Neither the airlines, or their pilots ever asked for the ban on electronic devices during taxi, takeoff, approach and landing - it was imposed on them and they can be fined if they do not enforce it - the captain himself doesn’t give a rat’s ass if you have a laptop full of electronics going off full tilt - they won’t affect him in the least.
As far as cell phones, airlines don’t want you to use them (assuming they even work) because they want to gouge you for the use of the air to air phones which they charge a king’s ransom for you to use.
And you entirely missed MY argument, which is that it is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS if someone on the plane wants to use an electronic device - that is up to the air waitresses (oops…flight attendants) to supervise. Let me ask you something, mommy…do you seek to enforce every law you ever see broken? Do you chase speeders down? People who don’t signal their turns? No…you don’t…you leave that to the people who are authorized to enforce it. So get your nose out of others’ business and go back to trying to think of something worthwhile to say - you obviously haven’t succeeded.
dhanson: Yes, I agree fully that many devices produce EMI, sometime very large levels of EMI. I respectfully question as to whether or not most of these, or any of these devices can emit enough EMI in frequencies that affect avionics. If cruise altitude allows time for correction of potential problems (paraphrasing your post) then why are cell phones and GPS’s banned throughout the entire flight? Can not the expected problems from these devices be corrected as well? According to my GPS’s manufacturer, it produces almost no EMI at all - or according to them, certainly much much less than a notebook PC.
RussellM: I respectfully submit that one can not simply extrapolate from the conditions of having a mobile phone next to a monitor causing interference, to operating a mobile phone on a plane causing a loss of instrumentation or control. I wonder why notebook PC’s are acceptable during flight, since they seem to put out much more interference than a phone, or certainly a GPS does.
Johnny L.A.: I do not advocate disobeying the orders of the captain regardless of how inane or silly they may seem. I question whether the restrictions for electronic devices are based on actual repeatable, verifiable evidence, or are meant to serve another purpose.
Sam Stone: See above. I could be argumentative, and say that the pilot does NOT have the final authority in all matters (he cannot, for example, order your wife to have sex with him in the cockpit, although I have been personally told by a TWA pilot that if they did so, you would face Federal charges if you refused - right). Except for extreme, unrealistic circumstances you are correct - the pilot should and does have authority over the safety of the plane.
If the devices are as dangerous as we are led to believe, then they certainly have no place on a plane. Period. I personally refuse to put the plane and it’s other passengers at risk, never mind myself. I simply am questioning whether or not there is any real science behind saying “you can use it above x many feet, but it’s a danger below x many feet”, or “this device produces large amounts of EMI but is OK, while this device produces very little EMI but is banned”.
I’ve tried to keep this issue completely seperate from my hatred of the airlines in general. Perhaps I have failed.
Avionics in an airplane operate at frequencies right around 100-150 mhz (depending on the particular radio or nav-aid we’re talking about). This is right next to the FM spectrum. The 3rd harmonic of the CB radio spectrum drops right into the navaid frequency spectrum. Plenty of electronics like TV’s have local oscillators which could generate harmonics in those ranges.
That said, I’ve personally never heard of a case of a navigation error being made because of personal electronics aboard an aircraft. But I gave you the Straight Dope on these regs earlier - the FAA does not like to introduce unknowns into the environment of aircraft in flight. Therefore, if they can’t test it, they’ll do the next best thing and just ban it. In this case, they’re trying to strike a reasonable balance between potential safety problems and the convenience of the passengers. Rather than have to search everyone for these devices and demand that they not be allowed onboard, they ask you to be REASONABLE and just wait for a couple of minutes during the most critical phases of flight. If we get too many airmchair lawyers fighting this reg, you may wind up losing the ability to use them at all.
Cheer up - you could be an aircraft owner. We suffer under the heavy hand of useless regulations every day. You haven’t lived until you’ve received a mandatory inspection notice that costs you $5,000, simply because some regulator got his panties in a bunch and had a ligitation-terrified manufacturer demand that the government DO SOMETHING about a problem that doesn’t exist (but which covers the ass of said manufacturer in case of a future lawsuit).
Ah. dhanson’s comment triggered off a rusty synapse.
The FAA’s position on electronics in flight is consistent with their position on every other aspect of aircraft design and operation. You don’t get to do whatever isn’t banned. You have to show through design and testing why what you want to do will end up with a safe airplane. If you want to build a wing spar you have to document it to the hilt and then break a couple for them.
That is completely opposite from most of the laws that regular civilians run into in this country. Everywhere else, we are very specifically allowed to do anything that is not banned. It’s one of those basic freedom things. People are so used to it that they spring a leak when they run into something else.
It is a system of thought that is heavy handed but perfectly legal and applies in big time life safety situations. I used to run into this kind of stuff all the time at the last nuke plant I worked at.
If I remember correctly the OP was about Mojo’s fervent desire to strongarm fellow passengers into turning off their electronic devices. If he is so averse to their use of this equipment all he has to do is notify an air waitress (oops…there I go again, I mean flight attendant) who is responsible for enforcement of this rule.
I rather suspect that Mojo suffers from a nanny complex and wishes to control the behavior of those around him. Pity for him, and pity for us if he works for the U.S. government.
Just what in the HELL are you trying to say? To say that your post is incoherent is an enormous understatement. Stay off the mushrooms if you’re going to post here.
What I think is funny about this thread is the people who complain that the airline/government/pilot/evil steward(ess) people make them turn off their electronic equipment for a whole twenty minutes offer the argument that “Well, if they’re so dangerous, they shouldn’t be allowed onboard at all!” Yeah, I can see that going over well. Come on, people! If airlines made you check your laptops, you’d be the first ones in line to complain. So don’t offer an alternative you’re not willing to take. Plus, guess what? No one’s forcing you to get on that airplane. People had travelled the world over before the advent of the airplane, and if all planes disappeared tomorrow, people would still travel the world. What’s that you say? Air travel is faster? Then put up with the rules, whether you think they’re needless or not.
“Give a man a fire and he’s warm for a day, but set fire to him and he’s warm for the rest of his life.”
You are completely missing the point. The point of the OP was that Mojo wants to find a way to compel compliance with a statute of at best arguable standing. I for one find it VERY troubling that he seeks to take it upon himself to enforce that rule upon others by hook or by crook.
Also, the rule itself is exceptionally dubious, as it has never been demonstrated, not even INCONCLUSIVELY, that any portable electronic device has EVER caused interference with an onboard aircraft system. Your idea, that any rule, if it is supposedly there for your safety is somehow valid, to me is spurious at best. Many flagrantly unconstititutional and intrusive laws have been enacted in the name of public safety. Mindless compliance with inane and pointless laws is NOT the hallmark of a free society, it’s the hallmark of a society beaten down by oppression.
No, my friend. I and others who agree with me object to rules and regulations which sound suspiciously like “junk science”, seem arbitrary and unenforceable, and which do not seem to attack any of the real problems of airline safety. I am not arguing the loss of convenience resulting from the use of the item. Based on the known and long-standing pattern of secrets, lies, and disinformation distributed by the air carrier industry and the FAA, I do not so easily accept their contentions of danger.
Please don’t decide for me what offer I would take or not. Please read my previous posts, where I said “I personally refuse to put the plane and it’s other passengers at risk, never mind myself. I simply am questioning whether or not there is any real science behind saying ‘you can use it above x many feet, but it’s a danger below x many feet’, or ‘this device produces large amounts of EMI but is OK, while this device produces very little EMI but is banned.’”
I don’t know what was difficult to understand about those sentences. If it was shown that there was any risk from having the laptop on during the flight, I would either not bring it, or check it.
I follow all of the rules, and don’t you even try to suggest that I don’t. But I will, by God, question rules that are, as I said before, sound suspiciously like “junk science”, seem arbitrary and unenforceable, and which do not seem to attack any of the real problems of airline safety.
The truly sad thing is, some of the problems of safety are solvable, but there seems to be no will to do so:
The airlines and FAA do everything but strip-search you before getting on the plane, but allow baggage handlers to steal bags, place unauthorized bags on planes, break into bags, etc. So there is no real concern for safety there.
The airlines and FAA both complain about the inconvenience and “safety” issues of so many passengers bringing their bags as carry-ons, rather than checking them. See point 1. This is fixable - make the baggage area a high-security area.
The airlines complain that they hardly lose luggage at all. According to the US DOT “Air travel Consumer Report”, there were 201,870 mishandled, lost, and stolen bags in January 2000 alone. In other words, this is 5.56 reports per 1000 embarkations. Since an average full US medium-haul jet has about 180 people on it, this is close to one lost, stolen, or broken-into bag per flight. How does a record like that contribute to safety? Shouldn’t this be the focus of safety - making sure that items placed on the plane are intended to be there and unmolested, rather than focusing on something that is not proven to affect safety either way?
4)And they claim that when they do lose or steal your luggage, you can get up to $2500 or so now per piece. People still will bring their carry-on, because this award amount does not cover electronic items of ANY kind, medicine, business documents, money or jewelry, optics, works of art, (quoting Continental’s exclusion list here) etc., etc. It doesn’t even have to cover clothes if they don’t want to. A co-worker of mine had a bag lost with a very expensive suit in it (more than $1500, not counting the Bruno Magli shoes) on a flight last year. It took 5 MONTHS of negotiations with US Air before they said that they simply did not accept the value of the suit, unless he provided a notarized affidavit stating that he had bought the suit and packed it, presented a receipt for the original purchase of the suit, and had a notarized affidavit from one other person “not a business associate or family member” who could attest that the suit was in the bag. He finally gave up.
OK, so this last one probably has little to do with airline safety, except from the aspect of creating a more happy and friendly interaction between the passengers and the representatives of the airline who are all, for better or worse, trapped on the same overcrowded flight together.
About 3 weeks ago, I flew LuftHansa from Düsseldorf to Hamburg and the plane got struck by lightning - quite interesting, by the way, first time I’ve experienced that.
After landing, the captain told us that the flight crew would be running some extra checks on the electronics while taxiing - and that we would do him & the crew a real favor by NOT turning on our cell phones. This wasn’t the usual chant about “no electronics during take-off and landing”, he actually sounded pretty sincere. WAG: Cell phones may not interfere with airplane electronics per se (I’d venture to guess that those are pretty well shielded), but perhaps some of the testing circuits ? Any aircraft engineers out there ?
That sounds like a plausible explaination to me. You also bring up a very interesting point about shileding and EMI in airplanes. When a commercial airplane can withstand a durect hit from lightning, or sometimes several direct hits, and normally keep flying without difficulty, I wonder just how sensitive its electronics can be to interference from a cell phone, laptop, or GPS?
In my dreaded “12 hour non-stop flight from Kansas City to Dallas” the plane was hit by lightning right as it was on final approach. But that is a story for another time.
As to why cell phones are required to be turned off for the duration of the flight rather than just during takeoff/landing, this is what I have heard. It sounds plausible at least.
Cell phones, while turned on, periodically emit “heartbeat” signals so that the system can keep track of what cell you’re in. In order for you to be able to receive a call, the system has to know where you are, so your phone sends out a ping every once in a while and you’re (I suppose) temporarily assigned to a particular antenna.
The problem is that the system was designed to deal with people on the ground, possibly moving around in a car, etc. When you’re in an airplane you’re typically in range of a lot more cell antennas than when you’re on the ground. In addition, you’re moving at ~500mph. What I’ve heard is that this sort of drives your phone & the cell phone system nuts. It causes your phone to switch cells much more frequently than it should. I think the theory is that if you had 100 people with their phones on in an airplane it would wreak havoc on the cell phone system underneath it.
If this is the case, one would hope that the cell phone system would eventually be redesigned to deal with air travel…
There is a phone specifically designed for use in aircraft, but I don’t remember the brand name. And of course, the ones installed currently in aircraft meet FCC regs (but I don’t know if they’re technically cell phones).
Geez, I go away on business for a couple of days and I find I’m accused of being a fascist who mindlessly follows everything I’m told to do and force others to do the same (I drove to Pittsburgh just in case you thought I goose-stepped all the way there or harassed fellow flyers). If you want to have your tray table down during takeoff, fine. If you want to have a scalding hot cup of coffee resting on your genitalia during landing, more power to you- it’ll keep you from having kids as shitheaded as you. BUT WHEN YOUR ACTIONS AFFECT THE SAFETY OF OTHERS, DO WHAT YOU’RE FREAKING TOLD. Did you read the links I provided? Obviously not. Pilots routinely report interference problems and I’m sorry that they don’t risk passenger safety to “conclusively prove” this to you. Why would the pilot on the flight I was on delay landing if it was avoidable? What would you accept as conclusive proof?
I believe we are in complete agreement. Except I perhaps am not so immature about it.
Yes.
?
Yes, I have read your links, and many more which I already knew about. There is very good evidence in them that these devices cause unwanted radio emissions that MAY interfere with the airplane. They also contain many pilot “testimonies” that unfortunately boil down to “the plane went gump, so I blame it on a guy with his CD player”.
Your arguments seem to be stuck in the mode of “shut up and do what you are told”. That was essentially what I said - follow the rules, but I insist one question them as well. Repeat this last sentence, and you will see that we have much common ground. The debate here, however, appears to have shifted to “is there any real desire for increased flight security and safety, or is this junk/mass media science at work”?
No one has to risk passenger safety to conclusively prove anything. Planes, their controls, their electronics, etc are all tested extensively in real-world situations without ever risking a passenger, and you know that. Your entire argument here is thus invalid.
Watch the special on 20/20 lately? Pilots will lie about ANYTHING, and I do mean ANYTHING to avoid telling you the real reason they are delaying a landing - because they, the airline, and the ATC are fucked up. This doesn’t mean of course that that was the case - any more than you can say that the “electronic interference” was the case for the delay. I’m sorry, but at best only the pilot and co-pilot really know the reason for the delay.
OK. Let’s take a case from one of your links. So several passengers refuse to turn off their radios after being told by the pilot (something I NEVER advocated, please pay attention) and the “gyros still failed to operate properly”. That’s pretty serious, folks. That’s pretty DAMN serious. So naturally, after the flight, the FAA tested the plane, and other planes like it, with the same sorts of radios, and found that they would interfere with the gyros. So they published the results of this study, since after all, if it was true it would be a terrible threat to air safety. Then they instituted a ban on even bringing these devices on the plane, since a few guys with radios on in their pockets could completely jeopardize the safety of others.
Oh. I guess they didn’t do that, huh.
Or the case where the pilot reported the guy with the CD player was causing a Signal Generator (SG) failure. read between the lines - this certainly doesn’t make your case at all. Let’s see:
Number of flights he’s probably had where passengers were using CD players (which are LEGAL to use at cruise altitude, thank you!): about 200-300.
Number of times the SG failed (which he reports was “usually at night while up to my armpits in thunderies”): 3. But he didn’t blame the thunderstorms, oh no. No EMI from lightning nearby at all. Nope. Gee, and you said I was shitheaded.
There is no point in continuing posts to this thread, since it is no longer a debate. We agree on the important area, which is follow the rules. Let’s keep that in mind.
This is a guess, but I think the reason portable electronic devices are banned for the lower-altitude segments of flight might be because take-off and landing are critical phases of flight. Say you’re landing through a dense cloud layer. The only way to know where you are is with the ILS (instrument landing system). I’m not an instrument-rated pilot, but the idea is that you have marker beacons (outer, middle and inner) that let you know how close you are. You fly the glideslope with an instrument that has two needles. One needle indicates whether you are above or below the glideslope and the other indicates whether you are left or right of the centerline. When you’re in zero visibility (you generally need a visual on the runway below a certain altitude, but not on descent) at 1,500 feet and 200 knots, it seems a bad idea to introduce a variable that might interfere with the radio navigation signals the aircraft is receiving. Add to the mix that you may have other aircraft near you (LAX has 4 east-west runways), that depend on you to remain “in your own lane”, as it were, and you can see why anything that might mess up the avionics should be turned off.
Okay, this has nothing to do with the above: I remember watching a movie where some people were flying with reference to the compass (I don’t remember why they wern’t using VORs) and a passenger put a tape player on the panel. It affected the compass and they were horribly off-course. I think it was a 70s TV movie called Family Flight. That could happen. Just get a compass and walk around your living room. You don’t have to be too near the TV, computer, a lamp, or metal structure to cause the needle to swing toward it. Any time a new peice of equipment is added to the panel, the compass has to be “swung”. That is, it needs to be adjusted to compensate for the new unit and any deviations need to be noted on the card (yes, you write it in pen on an actual card attached to the compass).
Don’t know much about history.
Don’t know much biology.
Don’t know much about science book.
Don’t know much about the French I took.
What I do know is that if I’m told to turn off my cell phone/assorted electronic gadget by the folks who have my life in their hands, I’m a-gonna do it. No questions asked.
And, since these same people believe in it so strongly, I would be more than happy to assist them in recommending to other passengers that they do the same.
Perhaps I’m thinking a little differently on this than others do, but the way I see it, this is my life we’re talking about here kids. I would have no qualms with taking an electronic item away from a fellow passenger, turning it off, and returning it in suppository form.
I don’t care if you’re about to win that game of freecell, I don’t care how gramma is doing. I don’t care if the stocks are crashing, and you need to get that sell order in.
You’re gonna wait till we’re airborne if you’re sitting by me. Have faith in that.