The Myrtle Beach runway is almost exactly oriented North-South. So irradiation from the east would lend a little credence to your "shooting a duck" theory -- that is, it would take pretty good aiming coordination to keep the beam on-track with the cockpit. But one would not have to "lead" the target -- no time of transition with light -- not quite as difficult as with ducks -- just need a good scope. On landing or takeoff, its not as hard as, say, shooting woodcock or partridges. (They're up close, faster, and trickier that an aircraft taking off or landing.)
However, if you had flown MB as often as I used to, you would have noted that the civilian and military runways adjoin and were parallel. Therefore, lasers aimed toward the runway would have gotten the attention of the APs as well as the civilian cops. No wonder this is given a paragraph of warning in the local blatt. The perpetrator may yet find a visitation from the DHS, especially if there is a repetition of this incident. (The airbase was closed in 1993.)
The other posters also have got some good points. One is that I think Rayleigh scattering by the laser beam passing through the windshield would not be significant. In fact, the angle of inicidence might be low enough that a beam from the east would just bounce off the front windshield without entering the cabin. One would have to keep hitting the side window to catch the driver's eye. And at that stage, he's not likely to be scrutinizing anything but his forward path.
just supposin' --- (isn't this analyzing getting kind of boring??)
“just supposin’ -— (isn’t this analyzing getting kind of boring??)”
You can safely try this yourself...
At dusk with a red laser pointer in your hand point it at a stop sign 300 meters away. If you hit it the reflective paint will light up really bright and you’ll see it. it’s really difficult to do, but you may see a flash of red. You can’t hold your hand steady enough to keep the beam on the stop sign. With a tripod you could, but it would be like adjusting a telescope to look at a planet or star.
(Now if you diverge the beam, it makes it easier but the beam power (brightness) also goes down with the square of the spot size.) Hence,the shotgun example - a shotgun has a diverging shot pattern.
Now to simulate pointing it at a moving target, do the same thing from the passenger seat of a car going 20 MPH... you wont be able to do it at all. Even with a stable laser mount.
The eye/brain processes visual information in a complex way. There is almost a 1/2 second delay from when the light gets to your optic nerve and when your brain sees it. The brain compensates for this by essentially “guessing” or predicting where a moving object is at any instance.
A side note: If you shine a laser pointer in the general direction of an individual yet missing him or her by a few feet, the person won’t see the beam at all. All they would see if they noticed it at all would be what would look like a LED at the source. That’s why a person doesn’t see the beam from the laser sight on a firearm.
The whole issue of laser pointers and aviation is just not a problem. It makes a great story on the news but that is it. The reflection of sunlight from a mirror would be more dangerous in that regard.
That’s not to say that a properly designed laser system couldn’t be effective. But certainly not a hand held laser pointer.