[QUOTE=1920s Style “Death Ray”]
I understand that given a choice between cake or death*, most people opt for cake
[/QUOTE]
Yes, but what if your choice is between hump or death?
I have a 5mW green laser, that emits a visible beam at night. I was curious about how bright it actually was, so I enlisted the help of a friend, and had him park his car about 1/2 mile away and then let me shine the beam at him. He said that the beam was blindingly bright, bright enough to make him put his hand up to block the beam. Next task is to find two hills a few miles apart and see how bright it is at that distance.
Its going to be an interesting day if a 20 dollar laser pointer ever takes down an aircraft.
I love the Eddie Izzard Lego videos! Hilarious!
And barely relevant to the OP, but this is a sign posted on the door to a research lab in the Physics building at McGill:
Makes me laugh every time I see it!
[QUOTE=antechinus]
What I cannot understand is how anyone could manage to shine a laser into a pilots eyes through the aircraft window. When landing, doesn’t the aircraft nose block most of the ground vision so that only the runway and beyond is visible to the pilot? Or are they looking down at the ground in front of the runway?
And if the aircraft was banking, then I would expect it would be extremely difficult to follow the plane with a shaky laser pointer from a distance - if they were lucky, the perpetrator may get a quick flash in to the side of the pilots eye.
[/QUOTE]
Don’t forget that one can use optics. Without going into details, some friends and I once cast a bright, well-defined, steady spot of light about 1/4 mile using a telescope and an ordinary flashlight.
For some reason, I’m recalling an Arthur C. Clarke book named Earthlight.
[QUOTE=1920s Style “Death Ray”]
A YouTube video of an approach taken from the cockpit. Bear in mind that the person videoing is probably sitting in the jumpseat a little aft of the pilot’s seats. The pilots would have better visibility over the nose than the camera.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=1920s Style “Death Ray”]
Forward visibility is just fine. You can see miles of ground between the aeroplane and the runway while on approach.
[/QUOTE]
Thats just what I wanted. I had a look at some of the other videos on YouTube of larger aircraft landing from pilots POV. They can all see quite a bit of the ground in front of the runway.
Former airline pilot here …
We have a fantastic view ahead & downwards as well as to the sides. Yes during approach the airplane is a bit nose-up, but we can see over the nose to the ground well short of the runway. The various videos out on the 'net taken from jump seats show only a small fraction of our field of view, both due to the location of the camera, and the inherently narrow FOV of cameras compared to swivelling eyes mounted in heads mounted on swivelling necks.
A wimpy laser can really trash your eyesight temporarily, especially at night. “Dazzle” is the current term of art. And you don’t even need to be looking right at it. If I’m looking striahgt ahead & somebody hits the cockpit from, say, 45 degrees off to the side, I’m gonna get dazzled. From 90 degress off it’ll probably rattle around in the cockpit bouncing off the insides of the other windows. That reflection will be less intense but could still pose a problem.
This isn’t funny; somebody’s gonna lose a aircraft over this.
And no, auto-land is not a solution.
[QUOTE=Wee Bairn]
Its going to be an interesting day if a 20 dollar laser pointer ever takes down an aircraft.
[/QUOTE]
That will no doubt be the most expensive $20 ever spent in history!
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto]
These all fall under the skyjacking statutes, and are a federal charge. Throw in a possible terrorism charge on top of it and you’re in for a world of hurt.
And I certainly would think screwing with a passenger jet meets that definition.
[/QUOTE]
Yes but they were only kids playing around,they did’nt know what they were doing.
After all we were all kids once and childhood is so short.
Give them a break for gods sake.
I think that you are taking this much too seriously.
OOer !god forbid that they do anything wrong!
Wheres your sense of humour?
And all of the other stupid mindless sayings that stupid immature people come out with when their kids or other peoples kids who seem very much like their own are caught doing something that is not only antisocial but could have serious consequences.
Because after all its not THEIR kids who break into old age pensioners houses or set fire to parked cars…after all THEIR kids are always so well behaved around them!
I recall a US welder was caught playing with his laser aiming them at planes. When he was arrested he had the amazing presence of mind to blame is daughter.
[Home Simpson Voice]It was the girl, arrest the girl.[/HSV]