FAA To Allow Use of Most Electronic Devices Throughout Flights

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FAA To Allow Use of Most Electronic Devices Throughout Flights

Posted by timothy on Thursday October 31, 2013 @04:23AM from the bright-spot-for-the-day dept.

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."

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Best of both worlds by barlevg · 2013-10-31 04:25 · Score: 5, Insightful

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?).
1. Re:Best of both worlds by khr · 2013-10-31 05:13 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  that all rules are silly.
  Who believes that all rules are silly? It's only the rules people don't like that are silly. The ones that affect others are great.
2. Re:Best of both worlds by Obfuscant · 2013-10-31 05:26 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Who believes that all rules are silly? It's only the rules people don't like that are silly.
  No, it's rules that they don't understand that they think are silly. And evidence shows that many people who use cell phones believe there is some magic involved that carries their voice to the intended recipient. That's why back in the 90's a vocal group of idiots managed to get laws enacted to insure their privacy while using analog CDMA cell phones. After all, it was a CELL PHONE and they had every reason to expect privacy in their conversation, even though they were using RADIO to send their VOICE over the public's airwaves. Thus it became illegal, and remains illegal to this day, for the sale or import of certain kinds of radios that can receive frequencies allocated to cellular telephone services.
3. Re:Best of both worlds by Lumpy · 2013-10-31 05:51 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  This comes from people not smacking them or publicly ridiculing them. When an asshat in first class refuses to get off the phone, yelling "Hey moron! hang up the phone, are you too stupid to understand what the lady just said?" is the proper response instead of just sitting there. If there are no consequences they will never change their behavior.
  
  --
  Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
4. Re:Best of both worlds by itsdapead · 2013-10-31 06:07 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Now you'll be able to read your kindle on the plane,
  Its ebooks that make the no-electronics-below 10000 feet rule intolerable. I can survive for an hour* without music or twitter, but the amount of entertainment that can be extracted from the in-flight magazine, duty free catalogue, in-flight safety card, back of the 'motion discomfort' bag etc. is strictly limited. Especially if its a return flight and you memorised it all on the way out...
  *Anybody who talks about '10 minutes during takeoff and landing' is clearly flying from different airports than me...
  
  --
  In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
5. Re: Best of both worlds by sjames · 2013-10-31 07:02 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Affordable dentistry at last!
The ban was always bullshit anyway by korbulon · 2013-10-31 04:29 · Score: 4, Insightful

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%.
1. Re:The ban was always bullshit anyway by ibwolf · 2013-10-31 04:37 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I thinks the reason this is being revised is because this rule has inconvenienced people that have the power to do something about it (e.g. US senators). I'm sure airport security screening would be greatly improved if everyone, with no exceptions, had to go through the same type of screening.
2. Re:The ban was always bullshit anyway by dicobalt · 2013-10-31 04:47 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Damn water. It doesn't know whether it want's to be an acid or base. Always flip flopping on the issue.
Re:Keep the phone ban by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2013-10-31 04:37 · Score: 4, Insightful

Given that aircraft fly around in a veritable EM soup (AM, FM, VHF transmission towers, the spark gaps of an angry god, etc.), I would hope that every phone on the plane draining its battery in a coordinated RF scream would be a survivable event. Whether all the chatter raises the noise floor or introduces errors into sensitive measurements is a subtler but more likely issue.
Re:Differnent from current? by Obfuscant · 2013-10-31 05:03 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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.

Where's the big change?
/. commenter who hasn't bothered to read TFA, check. No change.
Zero accidents ever by sjbe · 2013-10-31 05:04 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.
"Safety" demonstration by sjbe · 2013-10-31 05:08 · Score: 3, Insightful

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?
Re:Keep the phone ban by MrChips · 2013-10-31 05:11 · Score: 3, Informative

I like to use this ABM1 - Passive Air Band Monitor when flying. I keep it discreet as I'm sure most flight crews won't understand how it's different from a typical radio receiver. I regularly hear that "bzz bzz bzz" of cell phones with this device. I then ask my girlfriend sitting next to me if she put her phone in airplane mode. If she hadn't and does it the noise usually goes away. If she had her's in airplane mode then I assume it's someone else sitting near me. Phones do cause interference in the aircraft frequency bands (at least at short range).
Re:Keep the phone ban by DaveAtFraud · 2013-10-31 05:14 · Score: 4, Informative

there is no way you will get a connection to a tower at 35000 feet moving at 500mph
Yes you can. If you will recall, this was proven on 9/11/2001.
The prohibition on using cell phones was also at the request of the wireless carriers. The cellular system was not designed to handle someone using their phone at 35,000 fett and traveling at 500 mph. Your phone "sees" way too many towers and yet the towers have to hand off rapidly since you move out of coverage really fast at that speed. Seven miles up in an airplane is not that far from a tower and the signal is excellent.
It's easier to "just say no" than it is to re-engineer the cellular network to also work with people using their phones in airplanes. Besides, the airlines want you to use their skyphone at their rates so it's in their interest to keep you from using your cell phone instead.
Cheers,
Dave

--
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Re:Keep the phone ban by Alastor187 · 2013-10-31 05:22 · Score: 4, Informative

Given that aircraft fly around in a veritable EM soup (AM, FM, VHF transmission towers, the spark gaps of an angry god, etc.), I would hope that every phone on the plane draining its battery in a coordinated RF scream would be a survivable event. Whether all the chatter raises the noise floor or introduces errors into sensitive measurements is a subtler but more likely issue.
What is outside the airplane is the least of the problems. A large commercial plane has racks of electronic equipment, dozens of radios, weather radar, flight displays, in-flight entertainment systems, power generation and distribution systems, pumps, servos,...etc.
All of those are potential sources of EMI that need to work together as a system. The only reason a cell phone is considered 'risky' is because it un-tested. There is nothing unique about cell phone electronics from an avionics point of view. Similar, and more powerful, systems are already integrated into the airframe.
Re:Keep the phone ban by foobar+bazbot · 2013-10-31 06:02 · Score: 4, Informative

I like to use this ABM1 - Passive Air Band Monitor when flying. I keep it discreet as I'm sure most flight crews won't understand how it's different from a typical radio receiver. I regularly hear that "bzz bzz bzz" of cell phones with this device. I then ask my girlfriend sitting next to me if she put her phone in airplane mode. If she hadn't and does it the noise usually goes away. If she had her's in airplane mode then I assume it's someone else sitting near me.
Correct so far.

Phones do cause interference in the aircraft frequency bands (at least at short range).
And... you go off the rails.
GSM phones cause interference in audio-frequency circuits because the phone transmits in regular bursts every 4.62 ms (this is why it doesn't affect CDMA, UMTS, etc., only 2G GSM/GPRS/EDGE, because they use TDMA). It turns out audio amplifiers generally tend to serve as decent wide-band AM receivers, so this is very easily picked up as a 217Hz buzz. However, this is all happening on the audio-frequency side, so calling it "interference in the aircraft frequency bands" is just plain wrong -- it will affect practically any unshielded or insufficiently-shielded device (it's only a couple watts or so transmitter, but within a meter or less the inverse-square law says you do need better shielding than a lot of consumer electronics have) with an amplified audio output, including all sorts of radios, and non-radio devices from MP3 players to cassette players.
(for more on this, google or start here)
Fortunately, it's a really easy problem to solve -- just keep your phone out of the cockpit. Thanks to the inverse-square law, it's really only a practical issue at very short range.
Re:Keep the phone ban by CohibaVancouver · 2013-10-31 06:08 · Score: 4, Informative

And they were using cell phones.
Most of the 9/11 calls were from Airfones, not cell phones -

http://imgs.sfgate.com/blogs/images/sfgate/cmcginnis/2010/12/16/airfone250x187.jpg

Airfones have mostly gone away, but a dozen years ago they were pretty common.

When I notice my fellow passengers playing Candy Crush on their phones you can plainly see the NO SERVICE displayed on the top. This is because they don't know how to go into Airplane Mode so their radios are on, but the phone can't lock to a tower at 35K feet travelling at a ground speed of 500 mph.