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Why the FAA May Finally Relax In-Flight Device Rules
Nick Bilton at the New York Times has been writing skeptically for years about the FAA's ban on even the most benign electronic devices during takeoff and landing on commercial passenger flights. He writes in the NYT's Bits column about the gradual transformation that may (real soon now) result in slightly more sensible rules; a committee established to review some of those in-flight rules has recommended the FAA ease up, at least on devices with no plausible negative effect on navigation. From the article: "The New York Times employed EMT Labs, an independent testing facility in Mountain View, Calif., to see if a Kindle actually gave off enough electromagnetic emissions to affect a plane. The findings: An Amazon Kindle emitted less than 30 microvolts per meter when in use. That is only 0.00003 of a volt. A Boeing 747 must withstand 200 volts per square meter. That is millions of Kindles packed into each square meter of the plane. Still, the F.A.A. said “No.” ... But then something started to change: society." Of course, the rules that committees recommend aren't always the ones that prevail on the ground or in the sky.
WHEN WILL I BE ALLOWED TO HAVE A CONSENSUAL, PRIVATE RELATIONSHIP WITH A COWBELL ON THE AIRLINE OF MY PERSONAL CHOICE, AMERICA?
This is a matter of human rights that concerns all living and mineral beings, like you. even if you think i am yelling, you are wrong, i am only demonstrating the injustice of america and its war on cowbells.
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There is zero evidence, so the FAA should change the rules.
Oh wait, this is federal government bureaucracy here. They will discuss ad nauseam for several years, then decide it's not worth the political risk.
That some passengers are asshats and stupid. And enforcing "relaxed rules" during takeoff are going to be hell.
Withstand 200V per square meter? If that's not just a typo, we are talking about a change in magnetic flow density. 30uV/m, in contrast, is an electric field strength. The electric field around any battery is much larger than that, but nobody wants to prohibit carrying batteries around. You don't get any magnetic flow from that, but you can get magnetic flow from a change in electric field change. In fact, depending on the frequency of the change, the change in magnetic flow density can get arbitrarily large even when we are talking about an amplitude of just 30uV/m.
How does the government shutdown affect the FAA's ability to make these sorts of policy changes? I would assume that the people who make these decisions have been furloughed, so all existing regulations stand until Congress gets their heads out of their asses?
Also, is there any danger posed by dozens of Kindles flying around the cabin in the event of a crash landing? I realize the current regulations allow non-electronic items such as books, but is this a concern at all?
It's encouraging to see these kinds of changes coming. I'm glad the FAA is revisiting this issue (or will be once we start paying them again).
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
During most flights, about half of the cell phones remain turned on because passengers don't really know how to turn them off. Cell phone transmitters are a lot more powerful than wifi transmitters. the best way to stop cell phone use is to have a pico-cell in the airplane that intercepts teh calls and tells the passengers to shut down. The picocell is also so stong that the cell phones redujce thier TX power to almost nothing instead of ontreasing their power to reach cell towers outside of the aircraft.
The real reason to prohibit use of these devices is that takeoff and landing is statistically the most crash-prone and crash-survivable part of a flight, so the passengers should be paying attention. But this is true only for about one minute, not for the entire gate-to-10,000 ft time or 10.000 ft-to-landing time.
Before Britain became a nanny state, if it were determined, e.g. that most people were driving 40mph in a 35mph zone, the council would raise the limit to 40. IOW the government bowed to the will of the people. (Obvious safety issues aside, e.g. they would not raise the limit near a school, etc.)
Here in America it would seem the will of the people doesn't count for much. (And we know from things like the Republican's shutdown of the government that at least they don't give a rat's ass about the will of the people; no surprise there.)
So, apart from obvious, demonstrable safety issues, which there don't seem to be any, it's a puzzle as to why a non-partisan body like the FAA isn't more accountable to the the people.
If passengers have to be untethered from their smartphone apps, texts, and games of Candy Crush Saga for 20 minutes up and down. Sheesh! Babies.
no set the pico-cell to be a non US one and the roaming fees will make people trun them off after they get the bill from 1 flight
In a crash, unstowed gear represent potential projectiles:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=128062&page=1
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
There may well be solid technical arguments for reversing the current FAA policy, but Nick Bilton's articles certainly don't make them. Nor does the explanation attributed to the EMT Labs engineers, at least if it was described accurately. On the other hand, statements like "An Amazon Kindle emitted less than 30 microvolts per meter when in use. That is only 0.00003 of a volt" are clearly designed to make what sounds like a convincing argument to non-scientists, whether or not this argument actually has any technical merit.
As an illustration: the nominal signal strength of a GPS signal at the antenna of a receiver is specified to be -160 dBW (this is for a standard "reference" antenna, i.e. right-hand circularly polarized, under open sky conditions). That's one-ten-thousandth of one-one-millionth of one-one-millionth of a watt. In a standard 50-ohm RF system, this corresponds to a voltage of about 0.000000071, which is over four hundred times smaller (weaker) than the "only 0.00003 of a volt" signal measured off the Kindle. Viewed in that light, it's hardly clear that the Kindle's emissions are negligible. (Never mind the fact that no mention whatsoever is made of what frequency or frequencies they've measured in that setup, and that the anechoic chamber pictured in the article is typically configured to measure direct line-of-sight field strength, whereas inside an aircraft there are all sorts of complicated effects -- absorption by passengers and seats, reflection by metal surfaces, etc. So I'm not sure this is even a meaningful measurement to be making in the first place.) In any case, since GPS is considered a safety-of-life system in aircraft navigation, anything that can even come close to disrupting its ability to acquire and track signals is a potential problem.
The bottom line is that the kind of pseudo-scientific argumentation in this article isn't really helpful. As I said, there may well be sound technical reasons to relax the devices ban. But this doesn't really present any of them.
-CF
How about I'd like everyone to put away their precious CRAP and pay attention during takeoff and landing just in case, oh I don't know, we all need to get out in a hurry. This is silly. There are just a couple more important things going on at any given time during a flight than killing that last little piggy.
it would have happened by now. Everybody leaves them on.
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
I flew from DFW to Reagan National with my iPad accidently left turned on in my backpack. The plan didn't so much as wobble in turbulence, much less crash or fly off course do to "interference."
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
This took so long to fix for the same reason pocket knives aren't allowed on planes, despite the fact they're no more useful a tool for mayhem than many implements that are allowed: a relatively small group of people highly motivated to maintain the status quo (in this case a confederacy of hysterical air-hostesses) always wins out over a much larger group of people who are far less motivated to see change.
This is the same reason the tax code is so hard to fix: for every loophole you have a small group of impassioned beneficiaries fighting against a much larger group who collectively aren't much harmed by it, and thus lack sufficient interest in fighting it.
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
Most portable electronics aren't an issue since their unintentional radiation is regulated to reasonably low levels and intentional emitters tend to be in the 2.4GHz band where no critical flight systems should be sensitive. GSM phones, however, have widely been reported to produce notable interference with aircraft radios.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
30 uvolts meter is a value that will interfere with aircraft radio recievers. The test levels are in 2 directions, withstanding 200 Vm without destruction and recovery from after threat is gone and sensitivity where 30 uvm will fail the standard set requirements for non interference. if a kindle or other passenger device were to be really low level it should be at 1 or less and that is extremely expensive to do, down where its actual power consumption should be less than a milliwatt.
I think we should give credit here. Congress has been hassling the FAA on this. In particular U.S. Senator for Missouri Claire McCaskill. Let's give her some credit for a job well done.
I think we've know for a while now that most modern aircraft don't have issues with interference from electronic devices (certainly as an EE I believe this).
However, I would still consider the banning theuse of electronic devices (and indeed of any other activity besides just sitting there) below a few thousand feet a good idea. The reason is that most shit happens during take-offs and landings, and if it does, it would be prudent to be aware of one's surroundings in the case of an emergency.
If you're dealing with e-mail, or watching a movie, or listening to music, or reading a book, then your mind's attention is focused away for your surroundings. If you have only 90-120 seconds to get out of an aircraft before it goes up in flames, spending 10-20 of those seconds going "WTF just happened?" and trying to put away your devices which could be blocking other people's exit, is a bad idea.
Certainly once you reach a 'reasonable' altitude (10K ft/3 km? 5K ft /1.5 km?) all people to turn stuff on, but IMHO the first little while should be devoted to be prepared for a disaster.
What the hell is a volt per square meter?
Do I have to measure from across the sides or the corners of the square? A volt per circle would at least be slightly less ambiguous.
That's with WiFi on?
And I don't quite understand, WiFi is included on my leg from LaGuardia->DFW, and part of the trip to NY, I plan on using my kindle to watch Netflix. Hope the speeds are sufficient.
Are they talking about allowing electronics throughout; from boarding to grabbing your stuff to exit?
"The findings: An Amazon Kindle emitted less than 30 microvolts per meter when in use. That is only 0.00003 of a volt. A Boeing 747 must withstand 200 volts per square meter. "
EMF fields are measured in V/m. He's got one side right, but the "200 volts per square meter," is nonsense. Additionally, the actual 200 V/m measure is from RTCA DO-160 Section 20, and refers to external fields, which are in large part shielded by an aircraft's metal skin. And, the criteria for success is not a lack of interference, but whether the aircraft will continue to operate after experiencing a brief event of that magnitude. Indeed, there is every expectation that normal communications will be lost when subject to that level of signal.
A better, and more honest, comparison for that 30 uV/m the Kindle put out would be to consider that a decent FM radio can get stereo reception with a signal of 2 uV/M. That's reasonable, as FM frequencies (88-108 MHz) have similar characteristics compared to those used for aircraft communications (108-137 MHz), which are immediately adjacent. RTCA DO-196 assumes a radio sensitivity of 20 uV. So, a Kindle can compete in signal strength with those normally received by an aircraft communications receiver.
This issue is not what level of emissions from a device will cause damage, but whether they can interfere with aircraft operations. Just as the author conflates uV/m with uV/m^2, he's also ignorant of what's really important.
Having said that, it's unlikely that a Kindle (the example given) emits enough in the aircraft radio band to cause problems. I'd be more concerned with a bunch of cell phones, each with a GPS receiver built in, interfering with the aircraft's GPS based systems. GPS operates at even lower levels. But, I'd trust someone who actually understands the issues to make a real study to determine the risks, rather than take the word of an obviously biased ("writing skeptically for years") writer who gets even the basics wrong, after years of writing about the subject (or is being deliberately disingenuous).
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Im rather glad pocket knives are not allowed on planes. Some idiot accidentally lacerates himself at 30,000 feet can be problematic
The idea that an unopened can of coca cola is a threat is loopy.
Cranky stewardesses are the rulers: "take that headphone off!", me: "it's not connected", she, with stern voice: "take it off now!".
Sure nullyfies any FAA relaxation.
It'd be pretty easy for a terrorist type to make something you could use from the ground. If the very small amount of EMF generated by electronic devices on the plane was a problem, well someone could make something that emits a lot more, but not a ton, down a fairly narrow beam from the ground and it would have the same effect.
Planes are shielded, it just isn't an issue. This is just the FAA refusing to admit they've been being stupid. The FCC has told them they are being stupid, but they won't back down. It was one of those rules that made sense in the beginning: This is something new and it could cause problems, so let's prohibit it until we've time to test it. Well, it has been tested, extensively, and that's no issue. So remove the rule. But they didn't, and they kept not doing it, and kept on and kept on way past any kind of sense, so now they keep on doing it because they don't want to look stupid (which just makes them look worse).
My cousin is a military pilot and has no fucks to give about electronics being on when he's flying. As he says, if his (military issued) iPad is dangerous to his aircraft then he is completely fucked when he flys by an Aegis radar.
Assuming it's a typo for V/m that is still comparing apples and oranges.
The 200 V/m spec is probably a "no damage" threshold over all frequencies and waveforms.
The concern is about the spurious emissions jamming the receiver, and the sensitivity of the aircraft receivers are such that a field of 30uV/m with a suitable waveform could interfere.
30 uV/m is -116 dBW/square meter.
For a typical VHF radio, the antenna can be represented as a half wave dipole, with an effective aperture of about 0.125 * lambda^2, or 0.125*2.5*2.5 (Aircraft radio is around 120MHz, so lambda is about 2.5m).. that's roughly 0.75 square meters.. Let's make it easy and call it an even square meter.
So we're looking at a power into the receiver of -86 dBm. That's pretty big against a likely noise floor of around -135 dBm (3kHz BW, 4 dB NF, -174 dBm/Hz kT)
What is the power the radio is seeing from a 10 Watt ground or airplane transmitter, say, 100 km away.. (which is not very far in an enroute or even in a terminal approach situation. 500km might be better)
Prec = +40dBm -35.44 - 20*log10(100) - 20*log10(120) = +40 -35.44 - 40-41.6
about -77 dBm
So the interference is about 10dB below the desired signal. Now let's say you've got 100 of those iPads.. Now you've got interference 10dB above the desired signal.
The desired signal is about 14 dB less for 500 km away (-91 dBm)
This is not good.
Sure, the iPad is probably wideband, but what we worry about here is things like harmonics of the internal clock oscillator, which tend to be narrow band.
My toddlers get through the flights with ipad games. Takeoff and landing is them screaming their lungs out when we turn them off.
I look forward to the rules changing if only for this.
Our toddlers scream non stop when we turn off their devices for takeoff and landing. Not much else for them to do on a plane.
Enough said.
From TFS
An Amazon Kindle emitted less than 30 microvolts per meter when in use. That is only 0.00003 of a volt. A Boeing 747 must withstand 200 volts per square meter. That is millions of Kindles packed into each square meter of the plane
This assume the radiations of each device adds up, which is not likely to be the case. Unless their emission is specifically engineered, electromagnetism waves from different devices cancel each other in destructive interference patterns.
Your comment made me laugh pretty good. I imagine some old lady firing up Candy Crush and suddenly all the displays in the cockpit show a frown face and the plane nosedives. Until someone has evidence of these devices causing interference I call the whole thing voodoo. How do cell millions of cell phones with a built in GPS receiver not interfere with each other?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
so the passengers should be paying attention
Paying attention to what? The fuel pressure? The air speed? The angle of the flaps?
If the plane's about to crash, get on the intercom and tell them you're about to crash. I guarantee you'll get their attention.
Because sometimes there's no time for the warning:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_358
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asiana_Airlines_Flight_214
There are many cases where the pilots don't have the fore knowledge of the disaster until it's actually happening, and they're too busy dealing with it to get on the PA.
FTA : Ms. McCaskill said she was not prepared to wait.“If the F.A.A. doesn’t come out with a reasonably prompt timeline in the next 60 to 90 days, then I will go full bore to get this done legislatively,” she said.
When Congress starts dictating relaxed safety riles to the FAA, I'm going to stop flying.
People can put their computers down for a few minutes... Even me who is attached to his almost constantly. I don't mind it, neither should they.
The rules change when the last old guy who always votes no, leaves, or retires, or dies.
That's how most of these things work.
(Said the old guy at the back)
Most consumer electronics of the types that people bring on planes do not generate significant RF, with the radios turned off. However they can generate a crapload of RFI in the HF bands, as any ham knows. Guess what band aircraft use on intercontinental flights? HF.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
Thought that was a hugh clue.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/09/30/2338230/delta-replacing-flight-manuals-with-surface-tablets
Comparing the 30uV/m field strength from a Kindle to the 200V/m immunity requirement is misleading. The immunity standard is for signals the avionic device is not intended to receive: "out of band" signals, such as the airport's radar system. The interference potential from the Kindle (or i-Pod, laptop, etc.) is because their unwanted signals can (and often do) occur on frequencies the avionics must receive to operate properly: navigation aids, instrument landing signals, voice communications, and so forth. These devices work with low signal levels. The FCC and IEC emissions limits for consumer products are set to protect high power broadcast signals, in cases where occasional interference would not be a threat to life. Avionics systems have less powerful sources, and must work reliably to assure safety in flight. So, even though the measured signal levels from the Kindle were 10dB or more below the legal limit for consumer products, it cannot be assumed safe for use during critical phases of flight (take off and landing).
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The FAA : Passengers can't use computers.
The NSA : We want to tap on passengers conversations (e-mail, facebook...).
Let's see who wins.
Joking aside, am I the only one who remember the good old time when it was forbidden to use a cell phone at a gas station?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYAq-7sOzXQ
for the moment you can bring water and toothpaste on board again...
Privacy is terrorism.
The Kindle isn't off when displaying the screensaver, so people already leave them on.
To me, the "stow all devices during takeoff and landing" serves a completely different purpose then EFI-issues.
In case there actually IS an incident, I would prefer to as much as possible reduce the possibility that pax are peppered with flying iPads etc,
(Spoken as someone who has experienced a 12V battery hurling past ones head after a restraint failed in a glider during a ehm... "Less then ideal" landing.
Please forgive any ignorance on the part of this post - I'm outside the limits of my personal knowledge but would like to ask...
I've heard/read that solutions such as Faraday Cages can shield sensitive electronics from electromagnetic interference... I also understand that modern passenger aircraft typically use fly-by-wire instrumentation as opposed to hydraulics... Would it be possible, then, to devise an aircraft design that shielded both the cockpit and 'avionics control conduits' either with ultra-light-weight Farady Cage technology for the cockpit, and/or use of fibreoptic connectivity for the fly-by-wire avionics?
I understand the potential risks of EMI/RFI, but am intrigued that solutions which apparently work on the ground don't work in the air. Is it a grounding issue? A weight problem? Something I've missed?
Paperback books! Gotcha ms. flight stewardess!
They should keep all electronic devices (and IMHO books) stowed away during take off and landing, not because of interference with flight instruments, but because take off and landing are the most dangerous parts of the flight. If there is trouble during these periods, you will want your hands free to "hold onto your ankles and kiss your ass goodbye." Further, if you let go of your Kindle, iPhone, laptop etc during an emergency procedure it's likely to go flying around the cabin and cause someone a serious injury.
Stow that shit away. It's only 20 minutes of your time.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
We have in flight wifi in South Africa - After Take off you take out you laptop / Tablet etc and log onto the wifi hotspot and do what you need to do - Full internet access!
Cape Town to Johannesburg - 10th busiest route world wide last year - 4 million passengers - and no planes fell out of the sky.
It never really was about interference, but getting all the seat meat to at least pretend to pay attention during the parts of the flight when things just might go pear-shaped: takeoff and landing.
Both of you guys ranting about how GPS receivers RECEIVE are kind of missing a common aspect. That is, virtually all radio receivers use a superheterodyne or sampling approach, where the input signal is mixed with a local oscillator near the band of operation (or harmonically related to it).
In a properly functioning radio, the LO won't radiate back out the antenna, but the concern here is "not properly functioning" or "defective design". Maybe the filter component was cracked when the user dropped it, and now it radiates in band.
The LO leakage doesn't even have to be inband to GPS to cause problems If it happens to closely match the LO of the victim receiver, it can cause spurious detection products (desired signal + spurious signal at near LO, causing mixing product inband for radio)
The reason FM and AM radios (receivers, mind you) have been banned for decades (since the beginning of airplanes) is just this leaky LO problem. Early transistor radios were terrible from a radiated emissions standpoint. Not in band (or they would interfere with other people's AM and FM radios) but with other services (e.g. aviation, land mobile, public safety, etc.)
The bureaucrat who approves in-flight device use might get fired the next time a plane crashes, even if it turns out in the end that it had nothing to with device use.
The bureaucrat who refuses to approve in-flight device use almost certainly *won't* get fired because of his decision.
It's that simple.
As if chatty people on a plane weren't annoying enough as it is. You're going to allow them to be on the phone the entire flight.
Why do people that have not a clue about the issues at play insist on acting like experts?
The problem is NOT with high signal levels that leak, it's with misbehaving equipment and mixing. Two devices emitting 1 watt can have their outputs mix in any semiconductor diode, explicit or created by a corroded metal joint anywhere and generate the sum and difference frequencies, which could end up anywhere in the spectrum.
Two years ago, the FAA found some display panels that would blank the cockpit display screens for up to 7 minutes in the presence of strong WiFi signals. This isn't some old, unprotected flight display system, but a modern one what apparently hadn't been shielded and tested properly. These displays are in-use on planes we fly today.
http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/avd_09_24_2013_p05-01-619659.xml
It has EVERYTHING to do with an authoritarian mind-set that when you get on the plane, you will behave as you are told or get a jelly finger up the ass.
If all these gizmos could crash a plane, help me understand how no plane crash has ever been attributed to one because I assure you, many passengers merely slip their cellphones into a pocket and don't bother turning them off at all.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
Long long time ago. Do you actually think all airline passengers obediently turn off their devices? Many of them simply tuck it away where it can't be seen.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
There is a solid problem with mobile devices on airplanes but it has nothing to with flying itself.
Cellphone towers have a hard time dealing with 300 people zipping by at high speed. Before the handover of the signal is completed the plane has already reached the next tower. This leaves the tower with hundreds of dangling connections using up capacity. A few seconds later the next one passes by before the tower had the time to clean out the old connections.
I've always thought this was a legacy of the airlines wanting to protect their airphone revenue.
When pocket-portable cellphones began to gain real traction with ordinary travelers, every airline seat had a $10/minute airphone in the back of the headrest.
I don't remember them being used that often (I think I saw or overheard maybe 1 call per flight, maximum, circa the late 1990s). I didn't travel enough pre-mid-1990s to know when airphones became ubiquitous on planes, but they were on everything I flew on from the mid-late 1990s onward.
I can't help but think that most of the airline rules are oriented around maximizing airline profits, and it's really easy to do this when you can scream "SAFETY!". The airlines probably overbet on their airphones since they seemed like a lot of hardware for the amount of use they got, but this didn't stop them from wanting to protect what money they did make on them, even if they were wrong about how useful an actual voice cell phone call would be from the air.
Meanwhile, the airphones are long gone and the airlines have probably turned the corner and figured that the money to be made is from USING devices all the time, not forcing people to use a service they don't or can't provide. I think the ban stuck around because the airlines were waiting to deliver some other service but the safety aspect of it has become no longer credible.
That is millions of Kindles packed into each square meter of the plane. " Therefore, the only place where the ban should stay in place is in Coach.
Avionics are so well shielded that you couldn't interfere with them if you wanted to. As for fly-by-wire, there's triple redundancy and those cables must be routed separate from all others. As someone that works for a corporate jet manufacturer on the completions side, I know this all too well. You would have a hard time intentionally crashing a fly-by-wire aircraft.
Ops, I shuld have usd the prevuwe but in.
They are taking action because the FCC made a threat to take action either by regulation or the courts. The last thing the FAA wants is the FCC on its turf.