"Shut up, bitch!"
Posted on 01/21/2011 8:34:06 AM PST by markomalley
You know who you are. You leave your phone on during flights, maybe do a little text messaging and otherwise break rules about cell phone use on planes once the doors close for departure.
"This is an absurd rule. I never turn (mine) off. I may text or browse the Web, but I never talk on the phone," one CNN.com reader commented recently.
On the other side of the aisle are passengers who abide by the safety instructions and warnings, worried that cellular signals may indeed interfere with cockpit instruments.
Take those two camps and add passengers who say either way, listening to fellow travelers chatter on the phone would be annoying, and you have a heated debate -- sometimes literally in the airplane aisles.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
My GPS works fine even when I'm on the phone. The GPS is one hand, and the phone in the other. The satellites the GPS is listening to are a minimum of 11,000 miles away.
The problem is having the call picked up by multiple non-adjacent towers ,, it screws up the billing ..
“They just don’t want me staring at them with earbuds in.”
Actually, the crew just wants you to be able to hear them in an emergency situation.
But you’re correct about audio media players that produce NO electronic radiation whatsoever. Not a hazard at all.
DME, ADF's,mode C data, and glideslopes are very sensitive to any interference. I suppose it's if you allow this, then how do you prohibit that, kinda thing?
What wattage does a cell phone transmit at? I know 3 watts is the legal limit on aircraft radios both nav/com. Can cell phones step on that with signal to noise ratio? Say at 40,000 feet and 200 miles from the VOR station?
The Mythbusters episode on this was pretty well done. Of course most phones have no effect on most electronics. But in order for anyone (like the FAA or the airlines) to certify them as safe, they'd have to test every single mobile device against every single piece of aviation gear. There are hundreds, if not thousands of different pieces of gear, and the prospect of performing actual tests of every possible combination is just wildly impractical. And... there's a constant stream of new devices on the market every day. It would be all but impossible to keep up. It's simpler to just ban them all.
No service.
Obviously and trivially not. Flight 93 crashed where it did because the passengers learned of the situation through their cellphones, and the jihadist at the controls realized that, unless he acted fast, he was going to end up rotting in an American can for years before being put to sleep. Without the cell phone use, Flight 93 still would have crashed, but in a more interesting spot.
>> If they really were dangerous, they wouldn’t even allow them on board <<
That’s exactly correct.
In fact, it seems to me that if radio transmissions interfered with an aircraft’s instrumentation, then the authorities couldn’t possibly allow pilots to have radio links with controllers — none at all. Moreover, once a plane’s instruments are adequated shielded from RF interference by the pilots’ own radio links, then it would seem “per force” that the instruments also are shielded from whatever RF interference might emanate from the much weaker outputs of cell phones.
What almost everybody misses in the discussion of this issue is that the FCC — not the FAA — is the source of the ban on cell phone usage aboard passenger aircraft. The rationale is thus:
When a plane rises by even a few hundred feet, it suddenly can “see” multiple cell towers. These “new” towers otherwise would be beyond the ground-level radio horizon that normaly restricts cell phone coverage. Additionally, the higher the plane flies, the more cell towers come within its radio horizon — even out to 100+ miles.
Therefore, a cell phone on a plane conceivably can “bring up” multiple cell towers and thereby contribute to cell-system congestion.
The no-cell-on-planes policy was a perfectly sensible FCC restriction at the beginning of the cell-phone era, but now it might not be needed, due to technological work-arounds to eliminate network overload. (I just don’t know.)
End of story — or it should be! But for whatever reason, the FAA seems to enjoy perpetuating what may be an obsolete FCC policy. Maybe it’s either (1) becaise they just like to throw around their bureaucratic weight; or (2) because they don’t want to put up with all the complaint letters that would come from “grumpy” non-cell-using passengers if cell talking by their teenaged and soccoer-mom seat mates were freely allowed.
Words like “safe” have no meaning without a qualifier. I find it hilarious that in many states it is illegal to be in a car without wearing a seatbelt but completely legal to ride a motorcycle without a helmet. :)
The state should keep their hands off, period.
Fly by wire planes also present a problematic EMI situation.
IIRC, you’re a pilot. What’s the highest altitude (AGL) that you’ve ever successfully made a cellphone connection?
"Shut up, bitch!"
What’s the highest altitude (AGL) that you’ve ever successfully made a cellphone connection?
>>They just don’t want me staring at them with earbuds in.<<
I do that anyway. I found that if I use either active noise cancellation or passive ear plugs on a flight I arrive at my destination refreshed rather than worn out. And I dumped the active stuff and went to ear buds “as” ear plugs. I simply hide the player and I’m listening to music from the moment I put on my seat belt. Only one flight attendant has asked to see the other end of the wire. Since I’m sitting on the player, I just yanked it out and then plugged it back in when he left.
No
>> There are hundreds, if not thousands of different pieces of gear, and the prospect of performing actual tests of every possible combination is just wildly impractical. <<
I beg to differ. I have the distinct impression that potential interference is power-dependent and frequency-dependent, not really device-dependant. That is, the type of device and its modulation scheme would not seem to be important. I should think the problem basically ought to be trivial for an RF or avionics engineer who specializes in interference : Spend enough on shielding and you’re home free.
(I’m not an engineer, don’t even play one of TV. So if any of FR’s multiple RF engineers want to shoot down my “theory,” please don’t hesitate.)
When I think Ron Brown...I think .45ACP
I'm using a DroidX on the Verizon network - well, out in the hinterland who knows whose network I'm really using...
I’m not a pilot, and I don’t use my cell phone while flying.
1. I don’t like to travel with people screaming into their cell phones during the whole trip. Too much of this going on.
2. I will go with the FAA on this one. Don’t use your cell phone.
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