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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.
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.
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.
Guess maybe you have only been to one airport in your life and it didn't have buildings that elevate people to the same level as the windows of the pilots or even higher. Not to mention there are cities that have skyscrapers and high buildings not very far from airports. And heaven forbid that maybe some cities have hills by airports. But since you haven't seen that, I guess it doesn't exist.
Be seeing you...
Without accurate information on the exact position and angle of the plane, it's all speculation. All I see is that the incident happened "after takeoff" which doesn't really say much. For instance, the plane could be making a sharp turn some time "after takeoff", exposing a side window to a ground level shooter.
They don't spool up the engines, release the brakes, then yank back on the stick. Jets need quite a bit of runway to get up to speed before they can even tilt a degree off horizontal. A slow moving aircraft moving in a straight line for a mile+ makes for an easy target.
I've been wondering this myself every time I read a story like this. Either it's like you describe, or I just don't know enough about how these lasers interact with planes to understand what's going on.
2th amendment is a USA thing
The plane reported the "incident" 5 or 6 miles after takeoff. So it was already pretty high at that point given the rate of climb. But yes, I agree: although we hear many tales of "laser attacks" on planes, nobody has yet explained to my satisfaction how a hand-held laser can be pointed upwards into a cockpit window of a plane traveling at several hundred MPH and to track it for long enough to dazzle anyone - let alone just one of the two pilots.
I could understand complaints of car drivers being dazzled, since they are much slower, the lasers can be on bridges over the road and would be much closer to the vehicles. But we almost never hear of these incidents (are they so common they don't count as news, or cause accidents - which would be newsworthy) and it only seems to be pilots who are sensitive to this issue.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
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.
It's not like he describes.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
My thinking too. They said it was 13 miles in to it's flight which would rule out anyone in a tall building doing it unless people think jets ascend on a 5 degrees angle. And to be able to hit a window at a distance and hit it long enough to cause vision issues for the pilots? I would think if someone had a laser targeting system that accurate the authorities would have no problem finding them since it would most likely be in a lab for research and most likely an academic institution.
There are plenty of youtube videos.
Just look it up. It's not some kind of conspiracy theory that only ever happens when no one is looking.
nobody has yet explained to my satisfaction how a hand-held laser can be pointed upwards into a cockpit window of a plane traveling at several hundred MPH and to track it for long enough to dazzle anyone
Just how long is "long enough to dazzle anyone"?
let alone just one of the two pilots.
Quite possibly the other one was looking in another direction at the time.
But we almost never hear of these incidents (are they so common they don't count as news, or cause accidents - which would be newsworthy)
Or so uncommon because a) it's not as much "fun" for the perpetrators (no challenge in shining a laser at a car) and b) it'd be way easier to get caught.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The hit doesn't have to be very long to be dazzling, especially if the pilots are flying in the dark and their eyes have become sensitive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
The pilot of an A340 has a view that extends about 20 degrees below the horizon on the tarmac. I haven't been able to find out how steeply they climb, but 747s usually only do about 20 degrees. Please confirm whether or not you pulled that number out of your bum.
I can also exclusively reveal that cockpits have windows that let you look out to the sides, a view which is unaffected by takeoff angle.
Furthermore, planes sometimes execute banking turns shortly after takeoff.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
"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
Below 10,000 ft, airplanes are travelling at less than 250 mph. At takeoff, it's closer to 175 mph for a jet like a 737. At less than a perpendicular angle, the rate of travel across a field of view is less than that. If a person holds their arm out they can point with a lot of precision -- it's a lot easier than tracking an object at the same distance with binoculars. Furthermore, you must consider being at a distance away from the airplane. The greater the distance, the slower the plane is moving and the easier it is to aim at. Pointing straight up is rarely the issue, but if you're a mile away and the plane is on approach at say 2000 ft, that's only a 20 degree angle. Sitting in the cockpit of a 737, a pilot can see the edge of a taxiway -- the vertical field of view out the window is quite good. The lasers involved in these incidents are often much more powerful than a pen laser pointer and are many are strong enough to cause permanent eye damage. Unlike an incandescent bulb, lasers lose very little energy on the way to their targets. It's like those idiots on the highway who blind you with high beams at night, only much worse -- and I've had my night vision temporarily ruined by headlights a couple miles away. Lastly, there are lots of metal bits in a cockpit to reflect the laser, and the windshields are often marked by micro-abrasions from dust and insects, which can cause the whole windshield to glow.
Here is what it looks like from the cockpit. Are pilots bullshitting? Try driving a car down an unlit rural road at night with that in your eyes and report back to us.
A 1 watt laser is enough to flash the ISS. It doesn't take much.
Be relentless!
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.
A strong laser pen apparently can cause trouble from a distanceto the cockpit of up to 20 km at night. In the Netherlands someone has bothered airplanes approaching Schiphol airport from a distance of about 10 km.
Here is a news article in Dutch mentioning those distances. The Google translation to English is here, but it shines to be very good at choosing the wrong meaning when confronted with homonyms.
Soon. There are nanophotonics coatings in the lab that should be able to shift frequencies on demand once the fabrication tech gets figured out.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
That video has HALF the truth there. the first part is real, the second half is faked in a simulator and someone flashing a laser pointer around in the cockpit.
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.
Cause either planes have windows in the floor or they take off upside down now.
You do realize that the pilots have a really good reason to be able to see the ground from where they sit in an airplane, right? Like, to be able to land, to be able to identify landmarks below them, etc. While instrument approaches are really convenient, unfortunately they tend to slow down the rate at which an airport can handle incoming aircraft, It is much faster to clear an aircraft for "the visual approach", which means they have to 1) see the airport, and 2) see ground reference points that may be part of the approach. For example, Mill Visual 28 approach is based on several visual landmarks.
I just done see how a plane at a 45 degree angle or higher at takeoff
Aircraft are not at a 45 degree angle or higher while taking off. During flight they will be at an even lower angle.
Around the cockpit windows. We'll shine one right back at you.
Have gnu, will travel.
Exactly. What matters when it comes to tracking something is the speed at which the angle changes, not the speed at which the object is moving. This is a mistake that a lot of sci-fi writers make, often with painful consequences. Even if the airplane were moving at .9c (nine tenths the speed of light), as long as it was moving straight towards you, you could paint it trivially with any sort of laser, because it would always be at the same angle relative to your position. Its motion towards you would merely cause it to look more blue, and would cause it to rapidly grow in apparent size.
Now to be able to hit the actual window might require a lot of precision, but the reality is that slight motions over such a distance will cause it to jump around anyway, and it only has to hit the window for a moment to cause problems.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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.
By law, there are no tall buildings overlooking the ends of runways. A four-story building would typically have to be almost a quarter mile from the edge of the airport property, by my math, to comply with height regulations.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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.
That's not entirely correct. Look up the Hotel Indigo at the Toronto Pearson airport. The building used to be taller. Then it was purchased by the airport and they lobbed a few floors off the top in order to extend the runway. The planes fly pretty close to overhead. I've stayed there and if memory serves me, the orientation is such that you'd have to catch the planes on approach not departure. Arriving aircraft would probably be an easier target for laser pointers than departing ones since they are pitched downward. Heck if you are at any of the rental car facilities at LAX you can practically wave to the pilots. Hitting the windshield with a laser pointer would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
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.
It is not the problem you think it is. It is easy and fairly cheap to make a narrow band-stop optical filter. http://www.omegafilters.com/ca...
Knocking out a few narrow bands has little effect on the way the world looks.
First sensible post in this topic. At even a mile away hand shake is going to be dancing the beam around a huge area, and it is going to be pretty spread out unless it is something with a large lens and not a handheld laser. (Look up "diffraction limited" if that means nothing to you.) I have a hard time reconciling pilots reports of having their sight "dazzled" or even damaged, with how little power, and for how little time, the beam could have been entering their eye.
Looking at Google Maps, that particular hotel is off to the side from the runway by just a bit. At the end of the runway, the height limits include only the width of the runway and a small margin on either side. The farther away you get, the farther out the height limits spread, and the taller the height limits are. So it probably avoids the height limits because it isn't actually in the flight path.
With that said, if the runway got extended later, it is also possible that it was simply grandfathered in. :-)
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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
"...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.
This is a solved problem.
Pilots should wear laser safety glasses, or the wind shields should have LCD shutters.
Sounds safe...
dark glasses or auto darkening windows would just guarantee the pilots cant see the runway.
They may not be temporarily blinded but if the laser keeps the windhsield dark they still can't see the runway!
This may not be the answer, but a friend of mine did some work on a FLIR system, which would throw up an image of the exterior, properly sized and registered, on the inside of the glass during such times when you couldn't see out the windows. It was designed for heavy fog, but maybe there are other uses.
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.
"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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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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Half of the video was fully zoomed in on a nearby source yet still not impressive
What's "not impressive" supposed to mean? Are you "not impressed" because a video on the internet of a laser didn't temporarily blind you in the same way the actual laser would have?
the other half was clearly fake as the source was in the cockpit and yet again not very disturbing
Also they just happened to have a camera crew there. What are the chances?! Unless, of course, it was deliberately staged for the purposes of demonstration.
As for "not very disturbing," how about you point a green laser at your one remaining eye and let us know the results.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
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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Yeah, one of the Gulfstream's in our hanger has one. I believe they cost about a million dollars right now. I'm sure the price could come way down if they started selling in volume.
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
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?
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.
It wasn't grandfathered in. It used to be a taller building. The runway got extended but in order to do it, the airport seized it via emnient domain, chopped off the top, and resold it at a loss!
Huh. It was very specifically a Gulfstream he was working on. Maybe we know some people in common?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Who the fuck has a 500mW pointer? That, for one, is not legal to sell, and for two, so now you have a device that big that you can move by hand? Yeahhhhh the bullshit kinda defeats your post.
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.
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.