If they really were dangerous, they wouldn't even allow them on board.
Just my humble opinion.
>> 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.