FAA goes to the Web to fight lasers directed at aircraft battle • Hacker News Board

Re: FAA goes to the Web to fight lasers directed at aircraft battle

#11

Post by cube13 » Thu, Oct 27, 2011, 4:23 PM UTC

nobody314 wrote: post #8

cube13 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also after a 4 year study, which is on the FAA page( http://www.faa.gov/aircraft/safety/report/laserinfo/ ).

The study found that shining eye-safe levels of laser light into the eyes of pilots in a simulator affected their performance - it didn't show that it's possible to shine a mW laser pointer from the ground up into the cockpit of an aircraft and keep lock on a pilots eye for long enough to have any effect. If it did then somebody is wasting an awful lot of money on air superiority fighters when the country could be de…

Read the other posts in the thread. artmageddon's in particular. For an aircraft on landing approach, it's low enough that even a small fraction of a second's exposure can cause flash blindness.

Re: FAA goes to the Web to fight lasers directed at aircraft battle

#12

Post by barrkel » Thu, Oct 27, 2011, 4:27 PM UTC

abibibo wrote: post #6

asolove wrote: post #2

Does anyone know more about this phenomenon than the little in this and similar articles I've seen recently? Pointing a laser at an airplane thousands of feet in the air traveling hundreds of miles an hour for long enough that a pilot notices the dot seems an impressive feat. Thinking about the geometry involved with the position of the cockpit windows on most airplanes, it also seems like it must be done from far aw…

With your average presentation style red laser pointer I don't think there's any chance you'd be able to disturb a pilot. The astronomy pointer lasers and similar high powered units are what I understand to be the issue. They still look the same as a regular laser pointer pen, but emit a much more intense beam that remains visible for several miles. When I played with a unit a friend had, at 200 yards the beam was al…

Were you at the other end of that 200 yard beam? I remember playing with presentation lasers when I was a teenager. At night, you could light up the side of a building, visibly, from over a kilometer away. The divergence factor is certainly substantial - this makes it easier to hit a plane from distance - but it's still very bright. I remember thinking that they would make useful point-to-point morse code transmitters at night, because the "dot" is highly visible at the other end of the beam, even over substantial distances.

But I'd certainly agree that the astronomy lasers are a far bigger threat, the presentation lasers are more likely to be just a minor nuisance over any kind of range.

Re: FAA goes to the Web to fight lasers directed at aircraft battle

#13

Post by barrkel » Thu, Oct 27, 2011, 4:28 PM UTC

nobody314 wrote: post #10

carbocation wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh. You know, there are some topics on which I might agree with your jaded view. But a topic like this? Where there is real risk of harm? And where the FAA is trying to figure out which laws they might use to protect people from such harm? I think your sarcasm is misplaced in this instance.

The same FAA that forces you to put liquid in your checked baggage unless you label it saline - yet insists that you only put Li-Ion batteries with the energy capacity of a grenade in the cabin. That has for years resisted smoke hoods being required while deciding that aircraft that only fly upto 300mi offshore aren't really over water and don't need life rafts. That increases spending on staff moral while cutting lo…

You're confusing the TSA and the FAA.

Re: FAA goes to the Web to fight lasers directed at aircraft battle

#14

Post by nobody314 » Thu, Oct 27, 2011, 4:36 PM UTC

barrkel wrote: post #13

nobody314 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same FAA that forces you to put liquid in your checked baggage unless you label it saline - yet insists that you only put Li-Ion batteries with the energy capacity of a grenade in the cabin. That has for years resisted smoke hoods being required while deciding that aircraft that only fly upto 300mi offshore aren't really over water and don't need life rafts. That increases spending on staff moral while cutting lo…

You're confusing the TSA and the FAA.

The FAA is in charge of what goes on the plane FAA Office of Security & Hazardous Materials Safety http://ash.faa.gov

You have to love calling the office of Hazardous Materials Safety "ASH" !

Re: FAA goes to the Web to fight lasers directed at aircraft battle

#15

Post by barrkel » Thu, Oct 27, 2011, 6:12 PM UTC

nobody314 wrote: post #14

barrkel wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confusing the TSA and the FAA.

The FAA is in charge of what goes on the plane FAA Office of Security & Hazardous Materials Safety http://ash.faa.gov You have to love calling the office of Hazardous Materials Safety "ASH" !

That's things like flammables, combustibles, weapons and more insidiously dangerous things like mercury (eats away at aluminium, which is common in airplane bodywork).