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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 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.
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.
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...
IIRC, a Cat. 3 ILS will bring the aircraft down to 150 ft. After that, the touchdown itself is still up to the pilot. Additionally, there is a good deal of preliminary work for the pilot to set up an instrument approach. But the equipment is expensive and not all runways are properly equipped. Also, equipment, both on the ground and the aircraft, can break; usually at the worst time. So the pilot still needs to be able to do a manual landing in any case. And that takes practice to stay proficient.
Imagine all the people...
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.
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 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.
Nothing posted to
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.