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FAA Device Rules Illustrate the Folly of a Regulated Internet
First time accepted submitter cathyreisenwitz writes "The New York Times' Bits blog has a great piece on the FAA's inconvenient, outdated and unhelpful rules regarding electronic devices on planes: 'Dealing with the F.A.A. on this topic is like arguing with a stubborn teenager. The agency has no proof that electronic devices can harm a plane's avionics, but it still perpetuates such claims, spreading irrational fear among millions of fliers.' The rules illustrate why we shouldn't let the government regulate the internet: Government regulations are nearly always outdated and too cautious."
Imagine if the avionics industry wasn't regulated?
love is just extroverted narcissism
The agency has no proof that electronic devices can harm a plane's avionics
That is not how it work is aviation. The rule is you have to prove it is not harmful.
Don't like it ? change the rules, but then those rules apply to everyone and everything involved in aviation, not only consumer electronic devices.
...this is kind of like saying "Since this one agency is finicky about technology, government regulation is ineffective and outdated. As such, the government shouldn't regulate medicine!"
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
The blog uses a lot of charged words without saying anything of value. "Rules bad. Regulations bad. FAA dumb." And somehow this translates directly into "regulating the Internet is doomed to fail."
First, I completely disagree with the "FAA dumb" comment. The FAA may be cautious, yes, but their mandate is aircraft safety -- it's their job to be cautious. I don't disagree with the other sentiments, but there is no logical argument put forth that explains why the rules are bad, why the regulations fail, or why the approach taken by an agency whose job is human safety (and not human convenience) will somehow doom the internet.
John
There has to be proof that such devices CAN'T harm a plane's avionics. Once that is done, we'll be able to play with our toys.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Avionics are safety critical. Is playing with electronic toys that important to you?
Maybe you should pause from your obsession with continuous entertainment to think. That's the stuff some people do when they're not being entertained.
"FAA" and "Government" are not synonyms.
The FAA has a distinctly different reputation, M.O., and set of priorities then, say, the FCC. You know, the people who would actually be regulating the internet.
I would bet anybody here that there is currently RIGHT NOW a nonzero number of cell phones current in normal mode in flight (on commercial aircraft) BONUS BET there is currently at least one person on a cell phone equipped aircraft reading/posting to Slashdot RIGHT NOW
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
the first plane crash after devices are allowed and people will change their tune real fast.
That's true - if you have a "shake phone to pick next song in playlist", I suspect the impact of the crash would trigger your phone's accelerometer and could change to the next tune even before the wreckage came to a halt.
If that's not changing your tune fast, I don't think I could come up with a better example.
John
Cover your ass
I learned about it in high school
The whiners are whining now but if there is an accident and the smallest shed of a hypothesis that someone's iPhone or droid caused the crash during takeoff or landing the same media and whiners will be calling for everyone to be fired for allowing it
While the FAA has rules regarding electronics usage, cell phones in airplanes are covered specifically by the FCC. The FCC bans them because of the tax it would put on the system with thousands of cell phones switching cell towers much more rapidly then if those same phones were driving. They were worried about the significant overhead this would cause the cell system. While I've seen and heard many people complain about how much they don't believe that their phones would interfere with any avionics in any way, and they should be allowed to use them, I've never seen anyone address this specifically. What bothers me even more is that I've heard so many people complain about this, yet a simple wiki search reveals the actual reasoning behind the ban. I'm not saying it's justified or not, but if you're going to complain about something, at least don't be ignorant about it. Even if they didn't interfere with the airplane, there's more to it than that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_on_aircraft specifically- United States: To prevent disruption to the cell phone network from the effects of fast-moving cell phones at altitude (see discussion below), the FCC has banned the use of cell phones on all aircraft in flight.
Yet allowing in-flight devices and seeing passenger safety threatened as a result could threaten funding, power, and end several promising bureaucratic careers.
Sure, maybe they only care about losing funding. But maybe, just maybe they care about that whole passenger safety thing.
Because with the flight crew you're dealing with a limited number of devices and a limited amount of potential RF interference. Extend that to passengers and you have not just 1-2 but possibly a hundred or more devices simultaneously, and that can have a drastically different effect on the avionics.
If I pour a gallon of water into a standard rowboat on a lake, it's not going to sink. If I pour another gallon of water in, it's still not going to sink. 2 gallons just isn't enough to cause a problem. even 5-6 gallons isn't. But if I pour a couple hundred gallons in, it's going to sink. I can't go "Well, adding another gallon didn't make a difference, so adding another gallon more won't either." indefinitely. At some point you reach the straw that broke the camel's back. When reaching that point can potentially get 200 or so people killed as the plane stops flying, I'd really rather we avoided going there.
Well, yes. Pilots are allowed to do all kinds of things we aren't allowed to. I am in favor of looser regulation re:electronics (mile-high LAN party, anyone?), but I disagree strongly with your reasoning.
AT&T was convinced that circuit switching (rather than packet switching) was the way to go. It took DARPA (you know, the government) years to convince them otherwise, in some cases going behind their backs to do so. They also spent decades telling people that only AT&T equipment can be installed in their homes, and there's no way you can use your own phone since it may damage their circuitry.
Don't think that only government comes up with crappy rules.
So which one is it? Should the government create and enforce laws about the internet or not?
Yes.
The agency has no proof that electronic devices can harm a plane's avionics
That's weird. Just ask an A+P mechanic who's had to track down weird interference problems on a plane.
Also its just gossip but most pilot lounges have had an informal conversation or two along the lines of "fly over that tower and your avionics get weird"
The killer is stuff like ancient NDB/ADF radios... as long as there's a published ILS NDB approach in the entire USA airspace, you'll be stuck with what amounts to AM radio avionics on planes which are pretty good at hearing interference. Its possible, although hard, to mess up a VOR rx. I'm guessing VHF FM land mobile hand held radios (like, police and fire radios) are never going to be permitted on flying aircraft unless permanently installed and tested. GPS seems pretty hard to jam, but now you've got a single point of failure. Maybe a GPS, glosnass, and galileo triple stack of satnav would be approved, in a couple decades. Maybe.
The FCC is uninterested in REALLY enforcing unintentional radiator regulations. Once in a while for a political stunt. The most /. famous story I can think of was the original class A rated TRS-80 model I being sold to class B residential users, that thing was so electrically noisy that the 'Shack gave up and released the model III instead of trying to patch up the model I. If they really enforced standards, then maybe the FAA could do some EMC/EMI work to prove a VOR rx cannot be interfered with, etc. But they don't, and there's a world full of noisy junk as any HF ham radio operator will attest, so...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I think you got that backwards.
The FAA does not have to prove that mobile devices endanger aircraft electronics. Those whose manufacture or those who want to use those devices on a plane need to prove that it doesn't.
Yes, I know that some people get a heart attack if they can't check their e-mail, FB and Twitter for 20 seconds, but last time I checked, we all agree that "default deny" is the proper firewall policy. So with all security systems. If you don't know something is harmless, you need to treat it as a potential danger, until it is proven to be safe.
And when a mistake can kill a few hundred people, you err on the side of caution. Always.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Actually, no. You can use your iPad, Kindle or whatever during cruise. As long as it is in airplane mode. That means disabling RF transceivers.
Pilots can be trusted, as professionals, to operate their devices in the correct modes. Passengers, not so much. And the cabin crew can't be expected to police the situation and figure out who is using their iPad to read a book, play online games or download porn. So there's a blanket rule: Shut the damned thing off during the most dangerous flight modes (takeoff and landing).
If you can't exhibit that small amount of self control, then don't fly.
Have gnu, will travel.
Let apple/samsung/microsoft foot the bill for a test plane and a bunch of devices. Certification for a life or death application should be VERY DIFFICULT, as far as I am concerned it is hard to be TOO conservative at 37000 ft. travelling 300 + mph. Besides what could possibly be so important that you couldn't wait till you landed ?
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
hopefully the malware will be called 'snakes'. people are already spoofing GPS, and countermeasures which don't require new satellites are not too good.
actually if i was going to bring down a plane i would prefer to do it from a nice apartment near the end of a runway, or better yet a parking garage. that way i could watch or tweet the crash without having to sacrifice much on my end.
the guy who crashed his plane into the austin irs office a few years ago could have just as easily rigged the plane up to fly pilotless if he had waited a few years. 'fly the friendly skies.'
let's not regulate the internet. let's instead try to retrofit every piece of hardware on the internet to handle a vastly messy solution to the ip address exhaustion problem, called ipv6, which has in its favor that it is very expensive, is now and will create more security holes than it fixes, and solves a problem that could have been solved much more easily at the ISP level without everyone needing to change all their stuff out. Damn the government for thinking up ipv6! What? It was designed by academics and hardware vendors? Not the government? Well damn the government for letting them do this anyway!
There's still a strong argument against permitting passenger electronics, but it's convoluted and you'll have to stick through a few points.
When you add up all those factors, the FAA is playing it cautiously, but rationally. They don't get to say "let's see just how many flights are adversely impacted if we allow everyone to turn on randomly RF emitting electronics."
Sure, I know my iPad and iPhone and Kindle won't harm the plane's avionic system. You may know yours won't, either. But my nephew bought a cheap gray market phone that spews RF noise like a plague rat. How does a non-electronic-engineer flight attendant tell the difference?
John
... is NOT that "because some government regulations are unfounded, all of their regulations will be so.". The argument against regulations in general is that they punish innocent people (by restricting their liberty) without proof that the regulated activity will harm anyone. This is distinguished from objectively-defined law, where:
a) the restricted activity (in the case of good law) is a violation of someone's rights.
b) the violation must be proved in court (including civil court).
So, to choose an example I know will piss off many slashdotters, regulation of "air pollutants" is not a valid exercise of government power, since this punishes people that might emit a certain quantity of some substance, without proof that such emissions will actually harm someone. We already have laws against polluting other people's property - if someone can be proved to be doing so, they should be punished. And, if someone believes that they are going to be harmed by emissions that have yet to occur, they can even go to civil court and present merely a preponderance of evidence that this harm will ensue in order to receive relief, including injunctive relieve to prevent the activity, That is the valid operation of coercive government power - to prevent objectively definable rights violations, not to pander to people's imagined fears.
In the case of the FAA device regulations, the issue is even more clear cut - the FAA should have nothing to say at all about what devices a private airline allows to be used on its planes. That should be the decision of the airline, and they can base this decision on what they consider to be the appropriate tradeoff between safety and passenger convenience. Then, passengers could decide how they feel about a given airline's policy, and this could be factored into their patronage decision. True, this requires that passengers would need to exercise some adult judgment in their choice of airlines. Oh, the horror. Such is part of the price of liberty.
If humans are mostly water, and beer is mostly water, then humans must be mostly beer.
You mean there are infinitely many seats on an airplane?
From what I understand while the rule was originally conceived because of interference with the first generation cell phones with the navigation equipment, this has since been corrected in both the airplane navigation equipment.
The rule is still in place though because the FAA and the airlines want you able to pay attention in case of emergency. You can hear the warnings or commands if issued by the flight crew because you're not using your headphones to drown out all the noise. Or get your headphones caught when you're trying to exit the plane preventing you or someone behind you from exiting the plane.
Besides if you cannot putdown the device for 15 minutes on each end of the flight there is something wrong, but it isn't with the FAA or the airlines.
I just RTFA. So “Cathy” says the FAA is dumb. OK. She doesn’t supply a last name, so I’m not sure that inspires confidence.
I once had a rather large aircraft manufacturer as a client. I asked one of the engineers about the cell-phones-off policy. He gave me several insights that were rather interesting.
One of the functions of his group is to customize aircraft with electronic devices used by government agencies. As part of that, they had to insure such devices would not interfere with the aircraft control and navigation systems – and they found minor changes in position would greatly affect the results. It turns out putting all that gear inside a metal tube creates all sorts of reflections and other fun stuff. He was of the opinion that some combination of cell phone quantities and positions would surely create an issue. Just because we get away with it does not mean it won’t happen.
This is outside my field, and he might be totally wrong. But I thought I should share a data point.
Place nail here >+
Nope. All you need is a number of devices greater than the number required to cause a problem. We have evidence that it's greater than 2-3. Can you present any evidence that it's always going to be greater than the number of seats on the airliner in question?
You mean there are infinitely many seats on an airplane?
Of course there are. Just keep booking as many paying passengers as you can, and if too many show up just bump them to the next flight.
Hasn't it always worked that way?
you would lose your ability to fly for 5 years.
wait the 15 minutes. It may be your ass I have to climb over on the way out of the plane.
Are allowed to use iPads in all phases of flight, but if I read a book on mine... It's trouble.
Pilots are also allowed to flip any switch they like in the cockpit, but for some reason they don't let the passengers do the same thing.
the first plane crash after devices are allowed and people will change their tune real fast.
Yeah, I'd change my tune to "Why in the h*ll didn't the FAA require enough Avionics shielding to prevent a 300mW transmitter from taking down a plane?" It wouldn't be hard to turn a laptop into a 30 watt transmitter, equivalent to 100 phones - the electronics would fit within the hard drive and optical drive bays (with an mSATA drive to make sure the computer is bootable), a typical 85 watt-hour laptop battery could easily power the transmitter for an hour or longer.
The FAA has a distinctly different reputation, M.O., and set of priorities then, say, the FCC.
Is there an FBB which is somewhere in between the two?
Given all that, I think we all know that most devices aren't going to be a problem. It seems that a change in the regulations is in order. Perhaps during certification of the aircraft, there should be some test of electronic shielding between the avionics and a wide variety of common passenger electronics located in passenger areas. But the FAA is pretty much powerless to change their stand unless the underlying regulations are modified.
I have. The lab I work in has signs posted on all the data acquisition cabinets based on experience. We do airplane flight controls stuff there. The place I used to work, I'll just say it was a mission critical sort of place, I watched my Motorola radio drive a piece of equipment batshit. I was on the radio saying "This generator is acting all funky. Oh hey there it goes again." After a few clicks of the talk button on my radio I figured it out.
It's not the sort of thing you want to happen at 30,000 feet. The rule is a good rule.
Regards,
Jason C. Wells
Because people are a) too stupid to understand RF interference, b) they know its bullshit, or c) don't understand English.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
The agency has no proof that electronic devices can harm a plane's avionics, but it still perpetuates such claims, spreading irrational fear among millions of fliers.
The null hypothesis here is that electronic devices may or may not harm a plane's avionics. The FAA is taking the safe approach and not allowing those devices to be used during takeoff and landing. The author, however, is attempting to assert that electronics do not harm a plane's avionics. Unless one can come up with a way to prove all electronics will not harm a plane's avionics, I don't think the FAA should change its opinion on the matter.
The rules illustrate why we shouldn't let the government regulate the internet: Government regulations are nearly always outdated and too cautious.
When trying to argue in favor of Net Neutrality, I'd hear this one a lot. "The FCC wants Net Neutrality. This is the same FCC that fines networks for showing part of a breast during the Superbowl. Therefore, Net Neutrality is bad." I always wondered why people weren't embarrassed to be told that they've made a fallacious argument; but by the same logic they applied to Net Neutrality, I guess they just assume that if the New York Times does it, it must be OK.
Was not a book !!
it's the "Best laid plans o' mice and men" and it's a quote from Robert Burns.. and the quote was used for the title of the book by Steinbeck ;)
MY family are from Ayr, literally just round the corner from where Burns was born and thus it was compulsory learning in school as he is the eternal national bard of Scotland
We have evidence that it's greater than 2-3.
Complete and utter bullshit.
Guess what? Every hour of every day, planes take off with >>3 devices running. Let me know when there's a problem.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Jesus, check out the linked NYT article and save yourself some embarrassment. "The F.A.A. then told me that “two iPads are very different than 200.” But experts at EMT Labs, an independent testing facility in Mountain View, Calif., say there is no difference in radio output between two iPads and 200. “Electromagnetic energy doesn’t add up like that. Five Kindles will not put off five times the energy that one Kindle would,” explained Kevin Bothmann, EMT Labs testing manager. “If it added up like that, people wouldn’t be able to go into offices, where there are dozens of computers, without wearing protective gear.” "Bill Ruck, principal engineer at CSI Telecommunications, a firm that does radio communications engineering, added: “Saying that 100 devices is 100 times worse is factually incorrect. Noise from these devices increases less and less as you add more.”
No they're not.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
No, no it's not. If that were the case then people wouldn't be allowed to read books and magazines during the pre-flight briefing. Quit spreading FUD and read the linked article FFS
Yep, *everyone* has a cell phone now, but a lot of them don't know about Airplane mode or even what roaming charges they will be facing since they don't know how to turn off celular data. I saw it first hand on a flight last week.
Indiana's privatized BMV actually improved it a million times (subjectively rated by me) after it was privatized. Of course it was strictly overseen and there were stringent penalties for non compliance, but it worked.
iPads don't have the same effect as the switches in the cockpit.
In fact, an iPad for every passenger, downloading data via wifi & cellular, while sharing photos & music doesn't have the same effect as any switch in the cockpit.
But nice try.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Heh. Actually I was just reading a piece the other day about how a 900Mhz cell phone was found to set off cargo hold fire alarms in some specific model... which would have required setting off the halon extinguishers (not exactly healthy to be around) if humans had not broken regs and ignored it.
A good faraday cage is a log harder to build then simply having some metal (with breaks and holes) between potential sources and things they might hear them.
You mean the "thin ABS plastic wall" between the cockpit and the passenger compartment? Regardless of the construction materials, most planes were not engineered for RF isolation. That big metal tube probably reflects radio waves forward and aft better than a non-metallic skin would. Because it wasn't designed to suppress RF, the tapering of the tail cone may even act as a focusing device for a transmitter located in just the right spot inside the cabin near the back of the plane.
So no, it's not a Faraday cage.
John
Aircraft are not designed with Faraday cages for the passenger compartment, nor are they equipped with RF interference detectors.
Both of which are easily solved problems. 2.4 GHz WiFi wavelength is about 4.8", meaning something as coarse as chicken wire would block it (and has, for example http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126221116097210861.html). Although if you're designing a cage, you usually aim for mesh holes about 1/10 of the wavelength so 1/2" rat wire would work well. Of course since a plane is already a long aluminum tube, you just have to worry about the windows, internal gaps, cable runs, and emf picked up from non-shielded cables in/out of the passenger compartment.
If errant EMI from devices was really such a problem, I would expect the FAA would require adequate shielding anyway. The reality is that the cockpit electronics themselves produce a substantial amount of EMI. Being in close proximity, they are generally shielded pretty well already. One should also realize the APUs (power generators) and engines themselves spit out a lot of broadband EMI all by themselves.
On an even larger scale, look at the effect of the privatization of the military. When I was in high school ('70s) guys would go into the Army and when they got out they would at least know how to maintain a jeep, type, fix electronics, or drive a bulldozer. Hell, even Beetle Bailey did enough KP to work in a restaurant when he got out. Today all that's done by subcontractors that cost 5-20 times as much as having the grunts do it, and at the end of their service the only training the ex-soldiers have is how to kill people.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
"Government regulations are nearly always outdated and too cautious."
Um, no, that is the opposite of the truth. Government regulations are nearly always up-to-date and too lenient -- but if you look hard enough, you can find the one or two exceptions, such as Kindles on airplanes. You can weigh that one single instance against, say, the hundreds of thousands of building codes and food safety regulations.
That's not to say we shouldn't clean up those rare exceptions when we find them. We should, and we should with this one instance. But only a libertarian would be so daft as to ignore the vast overwhelming evidence presented by reality in order to hole up inside a small dark den of anarchistic ideology.
I have been told that aircraft mechanics report that airplanes have a certain amount of Hell If We Know It Just Does in their behavior, and specifically that there are known instances where one SPECIFIC plane -- not a model line, just one specific plane -- will behave in slightly unexpected ways near some but not all electronics.
Which is to say: I think that the problem is that they *do* have some real evidence of cases in which electronic devices, especially poorly-shielded ones, or ones which had wireless emitters, had unexpected effects.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
I'd agree if it weren't for 3G connectivity. Most of the comments here don't differentiate between, say, my wristwatch with an oscillator running at 32.768kHz, an Android tablet w/o 3/4G connectivity and no WiFi connection, and an iPhone trying to connect with the closest cell tower. We're talking orders of magnitude differences in signal strength, and different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum. A pilot using an iPad with no cellular activity and with WiFi turned off is a lot different than dozens of cellular and WiFi radios in the cabin running at various power levels.
Another point is that if my Android tablet interferes with my car radio, no one gets hurt. That may not be the case for interference with avionics. In a worse case scenario, you can end up with a lot of dead people. Higher risk requires greater caution.
I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary relief to nymphomaniacs.
Both and everything in between. There's a lot of people on here.
I fly semi-regularly, and I've only ever seen this happen once: Frankfurt-Katowice, second-last flight of the day on that route, and those 3 persons that waited for the last one was paid fairly handsomely for waiting 3 hours.
Have heard a lot of claims that it is done constantly, but truly only seen it once.
Halon? Are those even legal anymore!?
Learn from the mistakes of others. There isn't enough time to make them all yourself.
Guess what?
Here's a report from NASA essentially telling the FAA that they're a bunch of morons for thinking these things cause interference.
http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/docs/rpsts/ped.pdf
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
The author seems to be assuming that the internet is not already regulated by governments. Even though the technology has improved, the idea of anonymously and freely exploring this new frontier can only be achieved by circumventing government policies enacted a decade ago. I remember the question "Should governments regulate the internet?" was met with a resounding "No!" even as it was being implemented. I think the topic is about 12 years too late.
I agree. Of the agencies I want to be extra cautious, FAA is at the top of the list along with the FDA. NHTSA, and other agencies that are responsible for making sure that the products and services we use don't kill us.
It's not like they can pull the plane over until they find out which device is screwing with the avionics, were such a thing to happen..
For once that whooshing sound isn't a plane flying overhead.
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
Apples are pretty much alike. This apple has worms, therefore all apples have worms. QED.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
It's amazing the mental contortions one must go through to convince themselves this is actually a problem. If this danger was actually present, it would be used to take down airplanes. The fact that that has not occurred, and the fact that the FAA permits me to bring these devices on board but won't permit me to bring a metal fork on board, should be evidence enough for anyone that this is a load of bullshit.
They now know the devices won't make the plane fall out of the sky.
The problem is, how do they sell you multimedia if you can bring your own for free?
I would say only that RF isolation is a "solvable problem", not "solved in all cases of existing aircraft." And I expect that solving the problem is going to cost a lot more than hanging a sheet of hardware cloth across the cockpit's aft wall.
John
Counterfeit electronic devices do not pass FCC certification.
Counterfeit electronic devices are not uncommon.
A flight attendant cannot tell the difference between a certified device and an uncertified device.
Aircraft are not designed with Faraday cages for the passenger compartment, nor are they equipped with RF interference detectors.
Passenger convenience is less important than passenger safety.
That's fine, but they do not check every device to guarantee that it is off. Just because a laptop/phone etc. is not in your hand and open, does not mean that it is not operating and sending a signal. In other words, asking people to turn off devices does nothing. The only solution would be to ban all luggage, and make everyone send their stuff by truck.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Here's a hint: your nephew probably just turns the screen off for takeoff. I have been flying quite a bit lately and noticed a lot of people do just that. The flight attendants aren't going to pull it out of the seat pocket and check to make sure it's really off. And since I was on Delta, there was in-flight WiFi available on every segment.
There is very little reason to believe that passenger electronics are a problem, especially if they're in airplane mode. Back in the 80s and 90s I used to fly with my tape or CD player. I was hardly alone in listening to music during takeoff and landing. You think we know less about shielding now than 20-30 years ago?
For one, yes they did talk about 200 iPads being the same as one - from an interference point of view.
Too bad there's thousands of planes every day, for a decade now, that are already testing this out.
No accidents yet.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
"The agency has no proof that electronic devices can harm a plane's avionics." I'd settle for evidence!
Those "outdated" FAA regulations that have been in force for more than 50 years require that any electronic devices used on a plane have been "determined not to interfere" with avionics. (FAR 91.21 and 121.306). I'm not sure whether "determining" is proof, but at least you don't have to prove an electronic device will crash a plane before you prohibit it.
Good thing no flights have 900MHz cell phones left on.
By 'no flights', I actually mean all flights.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
You are making rationalisations about RF interference by making an analogy to water sinking boats? Your post is a prime example of the fallacy of arguing by analogy - or "argumentum ad vehiculum" as I like to call it, because of how often the analogies relate to cars. The actual NYT article, which the somewhat-stupid, dogmatically anti-regulation blog linked to, even mentions that RF interference does not work additively this way.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
The FAA's role is to be extremely cautious. Aviation's one of those things where minor mistakes can have disastrous consequences. Same kind of thing as with medical devices: they had better work, perfectly, every time. And since individual components can fail, the backup systems also need to just plain work. The more outside factors can interfere with the system, the harder it is to analyze down to some large number of 9's. So don't expect the FAA to move quickly when it comes to authorizing any changes, including RF that might or might not be generated from the cabin. Given the wide range of consumer electronics, they want to make sure that the worst case scenario won't come close to generating problems for the avionics, particularly during takeoff and landing. They'll get around to it, but only after doing lots of homework. I wouldn't want to fly on a plane whose owner is allowed to cut corners on safety; the airlines would do everything they could to save money.
The internet is a very different kind of system, and the role of government regulation is different. I *do* want government regulation of the form that protects us from "regulation" by private service providers -- things like upload/download limits, preferential treatment for certain kinds of content, functionality with all devices (I don't want to be told that I have to run Windows, for example). Net neutrality requires either effective government regulation or real competition, and for some strange reason, real competition in telecommunications doesn't seem to be a stable situation. Look at what's happened since ATT was broken up; the industry has reconsolidated around a couple of big companies that seem content to divide up the pie rather than seriously compete with one another.
Chattanooga, Tennessee is doing very nicely with public internet. Around here my only choice for fast internet seems to be Comcast, with its high prices and 250 GB monthly cap (I ran a script on my system, and found that it's not hard to hit half of that, on a much lower bandwidth DSL line). Verizon hasn't bothered to build out FIOS to my area, and while that may be fast compared to most of the US, it would be very slow in Chattanooga (or many other countries).
I just don't believe that that kind of situation is going to get fixed without government regulation. Google is in the process of building out Kansas City (?), but that kind of piecemeal approach isn't going to solve the broader problem.
14 CFR 91.21: Portable Electronic Devices
(a) Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this section, no person may operate, nor may any operator or pilot in command of an aircraft allow the operation of, any portable electronic device on any of the following U.S.-registered civil aircraft:
(1) Aircraft operated by a holder of an air carrier operating certificate or an operating certificate; or
(2) Any other aircraft while it is operated under IFR.
(b) Paragraph (a) of this section does not apply to—
(1) Portable voice recorders;
(2) Hearing aids;
(3) Heart pacemakers;
(4) Electric shavers; or
(5) Any other portable electronic device that the operator of the aircraft has determined will not cause interference with the navigation or communication system of the aircraft on which it is to be used.
(c) In the case of an aircraft operated by a holder of an air carrier operating certificate or an operating certificate, the determination required by paragraph (b)(5) of this section shall be made by that operator of the aircraft on which the particular device is to be used. In the case of other aircraft, the determination may be made by the pilot in command or other operator of the aircraft.
Besides if you cannot putdown the device for 15 minutes on each end of the flight there is something wrong, but it isn't with the FAA or the airlines.
Why do so many people in this discussion have this dick attitude?
Because the opposite attitude is what is known as an arrogant dick.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The FAA has a distinctly different reputation, M.O., and set of priorities then, say, the FCC.
Is there an FBB which is somewhere in between the two?
Face Book Bureau?
I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary relief to nymphomaniacs.
No, but there's an FXXX, and you don't want to know what they do. (The AC you quoted - I post as AC from work.)
The point is, there were cases of a particular 'new' technology interfering with particular systems that were designed and tested decades before it was developed. That particular one being outdated and replaced with newer unknowns does not change this.
So the 'can new consumer devices cause problems' is not a purely academic exercise
Oh, my father's take on mobile/cell phones being banned was that it was done to protect the *ground* GSM networks - not the aircraft. Having many thousands of phones in the air, in range of tens, maybe hundreds of GSM cells would have put a strain on, perhaps overloaded, the GSM networks. Also, he's heard that "tu duh duh duh tu duh" kind of interference in his headphones, from the mobile phones of passengers roaming. Which potentially could be a safety hazard - though that was in an older aircraft without any complex, modern electronic control systems or cockpit instruments.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
No accidents, but there have been issues.
NASA keeps a database which people will voluntarily contribute to discussing various issues that occur on flights. Do a quick search for PEDs (Passenger Electronic Device) and you'll see a few incidents. And these are just ones that are Voluntarily reported.
That said, I also note that many of the incidents come from older planes.
Yes there has. NASA has a database of voluntarily reported incidents.
Here's a list of all of them.
http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/docs/rpsts/ped.pdf
Not a single one is proven to be RF interference from a handheld device.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
My point is it's not a remotely academic exercise.
It's happening all day, every day, in flights around the world.
With virtually no incidents tied to RF interference from handheld devices.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Yet with everything they check at the gate and won't let me board the plane with, they let me take any normal-looking electronic device on board. I can't take a bottle of water or fingernail clippers, but I can take a jammer disguised as an iPad.
Also, not even the FAA attempted this bs convoluted argument. Why are you shilling for them?
Anecdotally, I believe there is an infinitesimally small chance that the EMI from even a gray market electronic device is going to bring down a plane. Pilots have many independent devices working separately confirming they're on the proper heading, approach, glide slope, etc. And interference causing a misreading on one device would not likely cause the same misreading on another unrelated device -- a rogue GPS reading isn't going to bring down a plane when everything else is working.
But one failure of one system never brings down a plane. The RNAV is broken? Check the GPS. GPS is out? Check the compass. Compass is stuck? Look out the window. Foggy? Check the RNAV. There's three or more redundant ways to do anything in a plane.
Your phone might be fine today, or it might be leaking RF ever since that one time you dropped it and an internal shield came loose. It still wouldn't be a problem on an airplane unless a half dozen other things are going wrong for the pilot. It might be a cloudy, rainy day, right about the time he is flying the crazy tight approach into the Hong Kong airport, when a lightning strike takes out one of the engines and the nav radios. And perhaps the mechanic failed to properly seal the GPS antenna connection. At that very particular time a GPS that's being confused by the EM from a faulty phone is not something the pilot needs to deal with.
The thing is that while a series of unfortunate events is extremely unlikely, there are enough flights and planes in the sky every single day, such that the laws of probability are still going to line up the bad stuff every so often. While it would be nice if the pilot asked for the passengers to turn off their phones as a precaution only when he could anticipate difficulty, that would be a lot more convenient, but that's the thing about bad luck: if they could predict all of it, they'd never crash again.
John
The rule is you have to prove it is not harmful.
Yep. And 10 years ago, my father and I tried turning on a laptop inside the single-engine plane on the ground, during engine-warmup/preflight checks.
Buzzing on the intercom, and the RDF/VOR both went bonkers, even when set to local beacons where there was strong signal. Turns out the cheap laptop was unbelievably poorly shielded, leaking RF coming from the screen's backlight and the various major clocks.
Do you really want your life to be endangered by the guy who brings some crappy laptop that isn't FCC/ECC certified onto the plane you're on?
I find it funny that plenty of Slashdotters are HAM operators or 'get' interference, but are absolutely RIPSHIT that they have to turn off their devices while flying. Grow up, and recognize that you have an addiction and entitlement issues. Read a damn book, take a nap, meditate, strike up a conversation. You're not ENTITLED to sit there and surf the net.
Please help metamoderate.
Well, the reason airplanes are not crashing from the sky is that airplanes are not automated. There's a human being who can detect whether or not the messages are reasonable.
For example, I read a recent incident here where a smoke alarm went off in the cargo bay of an airplane. But just for a moment. It would come on and go off intermittently. The pilot reported it to the ground crew who checked out the system and found no problem. The maintenance people believed that somebody probably left a cellphone on in their checked bag.
The plane did not fall from the sky. It arrived at it's destination in one piece. But you now have a pilot who, next time he sees a smoke alarm go off in the cargo bay, might be inclined to ignore it since it's probably a cellphone. And when it isn't, well, I suppose it will be the pilot's fault for not paying attention.
There are a number of examples of possible interference to flight systems from passenger equipment in that report, including some which are near certain to have interference from cell/mobile phones (e.g. aural interference on VHF radio comms).
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
Yes, the Federal Bullshit Bureau. They are the interface between the government and the public.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Are allowed to use iPads in all phases of flight, but if I read a book on mine... It's trouble.
The pilots may have wifi only iPads, no cellular. The pilots can probably be trusted to put the device into airplane mode during takeoff and landing, or to turn them off. The iPads are replacing printed documentation for aircraft info, maps, etc; they may very well be off during takeoff and landing.
I flew a few days ago. We were only instructed to turn off devices during takeoff and landing, not the entire flight.
Nothing is anywhere near certain.
All of these are pilot reports on what they believed happened. Not remotely "certain".
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
The document in the link you provided must be different from the one you read. It didn't take me too long to find an incident that showed interference from a phone. Unless you are part of the "correlation does not imply causation" crowd.
I can mend the break of day, heal a broken heart, and provide temporary relief to nymphomaniacs.
Speaking as an electrical engineer, what you describe is 100% false. EMI is not summed in this manor. you can have hundreds of FCC regulated consumer devices active in the passenger area and it would not do a thing to the electrical operation of a plane. This is assuming that passegers NOT use airplane mode. If airplane mode is used, with the way most devices are built, they are as harmless as digital
watches. Plus the relationship between EMI strength is inversely
Proportional to distance. The greater the distance, the weaker the interference, we are talking centimeters here. Lastly, EMI is not summed like you describe because there is a directional component in the math. Unless everyone knew how to focus their devices interference toward the cockpit, which isn't even how the devices antennas are designed, it would be impossible to generate EMI strong enough to reach the cockpit or even your in-chair entertainment system.
If EMI was a serious concern terrorists would have employed such devices because it's not hard to build a dirty transmitter. I would imagine homeland security knows this point. If EMI in today's world was a serious threat, DHS would have overruled FAA long ago with an even stricter ban on electronics.
Fast forward 30-40 years, if battery technology becomes sufficiently advanced and portable, one may be able to generate a signal strong enough to interfere with a 1970's era passenger jet, but by that time, new planes will have better shielding from the ridiculous number of devices and transmitters and sensors in the just the cockpit area.
Boeing thinks there is interference:
"Boeing conducted a laboratory and airplane test with 16 cell phones typical of those carried by passengers, to determine the emission characteristics of these intentionally transmitting PEDs. The laboratory results indicated that the phones not only produce emissions at the operating frequency, but also produce other emissions that fall within airplane communication/navigation frequency bands (automatic direction finder, high frequency, very high frequency [VHF] omni range/locator, and VHF communications and instrument landing system [ILS]). Emissions at the operating frequency were as high as 60 dB over the airplane equipment emission limits, but the other emissions were generally within airplane equipment emission limits. One concern about these other emissions from cell phones is that they may interfere with the operation of an airplane communication or navigation system if the levels are high enough."
"Operators of commercial airplanes have reported numerous cases of portable electronic devices affecting airplane systems during flight. These devices, including laptop and palmtop computers, audio players/recorders, electronic games, cell phones, compact-disc players, electronic toys, and laser pointers, have been suspected of causing such anomalous events as autopilot disconnects, erratic flight deck indications, airplanes turning off course, and uncommanded turns. Boeing has recommended that devices suspected of causing these anomalies be turned off during critical stages of flight (takeoff and landing). The company also recommends prohibiting the use of devices that intentionally transmit electromagnetic signals, such as cell phones, during all phases of flight."
The problem seems to be that anomalies observed in flight are being reproduced in a lab.
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_10/interfere_textonly.html
As a bonus - chicken wire fencing would complete the current theme of treating passengers like barnyard animals throughout the check in and boarding procedure. Toss some hay on the floor, give the flight attendants some pitchforks and market it as some throwback to when America Was Great.
Do you work for Delta's marketing department?
Do you want to? :-)
John
Government regulations are nearly always outdated and too cautious.
The original article in the Times makes no such claim and the blog post that the /. article links to, which was based on the Times article offers no evidence that this sweeping claim has any validity. In fact, I remember bridges collapsing and financial institutions collapsing, which leads me to believe that there are many cases where regulations are not cautious enough.
Spurious RF might not "take down airplanes," but it is not hard to imagine it having an effect on various aircraft systems. For instance, aircraft SATCOM uses 16XX MHz for uplink. I could imagine a poorly designed/tested/repaired 800-band cell phone outputting a second harmonic, which could interfere with this communication. It might not cause the plane to crash, but it could increase pilot workload or prevent important communication with the ground. This is a bit of a contrived example (since SATCOM would not typically be used during takeoff or landing), but still there is no way for flight crews OR passengers to know for sure if their equipment is compatible with each other. We can be even less sure about UNintentional radiators...especially cheap gadgets with switching power. Takeoff and landing are the most dangerous phases of flight - I think a bit of regulation is warranted in this case, especially since the inconvenience is so small. (disclaimer: not an RF engineer, so maybe I just don't understand the issue fully)
So the aircraft can handle two iPad that are in the hands of trained pilots who ensure that the wifi and bluetooth transmitters are turned off. That does not mean that the aircraft can handle most of the 300+ passengers with cell phones, games machines, tablets and laptops all transmitting at the same time. A little noise being OK does not mean a lot of noise is also OK.
You are right, but this underlines the idiocy of the blog post. The connection that FAA "... rules illustrate why we shouldn't let the government regulate the internet" is bullshit. The internet is incredibly important, but there are alternative modes of communication. As a general rule, it does not carry hundreds of people through the sky, and does not kill all those people if the slightest thing goes wrong.
Also, the onus would be upon the FAA (not just the FCC) to make sure every device in the world wouldn't hurt the avionics - a now impossible task when you consider the sheer magnitude of things that have batteries.
This argument appears every few months. It just doesn't make sense to risk a bad GPS airplane reading that leads to a collision so someone can play with their phone.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
People keep saying that. Yes they don't ask you take your headphones off or unplug them, in fact they pipe the safety routine through the headphone jacks in the seats. So "headphones caught when you're trying to exit" doesn't make any sense.
They ask you to turn off devices with no audio function at all as well so "because you're not using your headphones to drown out all the noise" doesn't make any sense.
Seems more like a CYA scenario. Even though thousands of planes fly every day in the US with multiple passenger leaving their phones on and not in airplane mode without incident no one wants to be the guy who removed the rule and then a week later a plane crashes and the finger gets pointed at a cell phone tripping out the avionics (even if it didn't, any glitch for any reason can get blamed on a cell phone after all).
http://www.dailytech.com/American+Airlines+Wins+FAA+Approval+to+Use+iPad+in+Cockpit+During+All+Phases+of+Flight/article27646.htm
The aural interference is almost certain. The noise is very recognisable - many of us will have heard it on the ground when leaving a digital mobile phone near a radio.
I use Friend/Foe + mod-point modifiers as a karma/reputation system.
Yea. A glass cockpit for a private single engine plane would maybe cost as much as a high end PC with a really fancy touch display.
Initially, then some company would figure out that they can make it even cheaper by eliminating some minor redundant system. That doesn't cause an accident so they keep on economizing until, eventually, something they have skimped on in the name of reducing cost does cause a plane to crash and people to die. Government regulation might be a real pain at times but there is no way I would get on a plane which had its avionics made by the lowest bidder in the absence of government regulation.
If they believed to even 0.001% of a chance that the bottle of water I'm drinking from is a potentially explosive material
They don't think that - the concern is that if you bring the right mix of chemicals in as liquids you can combine them to make an explosive. Even then tossing them in a bin is not enough. Apparently they have to be combined very carefully in order to have the reaction actually make the explosive. So technically there is nothing illogical about the disposing of liquids in a bin next to the security checkpoint.
"Today all that's done by subcontractors that cost 5-20 times as much as having the grunts do it"
Any documentation to back that up? Does that figure include the cost of training a new grunt every 4 years?
This is the problem with sic/tech reporting in the media today. They've made it "their experts say, our experts say". You just have to toss a coin. The quotes are telling too, though. The FAA never claimed that the power multiplies linearly, just that it's different.
EMT Labs, an independent testing facility in Mountain View, Calif., say there is no difference in radio output between two iPads and 200.
The only way that is possible is if the iPad has no radio output at all. It is true that adding out of phase signals means that noise will increase in quadrature not linearly, so 200 is not 100 times worse than 2 (probably more like 10), but it does still mean that noise increases with increasing numbers of devices: the increase in radiated energy has to go somewhere!
Also concerning is the mention of that "100 volts/metre" rule from the FAA. Electrical interference can be highly sensitive to frequency, not just field magnitude, because the right frequency can cause resonances (for a physical example see Tacoma Narrows bridge - the magnitude of the wind was not the issue!). This might be just the article not explaining things but unless they are also looking at frequency they are missing something. This, coupled with the claims above, are concerning and makes it seem like they are trying to win the argument regardless of facts - this is not the attitude you want to see in people arguing to relax safety rules (even if I think they are probably ultimately correct!).
With virtually no incidents tied to RF interference from handheld devices.
That you know of.
I went to this page, entered 'Passenger Electronic Device' events detected by 'Aircraft Other Automation, Flight Crew' and found 54 incidents (ACNs).
Have gnu, will travel.
Lying to Congress is a criminal offense
And when was the last time you saw a Pentagon flack prosecuted? Maybe WWII? A bit hard for me to believe that a convoy made up of $500/day KBR drivers guarded by $1000/day Blackwater mercs is somehow cheaper than the same "organic" staffing with troops.
one should only join the military if they want to kill people
This is a radical change from the way the military functioned for over a century. Kids who couldn't afford college or trade school could go into the military and at the end of four years be able to make a living doing something besides picking cotton. Kids without the discipline to apprentice a trade didn't have a choice, they learned enough to be useful members of the economy by the time they got out. Kids who had trouble with the law had the opportunity to mature and have their record cleared. That's all gone now.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
who doesn't understand how the world works. Do you think the burden of proof is on the FDA to prove that a drug *isn't* safe? No, the burden is on the company to prove that it is safe, and that's exactly what the majority of people in the country voted for. Tyranny does not mean what you think it means.
At what point did /. become infested with such whiny delusional little children?
but avionics are _very_ well shielded, so they chance of devices actually interfering directly with them is extremely remote.
what is more likely is that the can jam anything receiving a signal, e.g. gps receivers and radios.
Absolute statements are never true
What we have here is multiple cases of an anomoly disappearing when a suspect device is turned off, then reliably reappearing when that device is turned back on.
Repeating this in the lab always fails.
What is missing in the lab, is the mix of OTHER devices that were likely active at the same time. Could this be a problem of beat frequencies being produced by the suspect device IN COMBINATION with OTHER devices on the aircraft?
The plane did not fall from the sky. It arrived at it's destination in one piece. But you now have a pilot who, next time he sees a smoke alarm go off in the cargo bay, might be inclined to ignore it since it's probably a cellphone. And when it isn't, well, I suppose it will be the pilot's fault for not paying attention.
It is absolutely the pilot's responsibility, agreed. If the pilot actually believes that electronic devices could cause such a problem, then he or she should not permit the devices on board the aircraft. If pilots are knowingly allowing dangerous equipment on board their aircraft then we the flying public have a serious problem.
The article you quote (including the section you quote) indicates that 1) Boeing does not think there is interference from cell phones; all emissions outside the cell phone's operating frequency were within airplane equipment emissions limits. Airplane communications and navigation frequencies are separate from cell phone operating frequencies.
"Generally within" emissions limits, not a blanket within. The fact that the sample 16 phones did not exceed emission limits is hardly any guarantee that other phones do not, nor that one of those sampled phones with replacement firmware would not. The fact that they are emitting at all on navigation and landing frequencies is a reason to keep an open mind regarding interference.
2) Anomalies observed in flight are NOT being reproduced in the lab, despite efforts to do so.
I thought I said that after the quotes, but when I reread I see that I left out the word "not". Sorry for the confusion.
In any case I hardly think that dismisses observed behavior such as "A passenger’s palmtop computer was reported to cause the airplane to initiate a shallow bank turn. One minute after turning the PED off, the airplane returned to "on course." When the unit was brought to the flight deck, the flight crew noticed a strong correlation by turning the unit back on and watching the anomaly return, then turning the unit off and watching the anomaly stop. "
To translate things into terms that the slashdot audience may have an easier time understanding: The failure to reproduce a software bug on the programmer's system is hardly evidence that the software is fine.
Lets also consider this: The two in the cockpit are a lot closer to the core avionics than the 200 in the back. Both are far enough from antennas and other sensors to not be an issue as well. I believe the flux sensors for the compasses are in the wings? Antennas are either on the back or belly, or out on the wings as well.
My radio only picks up crap from my Kindle if I have the antenna millimeters away, AND hold the squelch open.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Important note: the phone would have been in the cargo bay, in close proximity to the smoke detector's sensors or circuitry.
Proximity is a BIG deal with EMI. The strength of the "signal" is inversely proportional to the square of the distance.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Hell they even have multiple compasses!
You've got the more accurate flux compass. Used because it doesn't act all screwy in turns etc. But there's still a good old fashioned magnetic compass up there.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
What it does do is determine who's problem it is should a device interfere with someone. Is my radio interfering with your part-15? Tough cookies. Because I'm a nice person, I'll help - but I don't have to.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Article 1:
If someone's life depends on it, don't connect it to the internet.
Article 2:
Make sure you've applied Article 1.
Mind the frickin' laser...
Or get your headphones caught when you're trying to exit the plane
Seriously? The cable's not made of cabon nanotubes...
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
If you can hear a conversation more than a row away over the noise of the airflow and engines, someone is doing more than just talking.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
So basically, you're saying this:
"There are professionals who are not 100% perfect; therefore, there are no professionals."
Which is pretty silly, really.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Nope. All you need is a number of devices greater than the number required to cause a problem. We have evidence that it's greater than 2-3. Can you present any evidence that it's always going to be greater than the number of seats on the airliner in question?
Do we? I call bullshit, please indicate where I can verify this evidence. On the other hand, this article states otherwise:
The F.A.A. then told me that “two iPads are very different than 200.” But experts at EMT Labs, an independent testing facility in Mountain View, Calif., say there is no difference in radio output between two iPads and 200. “Electromagnetic energy doesn’t add up like that,” said Kevin Bothmann, the EMT Labs testing manager.
I believe that you're advocating FUD, although I can't imagine for what purpose. The clincher for me is that no-one that matters believes there may be a problem, particularly the flight crew. As indicated in the article pilots don't need to switch anything off, and they're practically sitting on top of the instruments. It would be hilarious, though, having the engineers who designed a plane say with a straight face "We've proofed the avionics against direct lightning strikes, as that happens all the time. But, beware, the plane will come crashing down if a consumer device tries to connect to a cell tower. Be afraid".
Pilots actually should put their phones in flight mode, as they might otherwise negatively affect networks due to rapid handovers between towers (that's the only thing with these rules that contains a shred of truth). Additionally, if there really was any danger, phones and devices would be confiscated before boarding. As it is, no one checks your pockets for switched-on phones. This is another indication that the people who matter don't really care about our electronics. If they did, the flight crew would have portable RF detection devices.
All this bullshit achieves is to cause unnecessary anxiety to people with a fear of flying, and annoy the people with e-ink devices who can't read for large portions of a short flight. If you start moving the goalposts by pulling the "I don't want people yapping on the phone in the seat next to me" card, I agree with that, but it has absolutely zilch to do with security. I've also been on flights with the European airline Ryanair where cell phone usage was encouraged, as they had an on-board, ridiculously expensive cellular base station.
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!
So no, it's not a Faraday cage.
No, it's clearly not, as the GPS unit in my phone works fine in-flight. Thus, the avionics must necessarily be hardened against things like lightning strikes, which generate immense amounts of RF noise. I'm completely at a loss as to how my e-ink device, or any consumer device with or without transmitters for that matter, could affect those avionics.
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!
You could make that objection, or similar ones, to any test which could be made. Incompleteness of evidence against the proposition that there is interference does not constitute evidence of interference.
True. However given that there are unexplained observed anomalies in flight, some highly correlated with personal electronics, I think the somewhat academic argument offered is rightly less persuasive. If folks want to use personal electronics in flight during critical periods such as landing and takeoff it does seem reasonable to expect those devices to meet a higher standard of scrutiny, including a shifting of the burden of proof in some areas. Perhaps handset manufacturers should get some sort of airline rating for devices.
:-)
Or perhaps there could be a signal to put devices into "airplane mode" automatically. Aircraft could then broadcast this signal during takeoff and landing phases. This might be useful in school during exams, movie theaters, etc.
Out of band radiation is practically impossible to avoid completely with electronic equipment; that's why there are standards greater than zero for such emissions.
I'd just like to point out that Boeing said the tested phones "generally" met such emissions standards, implying that some did not.
How they getting roaming charges? I don't even get signal while flying. I put my cellphone on airplane mode to save battery during the flight not because I am worried about the plane crashing or roaming charges.
I'd sure like to see some evidence behind the claim that onboard laser pointers can interfere with electronic flight systems.
The problem is not the visible light. The electronics generating that light may very well be emitting noise on other frequencies as an unintended side effect.
Are you a commercial pilot?
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Exactly. And who knows how many people feel the way you do?
Who knows how many devices stay fully on but silent in the passengers pockets? - Either intentionally or not?
I know I've forgotten a turned-on cellphone in a pocket more than once. As far as I know it caused no interference as there was no announcements over the PA to check for turned-on devices as there was interference or similar.
Oh, and I quite often snap pics with my electronic camera especially during landings, going back something like 15 years now. Again, no ill effects - and no reaction from the other passengers either.
I seriously doubt there's any real issue as all.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
But the proof of interference with avionics has been around for at least 3 years now, which is why you're required to stow your mobile phone into your hold baggage, turned off, before the pat-down and before you go for you flight briefing and issue, donning and inspection of your flight safety gear.
Or don't your civilian flight providers talk to the rest of the industry?
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I'm part of the 'pilot opinion is not a scientific proof' crowd.
I think I'll stick with that one.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Unless everyone knew how to focus their devices interference toward the cockpit ...
You mean exactly what happens when you have EM radiators inside a waveguide, like an aircraft fuselage?
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Back in the 80s and 90s I used to fly with my tape or CD player. I was hardly alone in listening to music during takeoff and landing. You think we know less about shielding now than 20-30 years ago?
Both of your examples are classified as "Incidental Radiators" by the FCC. They have rather stringent emission limits across the whole EM spectrum. The troublesome items are "Intentional Radiators" such as cell phones, etc. Things that are _designed_ to emit RF. They are also regulated, but are allowed (obviously) to emit a _much_ higher level of RF at their operating frequencies.
They even restrict radio receivers due to the possibility of IF leakage.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
That's a great argument for airplane mode, not so strong against using them at all.
I'm an amateur radio operator, and have a decent understanding of the interference issue. I don't have a problem with 'airplane mode' for intentional radiators - I like to play games on my phone as much as the next guy. I don't have a problem with leaving all devices off and stowed under FL100 either. They're more of a safety hazard as possible projectiles and as distractions to crew instructions than as incidental radiators.
I DO NOT EVER, however, want to see cell phone calls allowed on planes. It's not a technical issue; it's a civility and air rage issue. Do you really want to see your seatmate (that's already taken over both armrests and is wearing WAY too much aftershave) shouting banalities into his phone the whole flight? I didn't think so. If they had a sealed-off room about the size of a lavatory that was the designated cell phone usage area I'd be ok with that. Texting would be ok as long as the alert tone was muted. I wouldn't want to be subjected to hours of a planeload of 'bloo-bloo-bloop' or 'woo-hoo' wolf whistles every time little Johnny or Sally sent/got a msg.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Oh, I don't want talking or text noises on aircraft, either. But it's ridiculous that a copy of War and Peace is permitted below 10k feet, but my Kindle (wireless off) isn't.
Do you really think if an electronic device was capable of taking down an aircraft they'd allow you to take it on board?