bend/break a rule, perhaps one more important? How much are you contributing to disorder and chaos?
Most importantly, how much are you contributing to the kind of thinking exhibited by those like Ms. Huffington who obviously think that "rules are for the little people"?
It's the pilot who is talking on his cell phone!
Is it possible to create a hazard situation by transmitting a signal?
Some avionics is quite simple. If you transmit the 'correct' signal, you can trick a VOR or ILS receiver into thinking it is somewhere it isn't. The 'correct' signal would involve a continuous 90 or 150 Hz tone modulated on the 'correct' VHF frequency. You can get the 'correct' frequencies by intermodulation but their amplitude would be very low. VOR and ILS receivers aren't particularly sensitive. The genuine signal will be much much stronger than any accidental signal that could possibly mislead the nav equipment. I haven't mentioned DME but DME deliberately injects its own noise (called squitter). It easily handles noise from your cell phone.
The bottom line is that your cell phone will create some out of band interference and the old style nav equipment won't even notice it. You might get something going by standing right next to the VHF antenna and talking on your cell phone (hard to do if the plane is moving).
What about microwave landing systems and GPS? The modulation is much more sophisticated and consequently harder to trick.
To electronically create a hazard situation, you would pretty much have to do it deliberately. Would someone do that? Not likely. It's too much work and there are much easier ways to bring down an airplane. Anyway, we've thought of that. Just don't try to get into a ground based nav transmitter site when the president is flying by. You will get shot.
Why do you think your Kindle or iPad can bring down the plane during take off or landing, but not while cruising? Simples - it can't.
The main issue is that most accidents happen at takeoff or landing, and the faster people react and do the right thing, the more lives saved. Taking stuff that can fly around the cabin away from people and putting it in the seatback pocket reduces the risk of a Kindle putting someone's eye out if it flies across the cabin later. Forcing you out of your earbuds (no listening to music) means that they have a better chance of getting your attention if something goes wrong.
I still carry a paperback along with my PRS-505 ereader when traveling specifically because of this - I hate sitting around bored for 30 minutes, and like having something to read. I'm never going to win my fight to be allowed to use my ereader, so I take paper.
THIS! What the hell, are our minds so needy as to have to be constantly glued to those damn social life preservers? Or, as folk at work like to call them, mothership tethers.
Ignorance is a weapon of mass destruction...
I work with a variety of ex-airforce and civilian aircraft, the only ever interruption to any critical equipment by foreign electronics was older Russian aircraft which didn't have RF shielding on it's navigation equipment. I've actually had more problems with the aircraft interfering with electronics (Eg: Video Recording equipment on turbine aircraft such as fighter or attack aircraft) than the other way around.
So, I am not an engineer nor in a field related to cell phones, air flight etc...the simple fact is that the US Govt. has banned the use of certain electronic devices during certain (or all) phases of an airline flight. If we want that to change, then we should lobby our representitives, and the experts in the field can testify and explain as to why there is no threat to air safety. Until then, the arrogant, self-centered Arianna Huffington's of the world need to shut up and do what they are told. I can tell you that if I see someone flaunting the rules, endangering my safety on a flight, I am going to help the stewardess hold them down while someone shoves their phone somewhere less than enjoyable. So, facts be what they may about electronics use and air flight, to me this article is more about the sad state for the consideration of others and the arrogance of people that is affecting our society.
"This technology stuff is just plum crazy!"
I used to fly light single and multi-prop planes and used to use the phone during flight. Even made a few experiments about this and in no way I could induce any of these simple systems to misbehave by using the phone near them. Some of the planes I tried this on were 20some years old, so no new equipment either.
This means that the simple systems by themselves are not vulnerable.
I used to shoot at ducks and geese with a shotgun. I never hit any.
This means duck and geese are not vulnerable to gun shots. Right?
The precautions against electronic equipment on board do not mean every electronic gadget is dangerous in every circumstance. What they mean is that in some cases there could be some danger and the possible consequences of this could mean death for everyone aboard.
You must take into account the worst possible consequences of something in order to evaluate the needed precautions. That's why smart people wear safety belts and condoms.
I'm an airline pilot, and a colleague of mine (on a Boeing 737/300) once saw his fuel quantity indicators suddenly jump to zero. He asked a cabin attendant to check if anyone was using electronic equipment in the cabin. One passenger, sitting next to the wing, was using a portable CD player. He was asked to turn it off, and fuel quantity indication returned to normal. Switched it back on again... indications went back to zero. The cause of the interference was later determined to be the motor of the CD player, which is rapidly switched on and off to keep a variable speed necessary for reading data at different distances from the center.
Personally, while flying in the cockpit myself, I have forgotten to turn off my cell phone many times. This usually just resulted in a drained battery but no ill effects on the airplane. On a few occasions, it even started ringing during final approach. I never saw any fluctuations in the instrument indications. However, I have heard the typical noise on the radio "trrrrrrrr tkt tkt tkt tkt", which I'm sure pretty much anyone has already heard when a phone was about to ring and it was close to a radio. The instrument landing system receives signals on frequencies pretty close to those of ordinary radio, so I can imagine it being affected in the same way. But I haven't actually seen the needles jump as a result.
In any case, this interference is VERY unlikely to affect the flight controls. Most landings are done manually, so interference should not actually be able to bring down an airplane. However, in foggy weather, the plane is landed automatically and in this case, it's probably safest to just keep all electronics off just in case the autopilot suddenly behaves in some weird way. Planes have crashed because of relatively minor errors in input, for example the radio altimeter reading an altitude that is much too low, and the plane thinking it's above the runway and bringing the power back to idle while in fact it's still at a few hundred feet. That sort of thing. Yes, it can happen, and planes have crashed as a result.
In 1995 Nasa published a document describing a plethora of mishaps and anomalies related to EMI. These spanned from Saturn 5 rockets to anti-lock braking systems in cars. Some were annoyances, others got people killed. Some were caused by small devices such as phones and others required degraded shielding in combination with military radars.
It seems to describe an overall "you never know" situation.
http://www.cvel.clemson.edu/pdf/nasa-rp1374.pdf
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I'm an AC by heart but this time I feel a bit more information is required. The reason why elektronics are banned is simple: their effects on different planes are unknown. If a manufacturer wishes to include this 'feature' they have to claim AND prove to the FAA and counterparts that that type of plane is, in fact, immune to it. Since every major airframe is older then about 20 years, it makes sense that they were not subjected to this.
Newer airframes are designed, tested and certified for this (A380, B787 among others) and thus allow some degree of transmission.
Will it ever kill a plane? Guess not. But paperwork and certification are everything, or you might just take the fall in case something goes wrong.
Also, on touchdown planes phone home and send their flight data over for inspection, and we hate it if timestamps don't match up due to an inability to send because the cellphone tower in Hickville is overused.
So, back in the day, there were these things called "radios" and "televisions" and the airwaves were partitioned so that the frequencies used by avionics didn't overlap too much with the transmissions for these other devices.
But, the standard technology for radios and televisions include something called a superheterodyne circuit that can be, especially when malfunctioning, a radio transmitter. It was not unreasonable to expect that under some circumstances the radios and televisions that passengers carried on board might interfere with the avionics radios, especially since the TV frequencies were quite close to the avionics frequencies. Even a minor interference with plane avionics puts potentially hundreds of lives at risk.
There was a very important phrase I used in the previous paragraph: "especially when malfunctioning." While the FAA (by way of regulations imposed on the airlines) might be able to control the condition of the plane in general and the avionics in particular, they have absolutely no control over the devices brought on board by the passengers. Those devices could very well be (a) badly designed, (b) badly manufactured, or (c) malfunctioning so as to be transmitting on the wrong frequencies.
Thus, there was an entirely reasonable ban instituted on operating any transmitting devices on airplanes.
Today, the ban has been expanded to include things like cell phones (not so much expanded, but explicitly includes, since they are transmitting devices, all of which are disallowed). But, since so many more people have cell phones, the idea that they could interfere seems laughable to the public. After all, there are plenty of other electronic devices that are brought on board! The problem still remains that malfunctioning devices could easily interfere with airplane radio transmissions, which could have deadly consequences. The fact still remains that any device that is part of the airplane is under the control of the aircraft owner, thus can be certified as non-interfereing, and will be under the regular schedule of maintenance checks, whereas any device carried by a passenger is completely uncontrolled and should be assumed to be malfunctioning.
Remember that air travel is very, very safe. Part of this is because the FAA (in the US) has worked hard to eliminate the causes of exceedingly rare events. While your cell phone might not interfere while transmitting with one particular plane's avionics, guaranteeing that every single one of the (hundreds of?) millions of cell phones in the US will not interefere with every single plane's avionics is not possible, especially given the large and active secondary repair market for cell phones. Reducing the chances of interference by requiring all cell phones to be off is prudent (and if anyone thinks that this requirement results in 100% compliance, I have this very nice bridge to sell you; all of these regulations are concerned with reducing probability, not eliminating it).
Personally, I'm fine with all transmitters being turned off for the entire flight. I don't need to have my cell phone working for the relatively short periods I might be on a plane. They're essentially equivalent to the daily blackout periods in my communication when I'm asleep, and, often, flights are much shorter. Most people's lives will not be affected if they cannot be in contact for a planned, well-scheduled period of time. Same for the internet. I don't *need* to browse the web while I'm at 30,000 ft. I have plenty to do, work or personally, that I can keep myself busy for a few hours every now and then, especially when I know well in advance that the period of isolation is coming.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
On a (slightly smaller) Australian plane:
Another passenger:
Do we need to turn our phones off?
Pilot:
No need, but you can if you want to. But please hold the door open for the first 100m down the runway to let the flies blow out.
You get all these supposed nerds who say that GSM interference with a complex system is impossible, when you can BUY the proof at any novelty store. Remember those toys that light up or make a sound when your phone is about to ring? Gee, how do they work like MAGIC just by holding your phone near?
Did these "geeks" never own a sound system that garbled when a GSM was near?
But surely avionics are of a higher class? Surely not. Oh, the perfect system perfectly design and perfectly maintained might be but do you want to run the risk with EVERY single plane combined with every single plane system together with EVERY single radio source? Because if you allow phones, you must also allow Bluetooth, Wifi. What about satallite phones? Walkie Talkies? Where do you draw the line?
Safety rule, switch off your damn phone on my plane because failure to do so will cause serious harm from having your precious phone shoved up your arse, sideways. THAT a clear enough danger to your health?
Really, you are NOT that important you can't switch of your phone for 10 minutes.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
EMF/RFI shielding isn't rocket science
Yes, it is. Electromagnetic compatibility is as sophisticated and advanced as it gets in engineering. I know because I have worked in aerospace for 25 years and have had training in this field.
I don't see how flight avionics, which also have to be hardened against increased cosmic radiation and RFI from operating closer to the ionosphere, are so sensitive to relatively low power transmitters.
Had you read the article, you would have seen this quote by Dr. Bill Strauss:
"... Mr. Strauss said the deterioration of planes and devices over time had not been taken into account.'A plane is designed to the right specs, but nobody goes back and checks if it is still robust,' he said. 'Then there are the outliers - a cell phone thats been dropped and abused, or a battery that puts out more than its supposed to, and avionics that are more susceptible to interference because gaskets have failed. And boom, thats where you get interference. It would be a perfect storm that would combine to create an aviation accident.' "
Although yes, someone can technically be holding an illustrated 18-point copy of the Bible with which to (inadvertently) brain their fellow passenger with during a crash-on-takeoff, the point of turning off electronics during takeoff is indeed to keep you alert (but not alarmed!) so that if an issue occurs you have not been distracted from the enormity of the situation and know how to GTFO. That said, I'm scared to death of take-off's and landings and I always conceal my MP3 player (on full-blast, I might add! ;)
Some reality checks here, ok?
Low-power processors struggle against a lot of insults. At voltages around 3v, your circuitry is susceptable to all sorts of interference. So a lot of what you're calling 'hardening' is designed in from the beginning. Differential interfaces and such help with this, and even on-chip shielding to prevent errors. This can be helpful inpreventing interference to other devices, but cannot be relied upon by itself.
FCC certification is a two-way street, as devices cannot create a nuisance, while also being able to survive in a hostile environment. For the purposes of this discussion, FCC certification ensures that the device doesn't cause egregious interference to licensed users of potentially impacted spectra. I don't think the FCC can certify that a device will cause NO interference in all circumstances, but they have standards.
Avionics are not nearly as delicate as we are lead to believe, since a lot of electronics are being left on no matter the policy. 'Turning off' your Blackberry requires removing the battery. Putting it in 'Airplane Mode' tuens off the radios, which are the worst case threats to avionics, though I doubt they are a real threat. From a practical standpoint, a raido so poorly designed and operating that it emits spurious transmissions is inefficient, and battery life is important. Just by accident, most cell phones are not going to be interfering because it's wasteful. Add to that FCC certification that requires them to play nice in their own spectrum, and I think your cell phone is less a threat than your electric razor, which is potentially a broadband jammer in the guise of a DC motor, if it uses brushes. Brushless motors will move the transmitter from spark gap to the motor control circuit. I'm wondering now if just sparking a 9volt battery would be any problem... TSA, you listening? Gotta start banning electricity. For you bad people, I'm not going to discuss tuning this thing, ok?
Overall, most devices are a lot more threatened by interference than airliner avionics. Still, I see no reason to permit transmitters to operate during takeoff and landing. At 30,000 feet, let them try and make a call. Actually, at altitude, using your cell phone is a real pain. You go through cells ever few seconds, if you get one that actually looks up at the sky.
More importantly, though, for me, is it's prudent to not permit devices to be used, not IMHO an onerous reqiurement at all, during critical flight phases. No real problem.
And yes, I have used FM radios inflight. Big woop. But I give up my cell phone, that doesn't seem to make sense. Not that important to me. Listening to FM is just a time waster, and gives me a flavor of programming across the country.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I'll assume you're serious for the moment.
Rules may be rules, but senseless, pointless rules, if never challenged, will accumulate and ultimately strangle the society that enshrines them. Rather than being prescriptions on behavior that are necessary to keep the machine running smoothly, they become traditional vestiges with no rhyme or reason, to be followed because pappy did, as did grandpappy before him.
But that's the great liberal/conservative divide, isn't it? Reason, sometimes errant but able to correct itself, vs. tradition, often mindless and always without a rudder.
they also don't a Blackberry to be a flying brick in a hard stop.
The problem, as I see it, is that even if you test it against everything that "everything" is what the tester think it is everything... there are a lot of programmers here so it should be no surprise that even if you are a security freak there is always a chance that something is missing, overlooked. Take of and landing are critical and it is were small things can cause a big mess so I don't think it is a big deal to turn things off. There is no even one single unbiased, to the point, non confusing research about cell phones and cancer for example... I don't know but turning the cell phone 5-10 minutes during a flight is ok with me.
http://www.quasarcr.com/
This is a completely irrelevant point.
Imagine someone in authority made up a rule: "If you have gum in your mouth, you have to stop chewing whenever you're within ten feet of anyone who is wearing a red and white striped shirt."
I almost never chew gum, and I almost never happen to be near (or even see at a distance) people wearing such striped shirts. This rule would not be onerous, and if I complained about the rule, you would just as right to chide me: "Is it really that difficult to stop chewing your gum when you're near someone with a red and white striped shirt?"
No, it wouldn't be difficult. But if you did happen to be chewing gum and suddenly found yourself within ten feet of a stripe wearer, what would you do? You would keep on chewing and think, "fuck that stupid arbitrary rule!"
Ease of compliance isn't what matters. The only important thing is whether or not the rule has reason to exist. If a rule doesn't have sufficient justification, then it should be ignored no matter how easily obeyed. (Note, though, that sometimes the existence of enforcement is the immediate reason to obey the rule rather than ignoring it. This is why you don't even try to bring your harmless pocket knife onto a plane.)
Beyond the irrelevance of the point, I also think it is harmful.
There is already a trend of "overcriminalization" where we are subject to a great many rules, laws, and conditions that don't make sense. So we disobey them whenever we think we can get away with it. We are also subject to some rules, laws, and conditions that don't make sense to us as laymen, but actually do have justifications that we're unaware of. But 90% of the time that The Man tells us to do something that we don't understand, he just happens to be fucking with us rather than actually having a good reason. So we disobey these rules too. Stupid shit undermines respect, so the last thing anyone should say to justify a rule is, "but it's easy to comply." No, you've gotta explain why. Saying anything else just reinforces peoples' belief that there is no "why."
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
--Air travel is a horrible experience these days, before you're even off the ground.
--So let's add some doofus YELLING DRIVEL ON HIS PHONE THE WHOLE FLIGHT, in addition to the cramped seats, the bad air, the tiny bags of hamster kibble they hand out for some reason, the roar of the engines, the kid behind you kicking your seat, the person in front leaning a-l-l-l-l the way back, no way to bring your own thermos of coffee and no way in hell to get any from the flight attendants, but when you need to visit the bathroom the aisle is permanently plugged up with carts.
You know what? I don't care what excuse they use to keep people from talking on phones. Just keep doing it.
Anything silent: fine. Texting, MMOs, whatever. But the day I'm trapped with a self-important shouting jerk in a tin can is the day I go to jail for justifiable homicide.
I am glad that there are no cellphone rules on airplanes. Someone sitting next to me gabbing all the way through the flight is just as irritating to me as a crying baby, a toddler kicking the back of my seat, or people who insist on bringing their yipping toy poodle on board in a pet carrier. The last three things are allowed on board planes, and it's something I must tolerate. Air travel experience is already getting crappier and crappier everyday with the no more free in-flight meals, the enhanced pat downs, and even making a bomb jokes in an airport is a federal crime! But, please, let's not allow more irritations! I don't want to hear some self-absorbed executive discuss his business deals or some twenty-something hipster updating their FP profile with "taking off now!". Ug. Just put everything away for a couple of hours and let me go to sleep, will ya?
The only reasonable explaination I've heard for everyone having the cells off while in flight is load on the network below- 100+ phones changing towers at 500 mph can't be good for the network.
Especially while flying I wear Bluetooth hearing aids and often listen to internet broadcasts, mp3's and audio books from devices that are in my pockets. Unfortunately music over Bluetooth is barely passable. Programmable hearing aids are not (yet) good replacements for headphones and buds.
So far I haven't crashed -- except sound asleep during takeoff.
What does this strawman about Twitter outrage have to do with my wanting to read an eBook during takeoff and landing? Sitting and staring at the chair in front of me is boring, my book is interesting. My Nook even has an airplane mode. Why should I spend 20 minutes of the flight doing nothing instead of reading quietly?
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
It's not that a phone on a plane will switch cells too quickly, but it "sees" too many cells at the same time. A cell phone adjusts its transmission power so that it is "heard" by one base station and, with good network planning, overheard by maybe one or two others. When in use, it occupies a certain number of the time/frequency slots at those base stations. A cell phone in a plane over a city is almost equally far from hundreds of cells. To be heard by the closest base station it need to transmit with enough power that it will also interfere with the same time/frequency slots in all those other cells in the area. That's a drain on the network operator's bandwidth resources. No wonder they don't mind the ban.
... someone who fails to comply will face prosecution as a terrorist. Who wants to step up?
The FAA and FCC have both come to an agreement that cell phones have almost zero effect on avionics. The real problem is the cell towers. A cell phone uses the tower it is closest to, by signal strength. If you are at 30,000 ft MSL, there are many hundreds of towers that are equidistant. This will over-saturate the cell phone network if everyone in an airliner is on the phone. It's a flaw in the cell design.
My Brother is an A320 pilot. He uses his iPad, Macbook and cellphone in the cockpit evey day. They have a company cellphone which they use in flight.
However, he says it can be very annoying and even dangerous for their RF communication if many cellphones are turned on. Ever held your cell next to a normal radio receiver? Yeah its not nice. Radio communication is just above normal radio frequencies (> 108 MHz).
Cheers,
-S
"From the ways-to-get-tackled-by-stewardesses dept."
All right, next time I fly, I'm bringing my iPad, my iPhone, and a PSP and portable DVD player that I'll borrow from somewhere else. Because some of those stewardesses are friggin' hot.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
There's a difference between using electronics and merely keeping it on. I don't see why we can't keep the phone antennas on during flight. I'm with everyone who said the whole interference with airplane instruments is BS. But I do agree we probably shouldn't be actively holding/tinkering/using our phones during takeoff and landings. They need to change their message. Instead of saying "turn off your cellphones", maybe they should say "put away your phones".
Would you like to bet your life on the proposition that none of the wide variety of phones on *your particular flight* will in any way affect the correct operation of the wide variety of avionics on this particular aircraft? How about one phone in combination with another? There are just too many variables and too many undiscovered faults possible in real life. We've all been in situations where one piece of supposedly identical equipment behaves differently than another piece. A bit of corrosion and a frayed shield on one piece of avionics equipment, and you can get mixing which can create a spurious signal. Doesn't it make sense to do everything possible to minimize the possibility of such an occurrence? When they test a brand new aircraft against a few phones and see no interference, would you bet your life that the specific airframe you're currently riding in, with it's specific complement of avionics, wiring, connectors and antennas will behave the same way when it's full of little transmitters?
If the flight I'm on is trying to land in a bumpy, rainy overcast night, and the pilot's working hard to keep centered on the runway and on the glide slope, I'll be turning my phone off, and I'd encourage you and everyone else on the plane to do the same. I'd like to make sure that my pilot has everything going for him, so we all end up on, rather than all over the runway.
Just to be clear, we're talking about whether cellphones and electronics may have an impact on avioncs, not whether Ariana Huffington is a self-important douche.
One of them is reasonably up for discussion. The other one's pretty much a certainty.
-Styopa
I never turn my phone off. I mute it and stick it in my pocket. Even then, they don't check to make sure EVERY SINGLE PASSENGER has physically turned their phone off, so it's obviously not a problem.
What makes it more obvious that there is no danger to in flight cell usage is that, for a fee, you can actually turn your phones on and use the airplane's wireless internet service.
What does this strawman about Twitter outrage have to do with my wanting to read an eBook during takeoff and landing? Sitting and staring at the chair in front of me is boring, my book is interesting. My Nook even has an airplane mode. Why should I spend 20 minutes of the flight doing nothing instead of reading quietly?
THIS
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
I was on a flight once where someone left their BlackBerry on. It causes humming sounds in the pilot's headset speakers so we couldn't take off until the flight attendant dug through overhead baggage to get the phone and turn it off. BlackBerry phone's are the worst for that.
For instance, it is likely that thousands of illicit phone calls and text messages are being made/sent on the 28,000 plus US commercial flights each day including during take-offs and landings, without any of them leading to air crashes that we know of.
How many million passenger miles have been flown since personal electronics have been common planes? And have ANY crashes been even remotely attributable to them?
I can only assume these rules are less about hard data and more about apocryphal information from pilots, a desire to impose decorum on the aircraft, and a desire to maintain an absolute economic monopoly on air-ground communications.
... I don't see how flight avionics, which also have to be hardened against increased cosmic radiation and RFI from operating closer to the ionosphere, are so sensitive to relatively low power transmitters ...
Perhaps it has to do with all the experimentation and decades of experience and data dealing with external EMF/RFI? Internal sources of EMF/RFI may be more of an unknown, only a "relatively" recent issue?
... I don't see how flight avionics, which also have to be hardened against increased cosmic radiation and RFI from operating closer to the ionosphere, are so sensitive to relatively low power transmitters ...
I'm not sure the lower power transmitter argument is a viable one. Certainly navigation towers are using much higher power transmitters but isn't there also a distance squared component? Once distance is factored in how does that tower many miles away compared to the onboard device?
1. What IS the definitive story on how possible it is to make cellular phone calls from an airplane in flight, over 10,000 feet? There's a wealth of information from various sources all presenting their sides to the "argument", but one thing I see over and over again is that from an engineering or technical position it is not really possible. Does anyone have conflicted anecdotal evidence?
article: 12/05/2009 "The strange case of the 9/11 cell phone calls" http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=622289
article: http://lecanadian.com/2010/10/18/911-cell-phone-calls-from-airplane-not-possible-at-the-time-says-reseachers/
article: http://911review.org/brad.com/sept11_cell-phones/engineer_tech.html
2. What IS the definitive story on how much of a problem cell phones are to the flight deck? It seems likely that common phones cause ticking and buzzing over radio networks, I hear it all the time. And it's highly likely that many pilots have sensitive hearing and can't stand having to hear noise when it's fairly important that they have a clear line for several hours of having vinyl bagels on their head. And it seems just as likely that cell phones would interfere with the workings of autopilot and other really highly technical matters that I know next to nothing about. But if they do so, I think it's a really valid question to ask, why haven't they been banned outright for the last twenty five years? Doesn't it sort of obviate the lack of a threat that they are allowed on-board?
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Isn't RFI from a lightning strike a momentary issue as opposed to a handheld device which is an ongoing issue? A hypothetical error in navigational data for a second seems far less of an issue than a hypothetical error in navigational data for an hour.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/10/30/
please post youtube video link
[...] If you aren't going to abide by the rules, then don't play the game.
That line has always begged the question: is choosing to 'play the game' voluntary or violently enforced? And since we are talking about an industry protected and controlled by a violent monopoly, the obvious answer is no. So, you might as well point a gun at some random people on the street and force them to play a game with absurd rules then pull out that bromide when they rightfully complain.
Or, another option would be that you could GFYS with your rules-for-rules'-sake and leave the rest of us the F alone. Idiot.
I can understand banning devices that have wireless connections. I can't understand having to turn off devices that have no such wireless capabilities.
Over a lot of beers when working at a now absorbed cell phone provider I heard a more interesting reason as to why Cell Phone, and more likely now Smart Phones, are banned. It seems the big Cell providers figured out that it would cost them billions more to handle callers in planes moving rapidly between cells. To support it they would have to actually invest money in their infrastructure to upgrade to modern technology. The company I worked for used to have to manually clear millions of dollars a day in cell phone bills where a customer stopped their service in the morning but still used their phones up until midnight when the cell phone towers got pushed an update. Their equipment was so ancient that they still had to send people around each month to pull data tapes from each cell tower to get the month's usage.
So when planes got down to a level where the cell signals were able to reach towers from the planes, it reeked havok on their towers. Some would just go offline while others would connect to allow calls but since the calls were shorter per cell than than a minimum time to be considered a dropped call, the call would be discarded.
From at least two senior engineers I talked with at the time, bribing the politicians needed to get the FAA to make the mandates was petty cash compared to updating their hardware.
Think I am off base about how Telecoms bribe the FCC, FAA and congress to keep from having to impact their good-old-boy high profit, high compensation packages, just look at AT&T and the iPhone in New York City. They are raking in literally billions of dollars for data, handset and usage charges but you can't barely get a anciently slow 3G connection much less even use the device as was sold. AT&T knew they are going to need bandwidth but instead of supporting their customers with the needed hardware and bandwidth upgrades, they blew it off to stuff their pockets. Verizon is only doing their 4G upgrades to try to remain competitive and one-up AT&T. If they could get away with 3G they would.
United offers "Channel 9" as an in-flight entertainment option where you can listen to air traffic control communications. One of the times I was on a United flight listening to Channel 9 I heard the signature GSM buzz and the pilot immediately came on the PA to ask everyone to make sure their electronic devices were turned off because something was interfering with their radio.
adding a wifi AP and a cell repeater on the plane would reduce the power output of the devices significantly, and engineers would be afforded the chance to place the outbound antennas for these services in the location that provides the least interference. It seems that the FAA should allow airlines to utilize this setup
The FAA seems to be allowing this already since there are flights today that offer WiFi. Given the expense of installing it though I imagine a slow rollout.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
While we have this topic out we should point out that cell phone bans in hospitals have about the same effect as banning in commercial airliners. The bans also tend to be mostly ignored and reasons for the bans make about as much sense.
We are nerds (read the website's header). We are mentally incapable of doing anything if we don't understand the reason it needs to be done.
After all, perhaps we are doing it wrong. If electronics are some kind of problem, perhaps I should be removing my watch battery to be safe. If flying objects are the problem, perhaps I shouldn't be reading a book either. I can't do this properly if I don't know what the basic problem is.
EMF/RFI shielding isn't rocket science.
But it IS rocket science... see P 270 of "Modern engineering for design of liquid-propellant rocket engines" By Dieter K. Huzel, David H. Huang, Harry Arbit
-- My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III
Awww... they were so cute. The Nova 1200 was where I stopped using DGs. TTFN
keyword: opportunist, publicitywhore, fairweatherjohnson, prevailingwinds, relativist, flipflopper, closettedfaghag, marriageofconvenience,
Why did anyone rate lemnik's post as "troll"?
the problem is not the practical resilience of a plane's electronics to cell phone interferences, it's the certification process.
given the number of lives and the amount of money into play you can't just say that you'l allow the radio emissions based on the supposition that it shouldn't do harm,you have to actively prove it.
for the microwave, the process is easy : there's just one specific model in the airplane. You just have to test and certifie that the model XyZ works without cause disruptions. And perhaps restart the process a few years down the line when the plane constructor decides to subcontract a different model of microwave.
but for phones ? You should theoretically run this battery of tests and certifications on every combination of phone and plane electronics combination. Yes, we geeks know that *it should* work without problem. But in case of a plane crash, you're bound to find some litigious idiot claiming that the latest iPhone wasn't tested for in plane compliance, and thus could cause the small electronics disruption leading to the death of a familiy member and asking for milions from apple and boeing. So just say that it's forbidden to use them. Not your problem anymore.
saying it's forbidden just removes the burden of liability.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]