FAA May Let You Use Electronic Devices During Airplane Takeoff and Landing Soon

colinneagle writes "Members of an FAA advisory panel are reportedly meeting this week to make changes to the ban on the use of electronic devices on an airplane during takeoff and landing. The new regulations will allow the use of electronic devices to access content stored on the devices, including e-books, music, podcasts, and video. Sending emails, connecting to Wi-Fi, and making phone calls will still be prohibited. The announcement is expected to be made later this month, and the rules put into effect next year, according to the report."

Comments

Re:Burden of enforcement

[JWSmythe]

There are a few instances where they have found the specific piece of electronics that were causing problems, and in some cases purchased it from the passenger.

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/aeromagazine/aero_10/interfere_textonly.html

1995, 737 airplane.
A passenger laptop computer was reported to cause autopilot disconnects during cruise. Boeing purchased the computer from the passenger and performed a laboratory testing ...

1996/1997, 767 airplane.
Over a period of eight months, Boeing received five reports on interference with various navigation equipment (uncommanded rolls, displays blanking, flight management computer [FMC]/ autopilot/standby altimeter inoperative, and autopilot disconnects) caused by passenger operation of a popular handheld electronic game device. In one of these cases, the flight crew confirmed the interference by turning the unit on and off to observe the correlation.

1998, 747 airplane.
A passengerâ(TM)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. Boeing was not able to purchase the actual PED...

Funny thing, all the cases of problems caused weren't cell phones.

Farther down the page, they discuss cell phones. They do put out more noise on critical frequencies, sometimes over what the FAA permits for the aircraft itself. In testing, none actually caused problems.

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 ... Emissions at the operating frequency were as high as 60 dB over the airplane equipment emission limits ...

Boeing also performed an airplane test on the ground with the same 16 phones. The airplane was placed in a flight mode and the flight deck instruments, control surfaces, and communication/navigation systems were monitored. No susceptibility was observed.