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FAA To Allow Use of Most Electronic Devices Throughout Flights
alstor writes "As previously expected, the FAA has announced that most portable electronic devices may be used throughout the duration of a flight. Mobile phones may still only be used in airplane mode without cellular service."
Now you'll be able to read your kindle on the plane, but you still won't have to put up with the passenger next to you carrying on a loud phone conversation (save, maybe voip?).
Flying is annoying enough without someone sitting next to you babbling away on their phone the whole flight.
Like the war on water, it's largely been about control and government rules abetting private interests. I suppose in this case airlines and the faa and whoever the fuck else stands to make a buck off of this realized it is more profitable to let the monkeys paw their gadgets 100% of the time, instead of the usual 96%.
Flight mode on most cellular devices switches off Bluetooth, WIFI and Cellular access.
So would this mean that Flight mode, should now only toggle the Cellular modem on and off?
That would be really cool.
This must be a real kick in the balls for all the folks back in the first days of the iPhone who got arrested because they were using it in "Airplane mode" and now you don't even need to even have airplane mode.
All that money for legal defense, lectures from judges, airline wait staff, sky marshals and everyone else who "knew better" about how they put the aircraft in DANGER by playing their iPhone game.
It would also help if our air traffic control system got into the 21st Century and aircraft got rid of that pathetic AM band radio that only allows ONE person transmitting per channel....
Let's change that and give the aircraft band to the HAMs.
I haven't bothered in years
If my thoughtlessness would doom 150 people and a multimillion dollar jet airplane, the airlines have bigger problems on their hands
I always enjoy hearing my text message notification tone going off when the plane is in the early or final stages of takeoff/landing. The air bitches, I mean, maids, I mean stewardesses must really get pissed, but they're strapped into their chairs at that point.
How exactly does this differ from the policies from now? Airplane-mode only, check. Turned off during take-off and landing, check. Wi-fi allowed (if you want to pay the airline $20 for a couple hours' access), check. Where's the big change?
too keep the masses happy and occupied.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
If you'll please pay attention to our safety demonstration and procedures speech...
>pewpewpew
It's a really good thing that every single one of them have been shutting off their phones during takeoff and landing every year. Otherwise, who knows what might have happened. The number worldwide is about 4.5 billion passenger flights per year. I feel safe knowing that every single person will always do what the flight crew says.
Gently reply
NSA datamining ploy
He is guessing that the reason it took so long is not because cell phones interfere with any of the avionics or navigation, but rather that they can sometimes hear feedback in their headsets. Imagine being a pilot and hearing 20 conversations in your ear while trying to listen to the air traffic controller.
Actually I think it's more to do with the fact that old PCN & GSM phones gave off quite a bit of interference
Which caused precisely zero plane crashes.
Most phones these days hardly use those spectrums and anyway you've still got keep the phone in flight mode.
Not for any evidence based reason. There are social reasons to not allow cell phones (annoys your fellow passengers when you talk loudly) but thousands of phones are turned on every single day in airplanes for the entire duration of the flight (both intentionally and not) and there has not been a single accident ever as a result. If it were actually a safety risk then the ONLY effective solution would be to ban cell phones entirely from the plane. Based on the fact they haven't done this it is not a risk factor and the FAA knows it.
If you'll please pay attention to our safety demonstration and procedures speech...
You mean the one where they explain how to use a seatbelt for everyone who hasn't been in a car in the last 40 years?
I've used my phone during a flight before and turned off airplane mode for shits and giggles. I wasn't able to get a signal at all. At best, I was able to hold a signal for a minute or so during take off and immediately during landing. It makes me curious as well, during 9/11 how the heck were the passengers able to make a call at those altitudes on their mobile phones?
Is this actually going to happen, or are they going to listen to the fears of the people that have no idea what they are talking about, like they did with knives?
All the FAA did was establish a procedure the airlines can choose to follow to demonstrate that this is safe on their planes.
IF an individual airline follows this procedure, and AFTER the procedure is completed, then the individual flights of that airline can choose on a flight-by-flight basis whether to allow electronic devices to be on during take off and landing.
You're relying on "market forces" to convince the airlines to pay to go through the testing the FAA has listed and relying on flight attendants to stop being control freaks on each flight. Likely the only people who will see the benefit of this are game-playing Baldwin brothers.
How exactly does this differ from the policies from now? Airplane-mode only, check. Turned off during take-off and landing, check.
Uncheck. On for take-off and landings, except for special cases when visibility is low and the low visibility navigation systems are not PED certified.
6. Properly stow heavier devices under seats or in the overhead bins during takeoff and landing. These items could impede evacuation of an aircraft or may injure you or someone else in the event of turbulence or an accident. My bad, I confused "stow" with "turn off." Because having it turned on does so much good if it's stowed.
Wi-fi allowed (if you want to pay the airline $20 for a couple hours' access), check.
Uncheck. Wi-fi and bluetooth allowed, with no requirement to pay the airline. I figure it will be interesting to run an open NAP and see how much data can be sniffed from devices trying to get a wi-fi connection. Or to spoof a lot of large online services to get login credentials. Fun.
This is no change. There was never a prohibition against using wi-fi or bluetooth. I've flown several airline which offer w-fi during flights in the past decade, usually with a hefty fee. You may use the WiFi connection on your device if the plane has an installed WiFi system and the airline allows its use. You can also continue to use short-range Bluetooth accessories, like wireless keyboards.
Where's the big change?
I read it, dingleberry. And stand by my claim of (essentially) no change. The only real difference is not having to turn things off during the 10-15 minutes of takeoff and landing. Woohoo. Unless it's a "large" device, wherein it must be stowed away, even if you leave the power on.
It's easy to tell someone using a device to turn it off. How do they easily tell if the cellular radio is off? The press release says "no bars displayed". So now the flight attendant has to confirm the absence of one of the smallest icons on the screen?
Even more crazy, this changes the very definition of "airplane mode" from "all radios off" to "cell radio off, but wifi and bluetooth radio okay". Current devices don't even have such a mode! And how many non-techies even have a clear idea of the distinction?
"Allow", "Permit" are the key operative words.
If the reasons were technical, with number of phones left ON in the carry on bags, we would see all sorts of chaos in the skies. We did not.
So that leaves non technical reasons - profits on selling competing services for exorbitant prices and control.
Although there is a lot of talk about e-readers, tablets, phones, etc., I have not seen any mention of noise cancelling headphones. In my experience, passengers (such as me) tend to turn them on right before take off, and not turn them off until after the aircraft lands. Although they are clearly electronic devices, rarely does a flight attendant ask a passenger to turn one of these units off.
I don't fly anymore. Having to deal with morons every day who think their texts/emails/whatever are more important than having their eyes on the road, or people who randomly walk into moving traffic while talking on their phone is bad enough. Having to sit through a multi-hour flight full of people talking on their phones or bipping and bopping on their tablets would be a nightmare.
What do you know, there is an upside to the TSA!
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
it is unfortunate your netbook and your phone are so heavy they need to be stowed and cannot be held in your hand or lap. you should upgrade from that 80's brick, it'll ease your backpains. me on the other hand, I can watch a movie on the netbook, have noise-cancelling headphones on, and play smth on my mp3 player. you know - 90% of the use cases. I guess you're the odd one out.
wifi and bluetooth was not allowed during takeoff and landing. it now is, just like the netbook and phone. now I can spend takeoff and landing sending email or working on a remote server. you know, 90% of my job, and most IT consultants who fly pretty much weekly. big change for me. I guess not for you, since your mom pays for things and you don't need to do real work.
10-15min for takeoff and landing? are you on crack? you think that's how long your stuff is powered off for once you leave the gate or land? anywhere from 40 min to a couple of hours if you're stuck in a queue. so, that times 2. dingleferry.
IT consultants
real work.
LOL.
I read it, dingleberry. And stand by my claim of (essentially) no change. The only real difference is not having to turn things off during the 10-15 minutes of takeoff and landing. Woohoo.
You seem to be the only one that think that's 'no change'. For most of us, it's huge.
a) It's not 10-15 minutes. It's much longer, because it's from the time the boarding door is closed to 10000 feet. At a large airport with a long taxi, that's easily 30 minutes or more, both for takeoff and landing. Not having to carry hardcopy/dead-tree entertainment to avoid staring at the seat back in front of you for an hour each flight is a nice benefit.
b) The rule preventing it made little sense, so this is a positive sign of logic and reason winning out. For some people, this is a bigger win than the practical advantages.
6. Properly stow heavier devices under seats or in the overhead bins during takeoff and landing. These items could impede evacuation of an aircraft or may injure you or someone else in the event of turbulence or an accident. My bad, I confused "stow" with "turn off." Because having it turned on does so much good if it's stowed.
"Heavier devices". The MP3 player "stowed" in my pocket does me a considerable amount of good. The noise cancelling headphones do me an even greater amount of good when stowed on my head in the 'on' position.
This is no change. There was never a prohibition against using wi-fi or bluetooth.
You are wrong.
I've flown several airline which offer w-fi during flights in the past decade, usually with a hefty fee.
This is a very specific exception to the rule against radio transmitters on board an aircraft. Except for the relatively recent addition of on-board wi-fi services, wi-fi and bluetooth have been prohibited while in flight.
You can also continue to use short-range Bluetooth accessories, like wireless keyboards.
The airline you fly has been letting you bend the rules. The ones I fly are quite explicit in saying "you may NOT use short range".
I read it, dingleberry.
Being insulting doesn't make you right, it only shows that you are overly sensitive when you get caught misreading something simple.
The only real difference is not having to turn things off during the 10-15 minutes of takeoff and landing.
Plus being able to use wifi and bluetooth in general, and many other kinds of radio receivers. This change would legalize all the people who sneak GPS receivers on board to follow their flight. It would even legalize the use of scanners to listen to ATC. And many people would consider a change that removes the requirement to turn off noise cancelling headsets to be a major change to the rules since it was such a patently absurd side-effect of a relatively simple rule. It was, in fact, a detriment to safety, since people who were wearing noise cancellers plugged into the aircraft audio system were about the only ones who could hear any of the announcement made during takeoff -- like "assume crash positions".
Actually cell phones are only prohibited in US and maybe a few others airspace! There's a fully Boeing/airbus supported and tested solution called aeromobile and on air in which a gsm pico cell is on board and connected to a satellite. There is also mobile data although this is only edge speeds at the moment. BA and Virgin Atlantic have it on some aircraft over the Atlantic and the system is auto shutoff during taxi takeoff and in and near us airspace. It is essentially an international gsm roaming service and the only us Sim cards supported are at&t and T-Mobile.
This limitation and the tedious checkin process and the fact that airports are usually located outside of city centers make bullet trains more attractive to the business traveler than flying for trips up to about 400 miles.
High-speed rail is also very cheap to build. The expected construction cost of $68.4 billion for California's HSR line is much lower than the alternative of building 4,295 new lane-miles of freeway for $119.0 billion plus 115 new airport gates and 4 new runways for an additional $38.6 billion, all just to move the same number of people around. When it's built and the downtown-to-downtown time between San Francisco and Los Angeles is under 3 hours (try that with flying!), people will wonder why anyone would want to fly between those two cities anymore.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
any insight on whether the bullshit headphones rule will soon be relinquished as well???
Have gnu, will travel.
On a flight last year from Beijing, we got stuck on the tarmac for nearly 2 hrs while they landed incoming flights (because of a sudden rain storm).
It probably wasn't the rain. Planes operate just fine in the rain.
Beijing is embarrassed by terrible on-time statistics and they have been having planes leave the gates on-time even when there is no time slot for them to take off in yet or no time slot for them to land in at the destination yet. By having the plane wait on the tarmac rather than at the gate they get to manipulate the on-time statistics.
"Heavier devices". The MP3 player "stowed" in my pocket does me a considerable amount of good. The noise cancelling headphones do me an even greater amount of good when stowed on my head in the 'on' position.
Conceded.
This is no change. There was never a prohibition against using wi-fi or bluetooth.
You are wrong.
Citation needed. The article states that bluetooth may continue to be used. And what's the point of wi-fi unless there's a nearby access point? And the only access point available at high altitude is necessarily provided by the airline, which they've already been doing for years.
This is a very specific exception to the rule against radio transmitters on board an aircraft. Except for the relatively recent addition of on-board wi-fi services, wi-fi and bluetooth have been prohibited while in flight.
Relatively recent? Like 2010? That's when I first started being offered access on Delta flights.
The airline you fly has been letting you bend the rules. The ones I fly are quite explicit in saying "you may NOT use short range".
"You can also continue to use short-range Bluetooth accessories, like wireless keyboards." That's a direct quote from the linked FAA notice. Maybe your airlines were just implementing their own stricter rules?
Being insulting doesn't make you right, it only shows that you are overly sensitive when you get caught misreading something simple.
It was a direct response to your snarky tone implying I hadn't actually RTFA. Whether I misread it is another matter. I'm willing to call it even and debate it more civilly if you are.
The only real difference is not having to turn things off during the 10-15 minutes of takeoff and landing.
Plus being able to use wifi and bluetooth in general, and many other kinds of radio receivers. This change would legalize all the people who sneak GPS receivers on board to follow their flight. It would even legalize the use of scanners to listen to ATC. And many people would consider a change that removes the requirement to turn off noise cancelling headsets to be a major change to the rules since it was such a patently absurd side-effect of a relatively simple rule. It was, in fact, a detriment to safety, since people who were wearing noise cancellers plugged into the aircraft audio system were about the only ones who could hear any of the announcement made during takeoff -- like "assume crash positions".
Again, bluetooth and wi-fi have been allowed previously. Both as stated by the article and through the fact that planes offer wi-fi access. I hadn't considered GPS receivers, but for those who follow with them, well, cool. The main change I see here is the allowance of PEDs below 10k feet. This was never a big issue for me, really, so I admit downplaying it - of the ~100 times I've flown in the last ten years, my plane has been delayed on the tarmac for longer than ten minutes all of four or five times. And from past experience, I always bring along a good old paper book. I still don't see this as some grand revolutionary rule change, more of a minor increment. Once they allow actual cell connections (even if only for texting and not voice calls) and LTE/EVDO data connections, I'll throw my hands in the air and cheer with everyone else. And then hope that the technical hurdles can be overcome...
Citation needed.
Here. What the airline operator has not determined will not cause interference is prohibited. Your airline decided you could, but most do not. And bt and wifi start out as prohibited until proven safe, so claiming they were never prohibited is a bit overstatement in both fact and intention.
And what's the point of wi-fi unless there's a nearby access point?
It's called "ad hoc" networking, and it is used by printers and other equipment for connections longer distance than bluetooth or where bluetooth hardware is not installed. Also "bridging".
And the only access point available at high altitude is necessarily provided by the airline, which they've already been doing for years.
I have an access point in my pocket. It's called my cell phone. The airline did not provide it to me. And not all airlines are providing a pay for network wifi.
Relatively recent? Like 2010?
Since this is only 2013, yes, relatively recent. The prohibition on electronic devices has been around for decades.
It was a direct response to your snarky tone implying I hadn't actually RTFA.
It wasn't an insult, and it wasn't calling you a name.
Again, bluetooth and wi-fi have been allowed previously.
In some cases. There has never been a blanket approval.
I hadn't considered GPS receivers, but for those who follow with them, well, cool.
This is yet another example that counters your "no change" claim.
The main change I see here is the allowance of PEDs below 10k feet.
Which by itself is a major change in policy, and when combined with bt, wifi, and all the other changes, is yet another counter to "no change".
This was never a big issue for me, really, ... I still don't see this as some grand revolutionary rule change, more of a minor increment.
You don't care, so it doesn't change anything. Ok.
Once they allow actual cell connections (even if only for texting and not voice calls) and LTE/EVDO data connections, I'll throw my hands in the air and cheer with everyone else.
Not everyone will be cheering that change.
And then hope that the technical hurdles can be overcome...
That change will not happen until the technical hurdles are overcome.
yep. real work. done by the Cisco guy who shows up at your company site to install the equipment you just bought and get you dr site up. the EMC consultant who shows up at the hospital after it's basement datacenter flooded to replace the damaged storage array where all your xray images are stored for your surgery tomorrow. the IBM guy who's with him to get the new server up to replace the one under water, so they can see the new storage array. The guy from Oracle who shows up at your bank when some idiot puts a hint statement in his sql that brings down the performance of the database to a crawl during that time you're generating your company's paychecks. I guess compared to cleaning shit off of burnt dead bodies would definitely be more 'real' in comparison - I guess that's what you do?
Can't wait
"Mobile phones may still only be used in airplane mode without cellular service."
It won't work even if you try to use cellular service. I always get "No Service" when I use my phone on the plane.
It's not the airlines, it is the FAA. Preflight briefings are mandatory
That is not the same thing as proving that a briefing on how to use a seat belt a useful activity with demonstrable safety benefits. They also used to be required to ask if I had packed my own bags on the apparent (absurd) assumption that any terrorist would break down and fess up. I defy you to find a shred of evidence that pre-flight seat belt briefings have demonstrably saved a single life in the real world. You know, someone saying "whew, if it wasn't for that pre-flight briefing on the seat belt I'd have burned to a crisp". It's the sort of thing that sounds good to an FAA bureaucrat but in reality there is not a bit of evidence that it actually serves a useful purpose.
Ah, the standard Slashdot "you are right". Abuse and a complete change of argument.
Abuse? I think you need to thicken your skin up a bit. Furthermore look up the word satire. I think you'll find it helpful here.
You implied that car belts make one an expert at aviation belts. I pointed out they work in unrelated manners.
I didn't imply it. I stated it outright. And I also pointed out that the fact that the number of people for whom the different release mechanism presents a problem is a pretty good approximation of zero. Go ahead and prove me wrong. Find a shred of evidence that the in flight briefing has demonstrably saved a single life and I'll retract my satire. But without evidence you are just hypothesizing about theoretical and unlikely failure modes.