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UK Pilots' Union Calls For Laser Pointers To Be Classed As Offensive Weapons (theguardian.com)

Posted by timothy on from the if-awesome-toys-are-outlawed dept.

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."

3 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. banned here already by bloodhawk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  2. Could they filter most common wavelengths? by swb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:Could they filter most common wavelengths? by tlambert · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This won't work. First, it won't work because green lasers are right in the middle of the visual spectrum, and a bandstop filter for this would not only be really hard, it would distort vision in general.

      Old news. Dr. Nicholas Perricone already solved this problem. The glasses cost $400 a pair.

      I can also think of about three ways to stop the coherent light with coatings and geometry, while letting non-coherent light through (but I've been thinking about these things since 1976, since I first suggested to the U.S. Air Force that lasers would make a great aerial active denial system, and did a test implementation.

      The conversation started like this (with an Air Force bird colonel):

      Me: "What's the most vulnerable part of any military aircraft?"
      Him: "That would be the control surfaces."
      Me: "Nope. It's the pilot's eyes."

      I got a lot of visits after that.