…and I mean not just that a laser pointer’s beam can reach that far, but that some schmuck like this guy can do it.
I’ve seen online articles from credible news sources suggesting it’s BS. I’ve seen a bunch of others claiming it’s a possibility. Personally, I blogged about it this morning and afternoon and I think it’s bullshit.
Isn’t there some kind of protective thingamajig they could give to pilots if this truly were a problem? Seems to be the thing to do in order to protect against that one in a billion shot that fries the eyes of both pilot and copilot. But instead we’ve got all this horseshit from Homeland Security designed to scare people and justify the existence of HS in the first place.
Anyway, one of the CNN articles I linked to from my blog said there’s no link to terrorism, out of all these little “incidents” the FBI has been investigating.
Please God, if so let it involve JiffyPop.
WAG, he was playing with a laser pointer, maybe even showing to his daughter (or letting his daughter do the pointing), and was picking far off targets to point at, such as a low flying aircraft.
The AP writers and editors, all of them disgruntled Stephen King’s and Tom Clancy’s with half than less the skill (and I’m not saying SK nor TC are skilled), play up a fear-mongering terrorist angle.
While it is possible it was a store-bought pointer, I’d be very surprised if that is true. I would think that the readily-available cheap pointers would have too much diffusion at that distance. But what do I know, anyway.
No cites, as I heard this discussed on NPR, but I can’t remember which program.
They addressed some of the doubts expessed here as to how realistic it is for terrorists to use lasers in a terroristic fasion.
The FBI was particularly worried about this precisely because both it had been reported several times in late 2004 and because it seems so improbable – unless the people got hold of military lasers designed to blind pilots in combat (called dazzlers). They did not say how dazzlers work, but a high-powered dispersed or wiggling beam would do just that.
IIRC, the gov’t suspects many of these were made by Russia, and there’s no guarantee that they are all still held by the Russian millitary.
They also said that the easiest time to hit a pilot’s eye would be when the plane is nosing down toward the runway – which is also one of the two most critical times during the airplane’s flight.
Your own thinkgeek cite disproves it’s possible, at least with that “class 3” laser. It only has a range of 2.6 KM.
Now, if you were to use a much stronger exotic laser it might be possible but it would never be hand held, and would have to, at the minimal, require a tri-pod with some serious computer assisted hydraulic targetting because aiming a 100 lbs laser would be rather hard.
I vote more fear mongering of the clueless public.
Not sure where the 2.6km fits in. Laser light travels forever, and I’d bet you could readily discern the source if you looked at it from that distance, even if it had dispersed enough for it not to be visible hitting something. My 2$ red laser pointer can’t make a dot at great distances, but you can still look at it and see it glowing. A (much more expensive and higher classed) green laser would go much furthur.
Regardless, the pilot made a report, the guy was found, ergo, the laser was a visible distraction at that distance.
Please, lieu. Cut it out before you give Hollywood some bad ideas. Like a Real Genius/Die Hard crossover movie.
I think there’s a bigger chance of bringing down a plane with a potato gun.
My brother was bored a lot as a kid. One summer night, he decided to dress up a dummy in my dad’s clothes, run a long clothes line around its neck, and hang it from a tree. When a motorist would approach, he’d dropped the dummy down in front of their car. As you can well imagine, hilarity ensued.
One driver did not get the joke. In fact, she was so freaked out by the unexpected fright that after driving a quarter of a mile or so, she reversed her car, much to my brother’s dismay. She parked her car, grabbed the dummy off the street, and proceeded to go door to door through the neighborhood until she found the guilty party. My dad recognized his flannel shirt and that was my brother’s downfall.
Thirty something years later, my brother is still technically grounded. Why? The dummy itself was harmless. What my brother didn’t consider was that people do funny things when they panic. She could have swerved and hit a tree. She could have run up on a sidewalk and hit him or someone else. She could have had an asthma or panic attack.
The dude in the OP should be grounded for at least 3 months for doing something so recklessly stupid.
Check out www.wickedlasers.com ! They have green lasers rated at 50mw, class3B. They claim a range of 20 MILES. And it only weighs 76 grams.
Their pictures are impressive.
A lot of amateur astronomers will be watching this issue carefully - those green laser pointers are great for pointing out stars in the sky. (Obviously you don’t get a dot on the sky next to the star, but there’s usually enough dust and vapor in the air that you can see the beam point right to the spot in the sky you want to point out.)
You naysayers speak as if the standard 5mW pointers are the only lasers available on the market. I suspect that your average laser show uses units that are far more powerful than that, in packages that are more than portable enough to fit in a van. I saw a 180mW unit online that looked no bigger than a VCR and that was cheap enough to buy 10 of, if you really wanted to.
You think it’s impossible? Nobody thought 9/11 was possible before they did it, and we even had a pilot deliberately crash his own passenger plane long before the attack. Now we have some doofus shining a laser pointer at a plane (and helicopter) successfully and you still think that it’s impossible for a determined criminal to do the same thing with a more powerful laser?
As if it even would be difficult to aim a 100lb laser without assistance. Hint, you balance the laser on your tripod. Or, you could spend a few grand on an astronomy tripod that’s rated for over 100lb and comes WITH aiming servos. Found that one by googling “100 lb rated tripod” the terrorists would never think of THAT.
I’m not saying it’s going to happen, or even that anyone is considering it, but if you think it’s impossible, you lack imagination.
Cheesesteak, I’m going to be gentle, because I see from your location that you live in my old 'hood…
Say you’re able to get one of these tripods with aiming servos and one of these lasers with a range of 20 miles. You’ve still got to aim the thing at a target that’s moving 150 MPH. And the target has to be far enough away for the laser to have a clean line of sight to the aircraft window, (see adam yax’s post) yet close enough to be within range of the laser. On top of that, you’ve got to be able to have enough accuracy to not only penetrate the window, but to hit Captain Oveur in his eye. Then you’ve got to nail Co-Pilot Roger Murdock right in the eye as well. This all has to occur during a take-off or landing without instruments for there to be any realistic chance of a crash.
It’s not like you can tell your fancy tripod “Aim at that moving plane over there” and it will comply. I’m sure someone with an understanding of how the servos and aiming software work could program something to make that happen, but would you spend that kind of money and time to have a remote chance at maybe crashing a plane when it would probably be easier to spend your money and time on something a bit more realistic? (You could likely spend “a few grand” on some sort of black market weapon with a lot more potential to cause harm.)
Yes, you’re right. It could happen. But the chances are so remote it’s probably not a viable strategy for anyone looking to take down a plane.
Red laser pointers (the keychain kind) are typically made to give you a point 2-300 feet away, at best.
The green laser pointers I’ve seen, on the other hand, are made to give you a light point up to 10 miles away. They’re more powerful, more coherent, and closer to the middle of the eye’s visible color range. I can see them temporarily blinding a pilot.
I got this info off the laser pointers’ packages. Can’t vouch for it myself.
As to how, haven’t you ever sat on a hill or overpass near an airport’s runway? You have a whole slew of lined up planes low enough that for a direct line into the cockpit with a laser. Each is probably in the 10-mile range for at least a full minute. They may be moving over the ground fast, but their relative motion (relative to your line of sight) is virtually nil. And, depending on your angle, you might well be able to see the laser point reflecting off the cockpit window, hence improving your aim.
Not that I think it’d be a prime technique for terrorists, more for the random assholes who thinking dropping things onto traffic from overpasses is funny.
mischievous,
(Who hasn’t ever tryed this and so may be missing some critical info.)
(Homer Simpson) ‘It was the girl, arrest the girl.’ (/Homer Simpson)
I’m running on the fact that some loser with his daughter managed to do it twice with a hand held green laser pointer. This is undenyable fact. A person with a low power hand held pointer hit a plane in the cockpit window as it was landing, and he had no intention of attempting to blind anyone or disrupt the landing in any way.
Rack up the power of the laser by 20x, set the “light show” laser up to throw a small spread of laser light, set it on a sturdy tripod and you can absolutely hit a cockpit just as he’s getting ready to touch down. The servo controlled tripod is probably not the right technology, I’d bet that manual control would work just fine.
Arguments about the feasability were reasonable before this guy proved, without a doubt, that hitting aircraft with a laser is not a difficult task.
I don’t know a lot about the technology; but 10 miles!? Are you serious? Why would a commoner need, or have access to, a 10 mile laser?
www.wickedlasers.com and a credit card. That takes care of the access.
As to need, folks buy lots of things that they don’t “need”. And who determines need anyway? You, or some government functionary?
These are commonly used at starparties to point out stars and such. According to the webpage they apparently can be used to deter bird flocks from congregating where they are not wanted.
Even IF this were as easy and practical as you make it out to be, what is it going to accomplish? You’re not suggesting that commercial pilots manually land passenger planes, are you? As for smaller private planes, well, I think Al Qaeda probably (I’m just going by 9/11 here…) has bigger fish to fry.
The guy shining lasers at airplanes is indeed an idiot, and should probably get a slap on the wrist and have his lasers taken away, but I heard on the radio this morning that he’s facing twenty years in prison. That just blows my fucking mind.