291–300 of 301 posts
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> even I as the driven, I often find myself checking my emails while driving Why would you ever do that? If you don't care about your safety, at least make sure you're less likely to kill others, please...
Oh, cut the drama. I use text 2 speech.
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How many airports make you spend an hour or two going through security? When flying, I usually spend an hour or two in total at the airport, but that includes check-in, security, waiting for and boarding plane, then de-planing and sometimes waiting for luggage. Not to mention the transport time to and from the airports. Security and safety is a pretty insignificant part of that time, and waiting in line at the airpor…
Two hours total? I wish I could do as well. When I fly (as infrequently as possible), I have to budget at least 5.5 hours from my front door to boarding the plane. Here's my time budget based on 10 years of flying out of New York City from Newark (and occasionally JFK) |-----------+----------------------------| | Time (hr) | Activity | |-----------+----------------------------| | 1 | Drive to airport | | 0.5 | Find p…
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> 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 int…
"which are continually changing due to doppler effects" Doppler effects will be extremely small, since the greatest speed differential you'll see will be twice the speed of an airplane (when two planes are moving directly towards or away each other), which is not a substantial fraction of the speed of light. There will be some shift, but not nearly enough to bump a device from non-interference to interference. Or did…
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…
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Not really. It is an example of me reading an Ask The Pilot column, on Salon, in which this topic was discussed, and finding myself in agreement with the reasonable points made therein, by an actual pilot. As far as authority goes in general, and the FAA in particular, I think the FAA and Homeland Security are utterly full of it, most of the time. This issue is more evidence of that; I agree with those who point out…
This is a fairly hot topic among most frequent fliers. Did you ever consider that column was more propaganda warfare from the FAA instead of actual data?
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…
(It's probably really hard to get the blood off the screen)
I haven't turned off a cell phone while flying for almost ten years now. I refuse to be part of any safety or security charade.
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"which are continually changing due to doppler effects" Doppler effects will be extremely small, since the greatest speed differential you'll see will be twice the speed of an airplane (when two planes are moving directly towards or away each other), which is not a substantial fraction of the speed of light. There will be some shift, but not nearly enough to bump a device from non-interference to interference. Or did…
It might be that he is referring to Doppler VOR ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHF_omnidirectional_range ), although I'm not sure how this effects interference scenarios.
In any case, I don't think any airliner flying today is relying on VOR.
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From a safety standpoint, isn't the right thing to do to test flight equipment against interference from consumer devices? Simply assuming that everyone on the plane will turn off their cell phone seems like a cop-out. Having flight safety depend on the (unverified) compliance of consumers is ridiculous. There are only two cases here: 1. Consumer electronics represent a real threat to air safety. They should be banne…
3. Consumer electronics are not a big threat to air safety, but they can (and have, see Wikipedia article / NASA study) interfered with airplane navigation instruments. Since it's much more likely that 1 out of 100 or 300 active devices will cause interference during takeoffs and landings than 1 out of 4-5 that are turned on by accident or ignorance, it's better to err on the side of safety and tell everyone to turn…
(BTW, I watched the folks in my row on the plane, and not one person besides me actually shut down their phone or Kindle. They all just either put them in airplane mode or standby by tapping the off key. So I'm guessing that the reality is that most devices are not actually shut off by non-technical users. Even typing this I realize my Kindle wasn't actually shut off, its 3G was still active.)
I find it hard to believe we exist exactly in the statistical sweet spot where voluntary compliance results in a materially safer outcome than broad non-compliance.
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3. Consumer electronics are not a big threat to air safety, but they can (and have, see Wikipedia article / NASA study) interfered with airplane navigation instruments. Since it's much more likely that 1 out of 100 or 300 active devices will cause interference during takeoffs and landings than 1 out of 4-5 that are turned on by accident or ignorance, it's better to err on the side of safety and tell everyone to turn…
I'm not sure that's valid case... the number of devices per person, and therefore per plane, has been rising rapidly over time (I carried at least 5 "electronic devices" (kindle, laptop, 2 phones, camera) onto my flight home last night.) A plane with 200+ people could soon have 400-500 devices versus 50 a decade ago - at one end or the other of that range they're either not a threat (and we needn't turn them off) or…
My main point was that it's not an either-or thing that so many commenters make it out to be. It's possible to want to mitigate the potential effects of interference even though this interference is not very likely to cause accidents.
As aircraft are being more thoroughly tested (for instance with WiFi networks and picocells) more and more devices will be allowed, and maybe one day we'll be able to use electronic devices during takeoffs and landings as well. But, like all things in the aviation world, it will take time.