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accepted submitter cathyreisenwitz writes "The New York Times' Bits blog has a great piece on the FAA's inconvenient, outdated and unhelpful rules regarding electronic devices on planes: 'Dealing with the F.A.A. on this topic is like arguing with a stubborn teenager.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rules illustrate why we shouldn't let the government regulate the internet: Government regulations are nearly always outdated and too cautious."

Comments

Wow

[avandesande]

Imagine if the avionics industry wasn't regulated?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a retired military pilot currently employed in the military industrial complex. I call BS. All it requires is standards and a standards based certification process. You determine how much RFI the airplane can take (which I imagine is quite a bit considering it has to operate in close proximity to all kinds of high powered RF transmitters) and then you establish a standard that is some fraction of that (half/third). You then require certification as "FAA APPROVED". Manufacturers would be falling all over themselves to get certified and get the "FAA" sticker on the box. Throw your iPad in an anechoic chamber and figure out what the emissions are.

This ain't rocket science, however the FAA has the "You never know" safety mindset. The risk management decision for them is "does the benefit outweigh the risk? To the FAA, the benefit of allowing liberal use of electronics is zero, so unless the risk can also be proven to be zero, it is impossible to outweigh the risk (no matter how small). That type of thinking is often desirable in a high risk, high consequence business like aviation, however taken to extreme it drives out common sense and logical risk management.

burden of proof goes the other way

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:burden of proof goes the other way

[jbolden]

Liberty doesn't always come first. Liberty gets balanced all the time against other interests. There wouldn't be FAA regulation of what goes on between private ticket holders and private airlines at all if liberty always came first. They would just leave it up to the airlines. The airlines don't want that though, because they don't want ultimate responsibility they want shared responsibility.

The FAA is way too cautious about safety in a rational universe. But note that every time a plane goes down and few hundred people die it makes national news, often for several days. Which means the public weighs flight deaths much more heavily than deaths from heart attack or car accidents or poor nutrition. We live in a representative democracy and the FAA is irrational because the public is.

Re:burden of proof goes the other way

[Citizen of Earth]

That is not how it work is aviation. The rule is you have to prove it is not harmful.

It has been proven. Consider that 90% of flyers have a cell phone and 20% of them on every flight either forget to or refuse to turn off their transmission functions. (It's not like the stewards actually check this.) So, we have millions of experiments every year and not one single adverse effect. I doubt many other flight-safety regulations receive this level of testing.

Unhelpful article

[plover]

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.

FCC, not FAA

[zerotorr]

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.

Re:Pilots...

[plover]

There's still a strong argument against permitting passenger electronics, but it's convoluted and you'll have to stick through a few points.

• A portable device can adversely impact avionics. (DealExtreme used to sell GPS jammers that were the size of a pack of cards.)
• Portable electronic devices sold in the US must pass FCC certification.
• 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.

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?

Boeing thinks there is interference ...

[perpenso]

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