FAA Goes To the Web To Fight Laser-Pointing

coondoggie writes "The Federal Aviation Administration wants you to go online to help it battle the growing safety problem of people pointing lasers at flying aircraft. The FAA today said it created a new website to make it easier for pilots and the public to report laser incidents and obtain information on the problem which continues to grow by leaps and bounds. This year, pilots reported 2,795 laser events through Oct. 20. Pilots have reported the most laser events in 2011 in Phoenix (96), Philadelphia (95) and Chicago (83). Since it began tracking laser events in 2005 reports rose from nearly 300 to 2,836 in 2010, the FAA said."

Comments

Re:What kind of problems does it create for pilots

[bmo]

A windshield is not a perfect surface. It's got all sorts of scratches and dirt and whatnot.

The laser hits the windshield and makes every single one of these imperfections light up from scattering. It can make things difficult to see.

--
BMO

Re:Landing

[T-Bucket]

It's not too big a deal for commercial aircraft since computers do the majority of the flying, but it can be dangerous for manually flown small aircraft.

This is complete BS. The only time a computer is flying a commercial aircraft during the landing phase is when the weather is so bad that you wouldn't be able to find the airplane with a laser.

The public has this myth that all planes are controlled by computers. I fly commercial jets for a living. The autopilot rarely goes on below 10,000 feet. The only time it's used during approach/landing is if the weather is bad. (This frees up the pilots for more important things like finding the runway).

I have personally been hit by green lasers three times on approach to major airports. Let me tell you, it's not fun. Fortunately, if you look away rather quickly you can move past the laser before you're in too much danger. (The average jet is doing ~150mph on short final).

Still, it's a legit problem, and anything they can do to put the fucktards who are doing this away is a good thing.

Re:Landing

[FlyingGuy]

Before I go any further, I am a pilot.

I don't care if you are flying a piper cub or a 787 Dreamliner. Final approach and landing is the single most dangerous operation performed by pilots.

You are low and slow and the engines are spooled way down because you are using minimum power, just enough to keep the damn thing flying, but slow enough so that when the wheels hit the pavement you don't blow all the tires and shear off the gear and kill all the people on board. Unless you are shooting a landing into damn near zero / zero conditions ( and only a very few airports are equipped to do that ( no GPS does not do that ) the plane is most assuredly NOT on auto pilot there are people flying those planes. At night it is dark in the cockpit and has been for hours. The pilots pupils are basically wide open, so just imagine how your eyes are going to react when a laser hits that acrylic windshield and every little minor scratch starts sending light in every fucking direction. even if you don;t take a shot into the eyes the windshield becomes damn near opaque and the pour underpaid overworked tired bastard is now a couple of hundred feet from the ground and suddenly can see a god damn thing except for his glowing windshield. Nice scenario eh? I am making 150kts and sinking at 500 feet per minute, or 8 feet per second so at 200 feet i got less then 30 seconds to get everything right or your relatives coming to visit are going to be showing up at your house in a barbeque bag.

Please don't try an minimize this at all. Your post shows you at least have some sense of the problem.