Note to Aer Lingus fliers: no CD players allowed at all :mad:
I know I must have touched a nerve by posting on this subject but you’re misrepresenting what I said and that’s simply not fair.
The part you “sighed” at and quoted was:
I did not say one word about cell phones in that paragraph you sighed at. I have been involved in these threads for some time and am well aware of the various and sundry other factors regarding cell phones. Please don’t jump down my throat and get after me about something I’m not even talking about. I don’t even own a working cell phone; I have no vested interest in using one in-flight.
You’d think if the problem was so dire there would have been numerous, numerous studies and results on it, like there are with every single other danger to aircraft and other modes of transportation. The dearth of them is both puzzling and suspicious. That’s not to say that in some cases anecdotal evidence is the most powerful.
In the hundreds of flights I’ve been on I have never once heard the stewards say to “put away reading material”, nor have I ever seen them confiscate books, magazines, child’s toys, baby bottles, reading material, or any other “loose items” on people’s laps or otherwise - other than the routine cleanup of drinks and empty food wrappers. But since this is the SDMB I’m sure 300 people will now post to tell me how wrong I am, and how this happens on every single flight…
OK, how about this.
From: http://www.faa.gov/Passengers/electronics.cfm
(emphasis added)
So they do ban them - or at least the FAA says they do, in just those words.
On the issue of onboard personal electronics, the authorities and the industry have decided to adopt the cautionary principle of allowing only that which they can rule harmless. As opposed to the more usual practice (in American industry at least) of waiting until something is ruled harmful before banning it.
In that sense, many airlines allow CD players and even pocket radio/tape players (as long as the radio mode is off) once the airliner is past initial climb, and up until they’re on short approach, and some now even allow the electronics on during taxi between the ends of the runway and the terminals – because as Broomstick mentions, they figure that the level of signal interference that may cause is no big deal at cruise, or while just rolling on the ground. But they still don’t want to find out the hard way WHAT does create bad RF at the critical phase. The thing with requesting that ALL electronics be shut off for takeoffs and landings is that the airline and the regulators can’t possibly know every piece of gear every last passenger may have at hand. And you can just picture the scene of an irate passenger arguing that “This is a G35**-e** Personal Whangdoodle, the one that causes interference is the G35**-C**!” So its everything off.
Una, are you having a bad day? I know I’ve been having a bad week. You just seem a little more raw around the edges than usual in that post.
And yes, you did touch a nerve, but I’ll try to keep a lid on the emotions if you will, too.
Actually, no one knows if it’s “dire” or not. Anedotally it appears not, but us long-timers out here know that the plural of anecdote is NOT “data”.
I think that initially the airlines didn’t view it as enough of an issue to spend the money. NASA’s testing unit had other concerns they were spending their time and money on, like icing research. When only one or two passengers, at most, on a flight had these devices telling them to turn them off was the easiest solution.
NOW it’s an issue - although why people can’t turn their toys off for 20 minutes or a half an hour is beyond me. But then I’m weird - a good book is all I need to keep me entertained for hours, if not days.
Well, yeah, actually I have seen exactly that from FA’s during some flights. As always, your mileage may vary. Maybe we don’t ride the same airlines. Maybe there are reasons they do it some flights and not others. I’m not an expert on the airlines and I’d look to the big iron pilots to get into details like that. No, it doesn’t happen on every flight.
Do I think the kid in the back seat yakking on a cellphone is going to crash the average airliner? No. On the other hand, the various companies and agencies involved in flight safety have ruled on the side of caution on this one. I do know that aircraft have a distressing way of malfunctioning in new and interesting ways from time to time, and the new airplanes also have newer, computerized control systems that don’t have a long history of use - we could be overlooking something. I know that new designs are incorporating the factoid that RF leaking/transmitting devices are now routinely carried onto airplanes, and last I heard the designs are taking this into account by routing possibly sensitive wiring and devices away from the passenger seating, or by using some sort of shielding. But not all airplanes are new
For some reason this issue seems to ruffle a lot of feathers.
I understand completely the problem of interference with communications. When I listen to aircraft traffic on my scanner I can barely understand what anyone is saying on the best days. If electronic devices are interfering with that then they need to be banned of course.
My point about dearth of studies is that I can easily find more technical papers on the safety of many items, and yet cannot find much on interference of electronic devices and aircraft. All I can do is reinforce that one would think that there would have by now, in the billions of passenger-hours of experience, some opportunity for studies to be done, and to show a clear connection between the two.
I also did not speak properly when I said:
I actually meant to say “That’s not to say that in some cases anecdotal evidence isn’t the most powerful.” Meaning, that I trust pilots to act appropriately on the side of safety if they have a large amount of anecdotal evidence and experience of transient phenomena.
I believe battery powered vibrators are also verboten.
The whole interference problem has been a problem since they first started using radios. I’m told part of the problem is the frequency range used, which is more prone to interference than other ranges… but I just use the things, I don’t pretend to really understand how they work.
In addition to problems of vibration, moisture, and temperature extremes wrecking havoc with the radios, things like sunspots have also been known to have an effect.
Perhaps we’d be better off with all new radios in a different frequency range, but now we have the inertia of legacy systems to deal with.
haha, you stole my line! twitchesstraight dope bastards steal everything ::looks around suspiciously:: twitch
Will Anderson: “Terrorist: Take this plane to Afghanistan or I’ll make a long distance call!”
On a British Airways flight a year and a half ago I was asked to stop using my Palm organizer “because all word-processing devices are forbidden”.
I have a hypothesis on how they decided to introduce this restriction: laptops often have CD players and maybe they wanted to exclude completely any possibility that the CD player could be started, even by mistake. And it’s far easier to make a sweeping prohibition like “all word-processing devices forbidden” than examining each laptop/PDA/whatever to see if it was potentially dangerous.
On the other side, forbidding me from using a plain old PDA with no WiFi, phoning or networking capabilities whatsoever seems silly to me. Praphrasing ricksummon:
“I can take notes! And I’m not afraid to do it!”