Time to Review FAA Gadget Policies

Nick Bilton, Lead Technology writer for The New York Times Bits Blog, called the FAA to complain about its gadget policies on flights and got an unexpected reply. Laura J. Brown, deputy assistant administrator for public affairs, said that it might be time to change some of those policies and promised they'd take a “fresh look” at the use of personal electronics on planes. From the article: "Yes, you read that correctly. The F.A.A., which in the past has essentially said, 'No, because I said so,' is going to explore testing e-readers, tablets and certain other gadgets on planes. The last time this testing was done was 2006, long before iPads and most e-readers existed. (The bad, or good, news: The F.A.A. doesn’t yet want to include the 150 million smartphones in this revision.)"

Comments

Liability and idiots.

[mjwx]

The use of PEDs [Personal Electronic Devices. â"DS] on board will not â" I repeat â" will not cause a plane to go tumbling through the sky like something in a made-for-TV-disaster movie.

But a 250 ton cigar tube, rocketing up to and beyond 250 KPH down 2500 metres will cause a hand-held device to go tumbling out of your hand and into someone else's face (MTOW, take off speed and distance at MTOW for a B777-200, and airliners get bigger than a 777-200).

That's the reason you aren't meant to use them in take off and landing, because there is a lot of force that the average Iphone toting butterfingers cant handle. If it hits anyone, the airline is liable and they may even be forced to turn back and land in order to get medical attention (again, to avoid a law suit) for an person hit by an Ipad or Iphone. This is why every cupboard on the plane is alarmed. If it's not shut properly the alarm will go off during take off, the forces involved in take off make light object dangerous projectiles. Even if it doesn't hit anyone it's still a danger as people are stupid enough to get up during climb to get their gadget.

Every second or third flight I'm on, as soon as we reach cruise altitude (sometimes before we reach cruise) I hear someone shouting out, "Has someone seen my Iphone, I dropped my Iphone and I cant find my Iphone" followed by that person turning the flight attendant call on and off repeatedly as their damned Iphone is more important then anything else.

Your gadgets are banned during take off and landing because idiots cant be trusted and they'll sue the pants off an airline if they get so much as a nasty bruise, even if it's their own fault.