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UK Pilots' Union Calls For Laser Pointers To Be Classed As Offensive Weapons (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The body that represents airline pilots in the UK has called for handheld laser pointers to be classed as offensive weapons, after a Virgin Atlantic flight to the U.S. was forced to return to Heathrow when its co-pilot was dazzled by a laser during takeoff. The British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa) said aircraft were being "attacked" by the devices "at an alarming rate and with lasers with ever-increasing strength." It said the problem was becoming "more and more urgent."
how about instead, equip planes with a return-fire laser? one that, say, would melt granite at 3 miles? you'll stop repeat offenders dead in their tracks, so to speak. much cheaper and more effective.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Let the autopilot handle Take-Offs & Landings
I come here for the love
but I did not complain, because guns are scary!
Then they came for our knives, but I did not complain, because knives are scary!
Then they came for our laser pointers, but I did not complain, because they had the only guns and knives. Now they can take anything they want with impunity.
I have to imagine there are a bunch of existing laws that make this a serious offense. Just find the people that do this and come down hard on them. Then you can leave everyone else alone.
I know this is the UK, but why isn't this a regulation like the FAA height and drone limitations near airports? We don't need to take away the devices, we need to deal appropriately with where they can, and in this case, cannot be used.
They banned them here in Australia over a decade ago after a number of incidents of people using them against planes. One such incident was my brother, still remember that night as federal police turned up to our property to find the offender that caused a plane to do an emergency aborted landing, while they let him off with a warning my parents certainly didn't.
Could they apply some kind of filtration film to the inside of cockpit windscreens to block or at least mute the fairly narrow spectrum green lasers use?
I'm only a laser expert to the extent I read the wikipedia laser pointer page, so maybe this doesn't work. I guess I wouldn't expect it to be completely effective, but maybe enough to limit the risk to pilot vision?
I don't think it's practical to get rid of lasers capable of being used to harass pilots. There are too many products with lasers in them and too many applications for handheld lasers for that to work.
Could a windshield be designed with polarization that mitigates the laser? If the problem of laser usage can't be avoided, maybe its effect can be mitigated through technology.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Why can't they just add a tint/film to the windows to filter out the light frequencies used in laser pointers? Or have them wear glasses on take off and landing?
... drive my cat nuts with a red dot that cannot be caught?
can anyone explain why you'd buy a laser, not cheap, and then figure out how to point it at airplanes ?
some folks have too much time on their hands
If lasers are outlawed, only outlaws will have lasers.
Lasers don't kill people, people kill people.
etc., etc., etc.
So you're saying someone was level with the plane on the runway right? Cause either planes have windows in the floor or they take off upside down now. I just done see how a plane at a 45 degree angle or higher at takeoff gets a laser shot through the pilots window.
If someone takes a wrench to somehow fiddle with the plane before it takes off causing them to perform an emergency landing, would they classify the wrench as an offensive weapon? or arrest the guy for reckless endangerment or something like that
Here are a couple of problems with that.
1. It is difficult to find the suspect as they could be in a few square mile area.
2. The damage has already been done so prosecution may not help the victims.
Many people will risk the consequences if the probability of getting caught is low enough.
Yet again, idiots armed with 'weapondry' they have no business having ruin it for the rest of the laser enthusiasts.
So, no more laser sighting. No more hobbyist access to lasers of any significant power. All because some idiots don't understand how dangerous these devices can be when aimed at the cockpit of an oncoming plane.
Fucking pisses me off that people can be so damned irresponsible.
2th amendment is a USA thing
These laser pointers are being used by a relatively small number of idiots/criminals, but being used by many for legitimate uses. They're fantastic for astronomy - many amateur astronomers use them to point out stars, constellations, nebulae, etc.
They're a great tool for astronomy education and outreach and that use is far more common than the criminal ones.
Pilots cost way too much for what they do. Now that 1cm-accurate GPS is on the verge of mass deployment, pilots will start seeing the writing in the wall.
"Something is being used in a bad way! BAN IT!"
I always wondered why stars twinkled, turns out it's astronomy instructors briefly illuminating them with lasers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I am certain that it is a total accident that the star(toronto newspaper) ran a story today about how incedents of laser"attacks" on plans at person airport are at an all time high, total coincidence...
Why don't we start a war on stupidity and make a law where you can legally slap the shit out of idiots that would shine a laser pointer at an airplane...
You see someone stupid enough to do that, just walk up to them and start slapping. It's your Civic duty.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I wonder if anyone on balpa's board has any stock in a laser pointing company. Faux-paranoia about Obama "coming for your guns" has been known to drive up the sales of guns, so I'm just wonder who benefits. Otherwise, all this nonsense for such a rarely occurring thing is just retarded. I'd also want to know if the number of incidents go up whenever these type of things are reported on.
1. Have a failed medical coming up due to worsening eye problems (Is that you, Andreas Lubitz ?)
2. Pretend to have suffered eye damage in flight caused by lasers
3. Profit by collecting insurance.
Since at least two pilots recently committed suicide taking their passengers with them, it should be clear that an airline pilot is just another human being, equally capable of exaggerating, fantasizing and lying as the best of us.
Around the cockpit windows. We'll shine one right back at you.
Have gnu, will travel.
Putting a lens on typical lasers that would make them lose their punch after a few hundred yards without making them useless for typical business-presentation uses would cut down on spur-of-the-moment "hey buddy, I'm bored, let's see if we can light up that plane with our laser pointer" scenarios.
Yes, you will always have people who will go to the effort to remove the lens or buy a laser that is designed for other purposes than being a "presentation-grade laser pointer" but most people won't have those just lying around the house and, thanks to the much-smaller-market for such things compared to "presentation-grade laser pointers," most office-supply stores and big-box retail stores won't carry them in-store.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
BIG NEWS GUYS. I just found out that fecal matter applied to the cornea can cause permanent blindness! We need to band together to defeat the skidmark terrorists - ban SHIT from our aircraft. Ban toilets too because they can be used to surreptitiously remove shit from concealed pockets called ANUSES.
And please ban anuses too, because they pass bad laws, crowd up the DC housing market and mar the whiteness of our White House.
Worldwide number of planes downed by laser pointers to date: 0
Worldwide number of planes downed by duct tape left over the pitot tube: 1 (AeroPeru 603 - 70 fatalities)
Hmm maybe we should ban duct tape instead.
A dichroic reflector has the opposite behaviour to the narrow band-pass dichroic filter therefore a stack of dichroic reflectors can block the limited number of spectral bands covered by the majority of commercially available solid-state lasers. If these layers are also electro reflective they are only active when switched on (or off) therefore their use can be limited to altitudes and locations of maximum risk.
This solution is 100% effective for common laser pointers whereas a ban will be as useless as a ban on pointy objects to stop stabbings. Sociopaths and fools will always find a way to get hold of such technology, particularly when the active part is so small and easily concealed.
I'm sure the Boeing YAL-1 is suitably equipped to deal with the criminals pointing lasers at aircraft.
This is a solved problem.
Pilots should wear laser safety glasses, or the wind shields should have LCD shutters.
Using lasers to blind individuals is a violation of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons signed by 105 countries including the United States and the United Kingdom. So I suppose from a legal philosophy perspective, calling the use of lasers to interfere with a person's vision an offensive weapon isn't that big of a stretch.
And cordon off the whole damn place from the rest of the civilized world. Seriously, who needs the limeys: ineducated, stupid, boorish bunch of thugs. The only things allowed there are to get drunk, beat up random people and pass out in the street after throwing up on everybody. That and raping kids if you're a VIP. Stop the UK from polluting evolved societies with its "ban-everything-in-the-name-of-blair-the-great" crap. Those clowns fawn over every MP they elect like they're some demigod or whatever,
Gee, I wonder why the moderators didn't like this?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Oh, fuck off pilots... Next you'll be wanting to classify UAVs as offensive weapons...
Oh wait...
"...and over here, we handle the contingency where the number of members exceeds..."
"Police! Drop the laser pointer! On your knees!"
"I'm teaching a *class*!"
"Sir, you're holding an offensive weapon! Drop it and get on your knees or I will shoot!"
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Not to mention that laser pointers are so common they've been given away as free tokens at trade shows for years. They're built into some commercial remotes. They're sold as cat toys.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Nobody needs laser pointers that strong. Still everybody can buy them and they are everywhere in normal shops. Bored men and kids only do bullshit with them. They are not toys and very dangerous to all people in a large radius.
"If you think that the lasers being used to do this are $5 cat toys,"
Aliexpress has battery-powered hand-held green laser "pointers" up to 500 mW for prices under $10. For $5 you get something that isn't a cat toy but that can surely severely dazzle a pilot.
http://m.aliexpress.com/w/whol...
Numbers for context: if more than 5 mW enters the eye, there is a good chance for damage before you can blink. A car using the high beams (100,000 cd) from 100 m distance has about 1 micro-W of visible light entering your eye. At 500 m distance, the 500-mW laser has a spot size of 20 cm (8 in) with up to 0.6 mW in the eye . There is little risk for eye injury, but imagine getting dazzled by a few hundred cars that are pointing the high beams at you. Even if it's not a direct hit on the eye, it's like someone switches on a 200-lumen light on in the cockpit while the pilot is trying to see the landing strip.
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offensive weapon... give me a @#â&ing break. This is the security state minions pushing the agenda. having pilots in the family I can surely say this is government inc pushing and nothing else... jeez
By that definition, any blunt, heavy object is an offensive weapon.
What matters is what the primary purpose for such an object is.
The primary purpose of a laser pointer is to drive cats insane.
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I cycle a lot and in the last coupe of years, bicycle rear lights have been getting way too bright and they f**kin flash on and off that nasty brightness just to piss you off that extra bit. I don't need to see your fkkin bike light from 2 miles away you tw@ts. Please class these in the same league as nuclear weapons.
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One of the big airline or aircraft companies did a video of how bad it is. Though they did state that they'd had to make the laser pointer hit the cockpit for 50 times as long as realistically possible with a hand-held laser. Even so, if that level of light was really a problem, bicycle lights would be outlawed years ago.
Oh sure, somebody is going to say "but video can't capture the reality of what it is". This was a video aimed at making people stop pointing lasers at planes. You DON'T make such a video showing it to be less severe than it really is, if anything you make it to look more severe (for example 50 times more severe, as mentioned above). You can scream all you want, you are not going to convince anyone that an airline company would release a video that makes this seem less severe.
Conclusion: This is about lawmakers panicking whenever aircraft are mentioned (especially after 9/11), not the actual risks of lasers and bicycle lights.
This army helicopter is lit up by 1000s of lasers, and keeps flying. Are the pilots in the article winers? Or maybe they are just afraid that laser light is dangerous? As a pilot, I find the sun or moon much more annoying than any lasers have ever been. Certainly much less intense than the sun.
https://youtu.be/zAfagq8PjpM?t...
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
If we are going to become a civilized society, we must immediately BAN EVERYTHING that could conceivably be used as an offensive weapon!
WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!?!?!?
A lock knife is the best kind of pocket knife. I have small 2" knife. Perfectly safe. I have a scare on my finger from a non locking knife. It folded as I was doing a class project. Cut to the knuckle, but there wasn't enough skin for stitches.
Then they came for our laser pointers, but I did not complain, because they had the only guns and knives.
This means we still have our laser guided, air to surface missiles. If so perhaps there is a simple solution to this problem...
Gee, I wonder why the moderators didn't like this?
Because it would work?
FWIW, a sufficiently severe punishment can, in the aggregate, act as a deterrent. The problem is, due to proportionality and cruelty concerns, the level of punishment may be higher than we're willing to stomach in a Western democracy.
"Behold! The hand that offendeth by holding a laser pointer toward the heavens shall, with a dull rusted blade, be smitten off, for I am the Lord thy God."
Laser pointers in general are mostly used for pointing at whiteboards and screens, so if you're going to "classify" them as anything, they should be classified as office supplies. Somewhat less often they're used as toys, so if you have to classify them as two things, they're office supplies and toys. Rarely, they're used to harass people. While those using them to harass pilots SHOULD be summarily thrown under the wheels of justice, that doesn't mean the pointers magically became something new.
Yeah, it's a rather curious law - and not explicitly written either as far as I know.
I have a Leatherman Charge TTI in my work bag and that locks all its tools in place, including multiple blades. I checked with a magistrate and she was very relaxed about it.
If it was a black anodised tactical flick knife with a skull motif then her guidance may have been different.
Wont stop the police trying to fuck me over if they feel like it though, but I've also carried a 7" blade in a sheath on my belt before while chatting to policemen; it's always down to context.
Friends and I discussed this on an online forum long ago when this problem first began. We all knew that assholes will not cease being assholes, and it wasn't going to go away. I submitted the concept of a "laser-guided" anti-laser missile, one that would ride the beam back to the transmitter. Or now, a constantly orbiting drone with an onboard sniper rifle. Fire back at the source of the laser .. and screw the collateral damage.
Firstly: the lasers being used are 500mw+ devices -t eh kind which can pop balloons - they're not legally on sale in the UK, but are widespread. One was used from a nearby park against my house, resulting in the window going opaque green and the room lighting up more than adequately to read a book.
Secondly: They don't just flashblind. I've been lased whilst driving, It HURTS - and I observed other drivers lased on the same piece of road swerve when hit. This has higher potential to kill or injure than a pilot hit whilst autolanding (or taking off)
Thirdly: As above - the fuckwits doing this are also lasing cars and trains.
Enforcement is _hard_ - the worst offenders simply find a pub when the police helicoptor shows up and go inside. The ones where people are caught are almost always someone staggeringly naive. (There's a particular block of flats in Edinburgh which is infamous for lasing incidents - again, whilst there have been many police raids noone has ever been caught, let alone convicted.
Offensive weapon laws in the UK are used for public posession, but the real problem is that the penalties for endangering transport aren't severe enough or enforced enough. There's a need for mandatory minimum sentences to make sure judges don't make the offence a minor one (which is what's been happening). These same penalties could also be used to deal with the UK's epidemic of copper theft - by putting 15 year penalties on interfering with railway safety systems it'd discourage the thieves in a way that a large fine won't.
Install a system on a plane (several sensors) which will calculate (triangulate) the attack position and return fire. If you shoot at a cop, he will shoot back.
Isn't there some kind of technical solution that could be brought to bear?
Maybe a pilot's window that darkens automatically when hit with a laser, like the ones welders use.
Or, a honking great laser built into the cockpit that shoots right back, vaporizing the asshole with the laser pointer.
it must be possible, set a prize fund for the solution.