[OneTimeLurker]

"Hardly. 6 miles out and 3000 feet is not the kind of laser you could pick up just anywhere."

The 6 miles out part doesn't matter as the source of the laser likely wasn't 6 miles out. 3000 feet is the operative stat.

When I was a Freshman in college a friend built a laser. We used to point it out his window at people walking blocks away, etc. We even found it visible on a building at least a quarter mile away. Today, building such a laser or buying one can't be too hard considering you can buy laser pointers, etc.

[American_Centurion]

3000 feet is the operative stat.

How does one shine a laser into the cockpit from beneath it? The windows are in front and kind of on top. Ergo, 3000 feet don't mean crap other than the laser was much more than 3000 feet away.

[PistolPaknMama]

The 6 miles out part doesn't matter as the source of the laser likely wasn't 6 miles out. 3000 feet is the operative stat

Obviously you have some inside information that tells you the 3k feet is the operative stat and not the 6 miles out? How do you know that?

Besides, if your friend built a laser that could be visible at a quarter mile, that's only about 1300 feet, not 3000.

[SLB]

Check out this web page a fellow FReeper sent to me a few days back. http://www.greatlandlaser.com/how.htm

Might help in explaining some things. The myth about green lasers being military is just that, a myth. It all depends on the material used in the laser. The eye safe portion is determined by wave length (frequency) modulation, and intensity. I did some testing of laser optics several years ago and had a stockpile of information on band width, frequency modulation, beam width, laser materials and other data. I will search my files at work tomorrow and see if I can find it. One of the systems was using the laser beam for a line of sight carrier wave for both audio and visual signals. It was all packaged into a binocular that had a laser range finder also built into it. Pretty neat with a CCD camera the scout could take a picture of an object and transmit it through a series of relay stations to his higher headquarters. The downfall, washout of the carrier laser in sunlight and they needed a little red wagon to carry the battery packs.

[sam_paine]

I agree. Who sez it is being actively "pointed?" Set the thing up on a tripod and directed somewhere intersecting the typical glidepath for landing approach, and voila, you hit a cockpit avery once in a while....and you're not even there! What are there, like 10,000 commercial flights per day and we've seen 6-7 of these 'incidents?' (What is the stat....surely a freeper will inform!)