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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."
They don't HAVE to no, but you really don't want your pilots sitting there pressing a couple of buttons and only getting actual hands on feel with the controls during emergencies. You need the pilots to actually interact with the plane regularly to keep them useful for when those things the autopilot actually cannot cope with arise.
Unfortunately, this doesn't solve the problem of night-blindness. I've talked to pilots of police helicopters that have had green laser pointers shot into their cockpits, ruining their night vision while flying low-level in search of a suspect in areas filled with high-tension power wires (which are so good at taking out helicopters that most have large wire cutters above and below the windshield to give a chance at survival). That's straight-up attempted murder.
I still maintain that if a $5 cat toy
If you think that the lasers being used to do this are $5 cat toys, you are ignorant. It is disingenuous at best to pretend that the problem is $5 cat toys.
then the aircraft itself is deeply flawed
Yeah, because having a large machine operated by a human being who needs eyesight to do it safely is such a flawed concept.
Of course, despite all the whinging, there's never been a documented case of that it actually happening.
You are posting in a discussion about a documented case of it happening.
The problem is that the possibility of being caught is near zero so any small thrill is enough of an incentive. The challenge of hitting an aircraft with a laser is enough of a thrill for some people and yes they are assholes. No matter how big the fine there will still be people who believe they will never get caught.
Another issue is that you are assuming people use valid risk assessment before doing things. For many people that is a false assumption as in "Hey Bubba, hold my beer and watch this."
Bingo. Deterrent effect is maximized by swiftness and certainty of punishment. Severity of punishment, as an independent variable, is not an effective knob to turn up deterrence**.
That is not only Just How Humans Work(TM), but is also borne out by plenty of studies (both short term "psych" studies, and long term sociological studies of criminal behavior). Regardless of how achievable this is in practice, the theory is pretty cut and dry: you'd be far better served by a program that upped the catch rate from 5% to 75% and gave everyone a £200 fine due in a week, than leaving the catch rate at 5% and raising the fine to £20,000.
**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.
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