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Fliers Must Turn Off Devices, but It’s Not Clear Why

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Re: Fliers Must Turn Off Devices, but It’s Not Clear Why

#171

Post by city41 »

ramanujan wrote: post #71
Bud wrote: post #8

There is actually a very logical, sensible reason to have everyone power off and stow their devices during takeoff and landing, and this story disappointingly failed to cover it: By far the most likely time for any accidents or incidents to occur is during takeoffs and landings. If everyone has 15 objects out and is busily typing away, it's going to be tht much more difficult for flight attendants to get everyone's a…

The FAA/TSA alway justify things in terms of "safety" and "security", but never calculate the massive costs associated with seizing billions in toiletries and productivity. Let's calculate that. There are about 800 million[0] passengers on domestic and foreign owned airlines in the US market, with many people flying more than once per year. Each person is taxed between 1-2 hours in terms of "safety" regulations, rang…

I don't understand how planes are seizing productivity when the nearest competitor -- an illegally driven car -- is about 5 times slower. Yes they have quite a bit of overhead during take off, landing, baggage claim, driving to the airport, security screening, etc. But what else can reduce a trip's time from days to hours? The amount of time wasted in that overhead compared to the time gained is minuscule.

Re: Fliers Must Turn Off Devices, but It’s Not Clear Why

#172

Post by T-Winsnes »

ramanujan wrote: post #71
Bud wrote: post #8

There is actually a very logical, sensible reason to have everyone power off and stow their devices during takeoff and landing, and this story disappointingly failed to cover it: By far the most likely time for any accidents or incidents to occur is during takeoffs and landings. If everyone has 15 objects out and is busily typing away, it's going to be tht much more difficult for flight attendants to get everyone's a…

The FAA/TSA alway justify things in terms of "safety" and "security", but never calculate the massive costs associated with seizing billions in toiletries and productivity. Let's calculate that. There are about 800 million[0] passengers on domestic and foreign owned airlines in the US market, with many people flying more than once per year. Each person is taxed between 1-2 hours in terms of "safety" regulations, rang…

Lets say we use an average of 15 minutes for a person to go to the toilet. This includes getting to and from the toilet etc.

For ease of calculation we say that each person goes to the toilet twice during a workday.

And there are roughly 7 billion people on the planet.

That gives us 0.5 hour per person per day * 7 billion people = 3.5 billion wasted hours.

At a conservative estimate of $10 per hours, that's $35 billion per year. This does not include money wasted on water for flushing and washing hands!

It's clear from this that we have to stop people from going to the toilet during work hours...

Re: Fliers Must Turn Off Devices, but It’s Not Clear Why

#173

Post by marshray »

brc wrote: post #145
marshray wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I looked into the topic years ago, ISTR finding a few FAA incident reports that did involve consumer electronics causing harmful interference with cockpit navigation systems. They didn't result in accidents but seemed well documented. Did you come across anything like that?

I once was talking to a pilot who swore first-hand that he had the plane doing odd things, asked the attendants to go through the cabin looking for people using devices and to shut them off. They closed down one particular laptop and the plane started behaving again. Whether this is 'friend of a friend' type tale that pilots like to say (and co-opt as their own story) or not is difficult to say. The same pilot also t…

I sat next to an off-duty pilot one time. He said the pilots really would only care during the final part of landing.

He turned on his cell phone and showed that it wouldn't pick up a signal anyway.

Re: Fliers Must Turn Off Devices, but It’s Not Clear Why

#174

Post by marshray »

cheald wrote: post #142
marshray wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I looked into the topic years ago, ISTR finding a few FAA incident reports that did involve consumer electronics causing harmful interference with cockpit navigation systems. They didn't result in accidents but seemed well documented. Did you come across anything like that?

I'd be very interested in that data, mostly because a handheld device capable of producing enough EM radiation to interfere with a cockpit from dozens of feet away (at a minimum) through metal bulkheads seems implausible, at the least. Remember that EM fields are subject to inverse-square law. If it was possible, I can't imagine that the TSA would let us carry as much as a 9-volt battery on board. Even if it were pos…

> Remember that EM fields are subject to inverse-square law.

Not inside a metal tube, they're not.

This is not to say that I'm a "believer" one way or the other, but you should also think about it in comparison to the signals that the navigation equipment is trying to receive with its omnidirectional antenna. I.e., a strong CB radio 26,000 miles away. It wouldn't take any power at all to interfere with it, if the interfering signal were on the magic frequencies (which are continually changing due to doppler effects).

Re: Fliers Must Turn Off Devices, but It’s Not Clear Why

#175

Post by ams6110 »

city41 wrote: post #171
ramanujan wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The FAA/TSA alway justify things in terms of "safety" and "security", but never calculate the massive costs associated with seizing billions in toiletries and productivity. Let's calculate that. There are about 800 million[0] passengers on domestic and foreign owned airlines in the US market, with many people flying more than once per year. Each person is taxed between 1-2 hours in terms of "safety" regulations, rang…

I don't understand how planes are seizing productivity when the nearest competitor -- an illegally driven car -- is about 5 times slower. Yes they have quite a bit of overhead during take off, landing, baggage claim, driving to the airport, security screening, etc. But what else can reduce a trip's time from days to hours? The amount of time wasted in that overhead compared to the time gained is minuscule.

Unless you are going a long way, it may well be faster to drive. For me: 1 hour drive to the airport, 1+ hours at the airport for check-in, security, etc, 1 hour at destination to retrieve baggage, get a rental car, and get out of the airport... plus the time of the flight. If I can drive in under 6 hours, I'll seriously consider doing that rather than deal with all the hassle of air travel.

Re: Fliers Must Turn Off Devices, but It’s Not Clear Why

#176

Post by blhack »

barrkel wrote: post #91
dhbanes wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, specifically you should target the cookie that contains your MAC address ;)

MAC address is also easy to change.

      ifconfig wlan0 HW ether DE:AD:00:00:BE:EF
is the command if anybody is curious.

But really, this is a pain, and deleting a cookie is much, much, much easier.

Re: Fliers Must Turn Off Devices, but It’s Not Clear Why

#177

Post by tryitnow »

ams6110 wrote: post #175
city41 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how planes are seizing productivity when the nearest competitor -- an illegally driven car -- is about 5 times slower. Yes they have quite a bit of overhead during take off, landing, baggage claim, driving to the airport, security screening, etc. But what else can reduce a trip's time from days to hours? The amount of time wasted in that overhead compared to the time gained is minuscule.

Unless you are going a long way, it may well be faster to drive. For me: 1 hour drive to the airport, 1+ hours at the airport for check-in, security, etc, 1 hour at destination to retrieve baggage, get a rental car, and get out of the airport... plus the time of the flight. If I can drive in under 6 hours, I'll seriously consider doing that rather than deal with all the hassle of air travel.

That's exactly how I view, although I put a pretty heavy negative weight on the hassles of navigating around airports, finding parking, gates, etc. With driving I feel a lot more in control. Driving is also a continuous activity, there's minimal transition times (e.g. With flying you've got find a place to park, find your gate, etc).

Re: Fliers Must Turn Off Devices, but It’s Not Clear Why

#178

Post by tryitnow »

ramanujan wrote: post #71
Bud wrote: post #8

There is actually a very logical, sensible reason to have everyone power off and stow their devices during takeoff and landing, and this story disappointingly failed to cover it: By far the most likely time for any accidents or incidents to occur is during takeoffs and landings. If everyone has 15 objects out and is busily typing away, it's going to be tht much more difficult for flight attendants to get everyone's a…

The FAA/TSA alway justify things in terms of "safety" and "security", but never calculate the massive costs associated with seizing billions in toiletries and productivity. Let's calculate that. There are about 800 million[0] passengers on domestic and foreign owned airlines in the US market, with many people flying more than once per year. Each person is taxed between 1-2 hours in terms of "safety" regulations, rang…

That's a great way to look at it. Safety has costs associated with it. So there may be some benefit to all these precautions, but if the probability adjusted benefit doesn't outweigh the costs then it's inadvisable to continue incurring the costs.

Re: Fliers Must Turn Off Devices, but It’s Not Clear Why

#179

Post by rakkhi »

Bud wrote: post #8

There is actually a very logical, sensible reason to have everyone power off and stow their devices during takeoff and landing, and this story disappointingly failed to cover it: By far the most likely time for any accidents or incidents to occur is during takeoffs and landings. If everyone has 15 objects out and is busily typing away, it's going to be tht much more difficult for flight attendants to get everyone's a…

I asked this question a while back on HN and there were some good responses: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1731699
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