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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.
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).
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$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^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.
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
it would have happened by now. Everybody leaves them on.
I hate being bipolar; it's awesome!
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.
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.
"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
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.
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.
Pay attention to what? The back side of the seat in front of me?
Perhaps I should use the time to contemplate how very tenuous this thing called life is and how easily it can be snuffed out instantly in the event this aircraft suddenly explodes in a huge fireball on takeoff. Maybe I should take very careful notice of the location of the exit doors and meticulously plan how I'm going to incapacitate the unfortunate innocents in my way as I desperately attempt to flee the impending disaster.
There are just a couple more important things going on at any given time during a flight than killing that last little piggy.
Yes, but those things are all going on in the cockpit and out of my control. Perhaps I should play a little game to keep my mind preoccupied, as I admit I have a little problem with flying, actually.
How foolish of me to have forgotten that epidemic of oafs bleeding out from self-inflicted pen-knife injuries in the dark decades before those seductive instruments of mayhem had yet ceased to imperil the skies.
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
...but two or three cans of Coke combined together are a danger. Just ask Michael Bloomberg.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
People will do what is needed when an emergency happens.
Asiana flight 214: People take their luggage when exiting a burning plane via the emergency chute, others try to re-enter a burning plane to get their luggage.
I look forward to toddlers being placed in pet carriers in the hold for flights if only for this.
Guess what band aircraft use on intercontinental flights? HF.
They actually use text-based communication over satellite now, for the most part. HF is only used as a backup to that. They do check in via HF all the same to confirm that they're able to communicate, but all transmissions tend to be via satellite other than tests. The HF is muted unless the aircraft receives a transmission coded to the aircraft which sounds an alarm to alert the crew that they should unmute the radio.
That isn't to say that losing HF is by any means acceptable. It just isn't as essential as it used to be. For the most part its primary purpose is position reporting so that if an aircraft doesn't report in they know where to start looking. As ADS-B becomes the norm even that won't be very important.
You'll get more medicine when you're taken to the hospital (you will be taken to a hospital); your embassy will get you a new passport (you'll get the highest priority). Or maybe you blocking the aisle while retrieving your stuff causes yourself or someone else to die of smoke inhalation. Anyway, don't argue with me - take it up with the FAA and the NTSB.
When there's no reason to ban them, why do you hate freedom and wish for the government to force such onerous regulations on the private airlines?
Learn to love Alaska
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.
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