Vid of dumb guy being arrested for pointing a laser at planes...

[fncceo]

As stupid as this is, it's not really a major threat to air safety.

If you look at how a plane lands, they maintain a level attitude until the the final leg of the approach, where they descend with a slight down pitch towards the runway. In order to shine a laser into the cockpit of a plane, particularly a heavy commercial plane, you would have to be standing on the runway or right at either end to get a line of sight into the cockpit.

Which of course is easy to do, because -- get this -- they never move those runways. Always in the same place, always facing the same direction. Fun little bit of trivia.

I submit that if it were easy, this wouldn't be true ...

"In almost 75,000 reported laser illuminations worldwide from 2004 through 2018 there have not been any accidents."

 

[Eric Arthur Blair]

There are lots of threats to daily life... more than you could possibly imagine. If you spend too much time worrying about them, you'll waste your life surviving instead of living.

This is always the last thing someone says when they have run out of reasons to treat a laser pointer (or some other possibly dangerous device) as a sort of harmless toy that 99% of the time is benign.

I'm not comforted and I'm not "wasting my time worrying" about a device that is potentially harmful because this imbecile
in Florida got busted for playing with something you seem to think is harmless. And he's not the first or probably the last to
wind up in jail or prison for his idiocy.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

As stupid as this is, it's not really a major threat to air safety.

If you look at how a plane lands, they maintain a level attitude until the the final leg of the approach, where they descend with a slight down pitch towards the runway. In order to shine a laser into the cockpit of a plane, particularly a heavy commercial plane, you would have to be standing on the runway or right at either end to get a line of sight into the cockpit.

Which of course is easy to do, because -- get this -- they never move those runways. Always in the same place, always facing the same direction. Fun little bit of trivia.

I submit that if it were easy, this wouldn't be true ...

"In almost 75,000 reported laser illuminations worldwide from 2004 through 2018 there have not been any accidents."

Whoops, you messed up there. According to your own posts in this thread, even successfully pointing them inside the cockpit would not lead to a lot of accidents.


I swear, this place... it's like posting with 1000 guys from the movie Memento.....

 

[fncceo]

As stupid as this is, it's not really a major threat to air safety.

If you look at how a plane lands, they maintain a level attitude until the the final leg of the approach, where they descend with a slight down pitch towards the runway. In order to shine a laser into the cockpit of a plane, particularly a heavy commercial plane, you would have to be standing on the runway or right at either end to get a line of sight into the cockpit.

Which of course is easy to do, because -- get this -- they never move those runways. Always in the same place, always facing the same direction. Fun little bit of trivia.

I submit that if it were easy, this wouldn't be true ...

"In almost 75,000 reported laser illuminations worldwide from 2004 through 2018 there have not been any accidents."

Whoops, you messed up there. According to your own posts in this thread, even successfully pointing them inside the cockpit would not lead to a lot of accidents.


I swear, this place... it's like posting with 1000 guys from the movie Memento.....

You have to do more than just get them in the cockpit window, you have to get them directly in the eyes of the pilot long enough to damage the retina. It's not an easy thing. I submit it would require a purpose built device as I describe above to have any appreciable chance of deliberately causing a crash.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

You have to do more than just get them in the cockpit window, you have to get them directly in the eyes of the pilot long enough to damage the retina.

Right, but that is not what I responded to, as you can see above. Furthermore, a simple surprise or distraction can be much worse for a pair of pilots than one of them seeing spots, wouldn't you agree?

 

[whitehall]

Is it something like suicide by cop? You drag your sorry ass out to an airport and try to blind the pilots with a hand held laser and then you wait to get arrested?

 

[Eric Arthur Blair]

I submit that if it were easy, this wouldn't be true ...

"In almost 75,000 reported laser illuminations worldwide from 2004 through 2018 there have not been any accidents."

Nobody said it was easy to temporarily blind a pilot in flight. Only that it's possible and it happens, no thanks to moronic assurances by people like you. BA pilot's eye damaged by 'military' laser shone into cockpit at Heathrow

Here's where you should drop your "it's no big deal" b.s. and slink off but I bet you can't do it.

 

[fncceo]

Furthermore, a simple surprise or distraction can be much worse for a pair of pilots than one of them seeing spots, wouldn't you agree?

I agree. But, the landing of a large commercial plane is different from the landing of a small GA plane. Commercial pilots tend to keep their eyes in the cockpit, monitoring the panel and flying the ILS / GPS beam.

A small GA plane is much more susceptible because the landing is almost 100 visual.

Small aircraft pilots are trained to keep their heads out of the cockpit, like driving a car.

 

[Eric Arthur Blair]

I agree. But, the landing of a large commercial plane is different from the landing of a small GA plane. Commercial pilots tend to keep their eyes in the cockpit, monitoring the panel and flying the ILS / GPS beam.

A small GA plane is much more susceptible because the landing is almost 100 visual.

Small aircraft pilots are trained to keep their heads out of the cockpit, like driving a car.

I don't think the size of an aircraft is the salient point here. It's the laser device being used by idiots that is.

 

[fncceo]

I agree. But, the landing of a large commercial plane is different from the landing of a small GA plane. Commercial pilots tend to keep their eyes in the cockpit, monitoring the panel and flying the ILS / GPS beam.

A small GA plane is much more susceptible because the landing is almost 100 visual.

Small aircraft pilots are trained to keep their heads out of the cockpit, like driving a car.

I don't think the size of an aircraft is the salient point here. It's the laser device being used by idiots that is.

Not the size of the aircraft, two distinctly different flying techniques. Once of which is more susceptible to laser pointer attacks by idiots.

 

[Circe]

Crack-heads pointing .005W laser pointers at landing plane is a very insignificant threat, as the figures above support.

I'd rather they not do it anyway.

 

[fncceo]

Crack-heads pointing .005W laser pointers at landing plane is a very insignificant threat, as the figures above support.

I'd rather they not do it anyway.

Agreed. It's a stupid thing to do. Probably not worth waking up the SWAT Team.

 

[westwall]

As stupid as this is, it's not really a major threat to air safety.

If you look at how a plane lands, they maintain a level attitude until the the final leg of the approach, where they descend with a slight down pitch towards the runway. In order to shine a laser into the cockpit of a plane, particularly a heavy commercial plane, you would have to be standing on the runway or right at either end to get a line of sight into the cockpit.

Not true. Powerful lasers will reflect off of internal surfaces and can blind the aircrew.

These are very serious attacks.

 

[fncceo]

As stupid as this is, it's not really a major threat to air safety.

If you look at how a plane lands, they maintain a level attitude until the the final leg of the approach, where they descend with a slight down pitch towards the runway. In order to shine a laser into the cockpit of a plane, particularly a heavy commercial plane, you would have to be standing on the runway or right at either end to get a line of sight into the cockpit.

Not true. Powerful lasers will reflect off of internal surfaces and can blind the aircrew.

These are very serious attacks.

I covered that .. powerful, purpose-built lasers, ideally IR, positioned correctly, would be a threat. Not guided missile threat, but a threat.

I'm simply stating that crack heads with an Home Depot laser pointer aren't much of a threat to commercial aviation.

 

[Circe]

Wait --- remember Hong Kong riots this fall? The rioters for a time had hundreds of laser pointers they were aiming at the riot police. It was quite a light show.

 

[fncceo]

Wait --- remember Hong Kong riots this fall? The rioters for a time had hundreds of laser pointers they were aiming at the riot police. It was quite a light show.

How many cops did they kill? How many were blinded?

 

[airplanemechanic]

hooooo...that's one ugly jigaboo.

I think that's known as a nigaboo.

 

[Circe]

Wait --- remember Hong Kong riots this fall? The rioters for a time had hundreds of laser pointers they were aiming at the riot police. It was quite a light show.

How many cops did they kill? How many were blinded?

Yeah, well. There were complaints from the city about it, but they stopped bothering to say anything. And then I think the rioters stopped doing it because they got bored. Okay, it didn't work.

 

[fncceo]

Wait --- remember Hong Kong riots this fall? The rioters for a time had hundreds of laser pointers they were aiming at the riot police. It was quite a light show.

How many cops did they kill? How many were blinded?

Yeah, well. There were complaints from the city about it, but they stopped bothering to say anything. And then I think the rioters stopped doing it because they got bored. Okay, it didn't work.

If you're not a cat, it's easy to get bored with a laser pointer pretty quickly.

 

[Andylusion]

Florida man arrested after shining laser pointer at planes, police say

I'm gonna guess he's a democrat.

I simply do not understand people shooting lasers at aircraft. Why? Get a life. Don't you people have jobs? Don't you have work to do in your life?

Of course, could be on welfare food stamps, and public housing, being a massive leech on societies butt...