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Laser Strikes On Aircraft Increasing In Frequency (usatoday.com)
puddingebola writes: The FAA is reporting a record number of laser strikes on aircraft for 2015. From the article: "The Federal Aviation Administration recorded 5,352 laser strikes through Oct. 16, up from 2,837 for all of 2010. ... Some airports have reported more than 100 laser strikes this year: Los Angeles had 197; Phoenix had 183; Houston had 151; Las Vegas had 132, and Dallas-Fort Worth had 115. On July 15, during a 90-minute period, 11 airliners and one military aircraft reported laser strikes near New York City-area airports. Those incidents remain under investigation by the FAA, FBI and New Jersey state police."
I mean, if they keep increasing in frequency, eventually someone'll just fire a UV laser and nobody'll be able to see it. The next guy brings an X-Ray laser and it's a self-limiting problem, at least for everyone within a few thousand feet of ground zero.
These stories get more and more attention of the media and every time they will emphasize that this is considered as a federal crime for which penalty is severe fines and possibly jail time. But this does not seem to be at all effective with the population.
The question is, are people doing this out of a really bad intention or are just not intelligent enough to understand the risks and the sentences they are facing for, literally, no personal gain?
So do they count a laser the happens to be shined 'near' a plane or are these all directly aimed at/in the cockpit? They specifically not that none of the over 5k "strikes" caused any injury so if any actually penetrated the cockpit they didn't hit any eyes. I'm picturing pilots reporting a laser that they happen to see nearby. I have an extremely powerful laser that finds itself pointing at the sky all the time. I'd never shine one at a plane anyway but most of the time I have comfort in the fact my laser shining straight upward couldn't hit a pilot's eyes anyway unless they happened to be banking at the wrong time. Only time I'd even have a good angle is on take-off or landing. SO long rambling run-on question later: What do they define as a "Laser Strike" how intentional / directed does it have to be or are the standards for a "strike" fairly low?
As an engineer ive been against seeing this kind of increase in frequency since DAY ONE. from 450 to 520 nanometer was appalling enough but 600 nanometer?! seriously? you kids messing around with those diodes are playing with fire.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Where are the statistics about the blinded pilots and crashed planes? Without these facts there is no way to tell if there is a problem.
...omphaloskepsis often...
I consider a laser strike to be a laser weapon being used to shoot down a plane. If they are calling people pointing at constellations who can't even see the planes at night "laser strikes" they should be prepared to be laughed into we don't care mode by pretty much everyone. It isn't like these are attacks.
At first I think it was just general stupidity and playing around.
Watching a Laser is interesting, because it isn't something we naturally see, so there is almost a magical quality to it. So shining it at an airplane just to see if it would light up or scatter hitting a propeller seems interesting to try.
However now... I expect it is because it makes the news, so they get a odd sense of satisfaction that news happen because of their action.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
People post goatse links to blind pilots?! I guess that makes sense.
Most linux users don't know this, but the man pages were named after Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris fsck'ing hates noobs!
Fifteen minutes of fame.
Six to 10 years in the penitentiary.
Sounds good to me.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I live about 5 miles from a commercial airport and planes fly over all the time.
I'm curious how someone on the ground is able to aim at the windshield of the cockpit from the ground. It seems like geometry of shining a laser at a plane would be such that if you were reasonably close to a plane, the windshield wouldn't be line of sight to an observer on the ground.
Maybe if you were fairly close, at a higher elevation and the plane was taking off pretty much in your direction.
I can see how helicopters or other aircraft with more of a completely transparent nose would be vulnerable to ground observers shining lasers, but jetliners look to me like they have the cockpit windshield on the top half of the nose hemisphere.
What am I missing here?
So, it has to cause permanent blindness before it passes the Anonymous Idiot test?
How can anyone be so wrong about "not one single person..." in this age of Google?
http://www.kob.com/article/sto...
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news...
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/he...
The list goes on and on.
Maybe this video will help you, some schmuck lighting up a news chopper, caught on film. It doesn't take much, particularly at night. In the video, when the laser hits just right, the entire canopy lights up green. Even through the video camera, the light shows as very, very bright, bright enough to burn the eyelid and cornea leading to blindness (which is not cool when you need to be piloting an aircraft).
It should be common knowledge by now that this is stupid stupid shit. It's only sheer luck that this idiocy hasn't incapacitated a pilot to the point that the aircraft went down.
Take it easy, Charlie, I've got an Angle...
It could be people testing their mosquito killer aiming system.
http://science.slashdot.org/st...
It just has trouble with the optics and keeps targeting aircraft...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
This is interesting. What does pointing a laser at a constellation do for you? And how is it that you can see something 400 light years away, but not a plane with blinking lights at 30,000 feet?
You are welcome on my lawn.
I've been lasered when flying my plane. The beam is big at these long distances, so ti isn't a tiny beam going into your eye, it lights up the cockpit and looks like a very bright point of light. Since your eye focuses the light to a point, lasers can be dangerous at fairly low power levels.
In a plane even if the beam is not damaging it is very distracting, and distraction is a major cause of aircraft accidents. in my case they kept the beam on the plane for many seconds so it was clearly intentional.
Its pretty common - several pilots I've spoken to have been lasered. This is the second time its happened to me.
Most laser pointers are class IIIb laser devices. The class III means not at all eye safe (though it isn't a burn hazard and you don't have to worry about specular reflection from a target other than a mirror.) The b part means that the manufacturers spread some money around to come up with a class of lasers called, "sure it isn't eye safe but really no one is going to shine it directly in their eyes, will they?" But now they are so cheap that people can buy them as if they were toys. What do you think the chances are that some parent will buy a laser pointer for a child (or maybe someone will just carelessly leave it out) -- then the child (thinking it is a toy anyway) will shine it in his eyes just to see what happens. Heck I would be really surprised if this hasn't happened already.
On a side note I would imagine that if the plane were at a very high altitude then it would not be as easy as you may think to shine a laser pointer on any part of the plane (let alone into the cockpit window.) Then again if the plane is at a high altitude then a beam from a common laser pointer will likely expand enough to no longer be that dangerous. I guess this is only a when the plane is very close to the ground almost immediately after a take-off or right before a landing.
If this really continues to be a problem then maybe the government should step in and only allow laser pointers to operate at certain wavelengths. Then Boeing and Airbus can put coatings on their windows to block those wavelengths (turn the cockpit window into a giant set of laser goggles.) Or maybe people can just stop shining laser points at airplanes. Just because something is cheap doesn't mean it is just a toy.
I've got a green laser. It's cool to shine it outside at night, because it creates a very visible beam.
It's also very tempting to shine it at things, to see how far away I can see a reflection. Aircraft a certainly a tempting target, being both moving and fairly far away.
I haven't and won't, because I understand the potential risk, but I do understand the temptation. And there are a lot of stupid people out there.
One thing I never see published is the details about the flights. Certainly if the pilot is near an airport, especially during landing and takeoff, then obviously the perps are engaging in malicious behavior.
However, my math says that the major airports reported in the article received 778 of the 5,352 reported incidents in 2015. I live in a residential area that is quite some distance from any airport. A substantial number of aircraft violate the 1000 foot above ground level FAA minimum for residential neighborhoods. I have tried, many times, to call someone, somewhere, who might give a shit about this very annoying violation and there isn't anyone who will do anything (including just returning a phone call), short of my hiring a PI and a lawyer.
Most disturbing is the helicopters flying what I estimate to be within 200 feet of my house. Although it is a very sturdily built house, the whole thing shakes when the helicopters pass by. Also incredibly annoying is the dip-shit in his WWII fighter plane practicing his tricks, and sometimes just diving and climbing endlessly.
If I were a lesser person, since I cannot appeal to any authority that will take any action, whatsoever, I might choose to take a more violent approach than just thinking of them as total assholes.
Only slightly less assholes are the clueless journos who report the stories. Usually it comes from the establishment wannabes at Ars Technica, where critical thinking flies out the window, though this time it's USA Today, and the story is always the same: Report the huge number of incidents, then mention the slim minority that occur right next to an airport. It sure would be nice to see someone actually analyze this data to give people a better understanding of what might be driving this behavior, as I wouldn't be surprised if just asking pilots to follow the law might result in some unsubstantial quantity of these incidents going away. Of course the real problem with this is that it reveal that pilots are also aggressors, so it isn't in that industry's interests to pursue such ends.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.