Please turn off all personal electronic devices

[G4scott]

I'm not sure if anybody else has noticed this, but with my Motorola made Cingular phone, when I'm next to powered speakers, and the phone "communicates" with the tower, it makes one hell of a buzzing noise on the speakers.

I'm no electrical engineer, but I'm pretty sure that if interference from a phone can cause currents somewhere in the speakers' circuitry to do that, it can't be good for an airplane's instrumentation.

 

[munkees]

I'm not sure if anybody else has noticed this, but with my Motorola made Cingular phone, when I'm next to powered speakers, and the phone "communicates" with the tower, it makes one hell of a buzzing noise on the speakers.

I'm no electrical engineer, but I'm pretty sure that if interference from a phone can cause currents somewhere in the speakers' circuitry to do that, it can't be good for an airplane's instrumentation.

You are talking about the exact reason on how cell phone can act on instruments on a plane. The GPS, and other sensors on the plane are spead thoughout the plane, not just in the cockpit. So when a cell phone tries to find a cell, it will boardcast up to 0.6 watts, That is quite a powerful broadcast.

Dose not matter if the phone technology is CDMA, TDMA, Analog, GSM, WB-CDMA, it the frequency range they boardcast in. any where from 800 Mhz (0.8 Ghz) to 1.9 Ghz (1900Mhz). BTW a microwave oven works in the range os 1.8 GHZ to 2.5 Ghz .


To all before

Personally I hate cell phones, when I work for Ericsson in R&D, i was given 2 cell phone, and 30 minutes use I always had a headache, these phone were already on market and non prototypes, so after that I limit cell phone use to about 30 - 60 seconds, about 1 - 2 time a week (important stuff). It is stupid how people when they hit traffic or land have to instantly jump on the phone and boardcast a situration report about were they are, like it really changes anything.

The reason why Airlines ban all Electonic device and not just the offending is that is stop "people from say but he/she using that device, so why can't i use this", so just ban them all and make life easy

 

[pinto32]

Personally I hate cell phones, when I work for Ericsson in R&D, i was given 2 cell phone, and 30 minutes use I always had a headache, these phone were already on market and non prototypes, so after that I limit cell phone use to about 30 - 60 seconds, about 1 - 2 time a week (important stuff). It is stupid how people when they hit traffic or land have to instantly jump on the phone and boardcast a situration report about were they are, like it really changes anything.

The reason why Airlines ban all Electonic device and not just the offending is that is stop "people from say but he/she using that device, so why can't i use this", so just ban them all and make life easy

This always used to happen to me with my old Panasonic AT&T phone (TDMA). It would always make my head hurt/make me lightheaded feeling. Thats when I really started to pay attention to the radiation ratings. That Panasonic operted at the maximum limit for radiation. My new phone, a Verizon Samsung operates at a little more than half the radiation of the old phone, and I do not have the same experiance...thank god...

 

[Pistol Pete]

still a HD is a more complex device, all an optical drive is is a spinning plastic disk and a laser, i dont fly much i'm just going on what i was told when i last flew.

good think i ripp all my dvd's

lol what do you have like 10 dvds.....


i dont know how much hd space i would need for all mine...

 

[aquajet]

Surely the problem is that no one has tested (or probably ever will test) every PED with every cockpit device on every plane. And all it takes is one conflict to cause significant disruption, delays or worse.

Exactly. And this is precisely why I cringe every time the Mythbusters episode is cited. They tested one particular aircraft using a signal generator and declared the myth "busted" (albeit erred on the side of safety), thus giving people the false impression that the same thing applies to the countless other aircraft types and configurations flying today. The only thing we can gather from this experiment is that the Hawker 800xp seems to be relatively resistant to RF interference. Do you feel comfortable making that same assumption about a 20 year old 737 with two dozen "RF generators" scattered about the cabin? I certainly don't. And unless the FAA is willing to test every single airframe in existance with every single cell phone in service today in order to certify these airplanes, I'm against any proposed measures to relax these regulations. I just don't feel like we should be taking any chances if even a minute possiblity exists that'll **** up the avionics in a metal tube traveling at 500+ mph, six miles above the earth.

 

[Mord]

lol what do you have like 10 dvds.....


i dont know how much hd space i would need for all mine...

6, and theirs such thing as compression.

 

[Over Achiever]

I've always listened to my iPod on takeoff/landing ... no one has ever bugged me about it. *shrug*

 

[aloofman]

At altitude you'll often have line-of-sight to numerous cell towers at one time. This is one reason why conventional cell phones aren't approved for use in airplanes, even private airplanes -- they cause confusion in the system.

As for other electronic devices, I believe the rationale for not allowing their use during landing and takeoff phases of the flight is the same as not allowing you to keep your briefcase on your lap.

Yeah, it's really about distance and visibility to the nearest tower. People need to remember that cell phone calls are only wireless from the phone to the nearest tower, then they transmit via landline. Cruising altitude for an airliner would be near the limits of the range of some towers, but it would mostly depend on whether you're over an urban area or not. Most digitial cell networks don't cover rural areas as well.

I've always thought the argument for keeping devices off is mainly one of evacuation safety. In the event of an emergency, someone listening to music on headphones would have a harder time following instructions.

 

[aloofman]

Exactly. And this is precisely why I cringe every time the Mythbusters episode is cited. They tested one particular aircraft using a signal generator and declared the myth "busted" (albeit erred on the side of safety), thus giving people the false impression that the same thing applies to the countless other aircraft types and configurations flying today.

Mythbusters is a fun show but they established a long time ago that it's not usually very scientific. They admitted in the episode that they had no way of testing it on a real airliner and were just attempting the closest comparison they could come up with.

 

[Superdrive]

Another good reason to turn off electronics and stow them is so they don't go flying out of your hands and slam into someone's head behind you. Take-off and landing is the most dangerous time and also the most unpredictable.

I certainly wouldn't be happy about a blackberry/iPod/DVD player to the teeth because some putz in front of me couldn't put it away for twenty minutes.

People take the seriousness of flying way too lightly these days. I recently saw someone actually stand up seconds before the plane was going to touch-down, so he could put his coat on. This rube was on his feet as the plane made contact with the ground. Real bright.

I'm glad you posted that, because it is going to save me from typing it. The ascent and descent are the most critical phases of flight, and not coincidentally the phases with the most accidents. Your/All electronic devices have to be killed for the same reason the seat backs, tray tables, and window shades (in some cases) have to go up. If something happens there needs to be a clean cabin with people focused on evacuating, not grabbing their belongings or tending to someone who got pelted with an iPod on impact.

Also, Mythbusters did not test every configuration in every seat of every commercial airliner. How do we know something is safe in 3A but not 36J? With the miles of wires and systems in airplanes, it is definitely possible for interference. I also wanted to note that I am against cellphone usage in ALL phases of flight.

 

[virividox]

think about it this way, sure maybe 1 device may not cause interference, but if all of a sudden everyone was using a myriad of deviced, be it computers, cell phones, pdas, mp3 players, etc, thats a potential 100-400 plus devices all at once, that could create interference

besides 20 min wont kill you, as opposed to a crash, which could..

 

[FoxyKaye]

think about it this way, sure maybe 1 device may not cause interference, but if all of a sudden everyone was using a myriad of deviced, be it computers, cell phones, pdas, mp3 players, etc, thats a potential 100-400 plus devices all at once, that could create interference

besides 20 min wont kill you, as opposed to a crash, which could..

Yep - that, and as someone said earlier, it's just too much of a PITA to try and differentiate the "safe" equipment from the interfering equipment. Lots of folks would be asking, "why can so-and-so be using a laptop, but I can't make a phone call," or whatever the case is.

I don't fly a lot, but enough to appreciate how welcome my own sound/movie track is in flight. However, for the 30 minutes or so out of a three-hour flight I'm not able to use electronic stuff, it seems to go by quick enough.

It seems like being a flight attendant is hard enough work with screaming kids, passengers with attitudes, in-flight drunks, corralling people away from the cockpit door, dispensing food and cleaning up the inevitable messes and so forth. Lot easier to keep a blanket rule then deal with people wanting a special exception for their iPod Shuffle to supply a soundtrack to takeoff and landing.

 

[dornoforpyros]

I think that one of my favorite shows, MythBusters tested this idea. I don't remember what their conclusion was though.

BUSTED!

They pretty much found that modern aircraft are so heavily shielded that even cell phones have little effect. However when they were testing phones with just the equipment on it's own, the equipment got confused.

 

[m-dogg]

Hmmm...when I flew earlier this week with my PowerBook for the first time, I forgot to turn it off for landing (it was in my carry-on, sleeping instead).

I wondered if that could have had any effect after I got home and realized I forgot to power it down.

Could that make a difference? Or is sleep okay?

 

[virividox]

when its on sleep i consider it powered down. i always fly with my pbook on sleep.

 

[Applespider]

I've always listened to my iPod on takeoff/landing ... no one has ever bugged me about it. *shrug*

I've heard iPods included in the message - by name as in 'all personal equipment should be turned off including iPods' - course, if you're listening, you might not hear that message

I sleep my PB when told to turn it off. It's not emitting anything at that point so I always figured that was OK. Just as I used to use the flight mode on my old smartphone which turned off the 'wireless aspect of it' although again recently I've heard announcements saying that even mobiles with a 'flight' mode should be turned off during the flight.

Incidentally, since my 20 minute comment, has been picked up. I do turn it off at that point since like you, I value my life more than catching the end of a song. I just wondered whether perhaps since that's when the flight is just beginning its descent if it's truly necessary or whether it's more to do with allowing the stewards/esses sufficient time to berate those who haven't yet turned off?

The only time I've been really frustrated is once when told to switch everything off - and the flight's entertainment was switched off in the middle of a good movie - and then we ended up in a holding pattern over Heathrow for over an hour.

 

[mrichmon]

while I can understand at the point when the crew go back to their seats, asking for them to be off when the flight starts its initial descent with 20 minutes before landing is frustrating!

The issue is that during those final 20 minutes the flight crew need to secure the galley for landing and ensure that people are in their seats and strapped in. Plus the crew need to head to their own seats. The last thing they need when 5 minutes away from landing is to be stuck arguing with some smuck that they need to turn off their iPod or put thier laptop away. Asking that these things be done 20 minutes out gives the crew time to check that it has been done.

All these people saying that PEDs are designed with sheilding to limit RF interference are missing the issue. Cell phones, iPods, Laptops, whathaveyou are certainly designed to limit RF interference and are tested to comply with FCC regulations. However, the PED in your pocket is very different than the test model sent to the FCC. Your PED may have part of the sheilding not perfectly placed during manufacturing. Your PED has also been dropped, squished, sat upon and knocked around. So ultimately there are many things in the history of your PED that can significantly change the RF profile of the device when compared against a factory fresh device.

Commercial air travel is a communal activity. Joe Shmoe in 3A may not like that he is inconvenienced by the airline's rules about PEDs and feel that the rules violate his rights. But ultimately Joe has absolutely no right to endanger everyone else on the plane just so he can listen to his tunes. In this sort of case the good of the many certainly outweigh the self-righteousness of the one.

 

[skoker]

The issue is not much much with radiation (contrary to popular belief) but, according to every flight school I've been to and every FAM, FAR and PSD I've every read states this:


You can't use electronic devices on takeoff or landing because in the event of an emergency you could be injured or impede the flow of evacuation. If we are about to hit the ground, you need to hear me screaming at the top of my lungs BEND OVER! HEADS DOWN! BEND OVER! HEADS DOWN! BRACE BRACE BRACE! OPEN OVERWING EXITS! EXIT BLOCKED! COME THIS WAY! COVER NOSE AND MOUTH!.

iPods are the main culprit but to keep it as simple of a rule as possible to follow, they ban all electronic devices.

 

[skoker]

I'm not sure if anybody else has noticed this, but with my Motorola made Cingular phone, when I'm next to powered speakers, and the phone "communicates" with the tower, it makes one hell of a buzzing noise on the speakers.

I'm no electrical engineer, but I'm pretty sure that if interference from a phone can cause currents somewhere in the speakers' circuitry to do that, it can't be good for an airplane's instrumentation.

I get this on my Samsung made T-mobile phone and my Danger Sidekick II too.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

The issue is not much much with radiation (contrary to popular belief) but, according to every flight school I've been to and every FAM, FAR and PSD I've every read states this:


You can't use electronic devices on takeoff or landing because in the event of an emergency you could be injured or impede the flow of evacuation. If we are about to hit the ground, you need to hear me screaming at the top of my lungs BEND OVER! HEADS DOWN! BEND OVER! HEADS DOWN! BRACE BRACE BRACE! OPEN OVERWING EXITS! EXIT BLOCKED! COME THIS WAY! COVER NOSE AND MOUTH!.

iPods are the main culprit but to keep it as simple of a rule as possible to follow, they ban all electronic devices.

Then why not state this in the safety briefing given to passengers? Not quite the way you put it , but in cleared terms so that people understand?

And what about those that put earplugs in just before take off?

 

[w_parietti22]

Hmmm...when I flew earlier this week with my PowerBook for the first time, I forgot to turn it off for landing (it was in my carry-on, sleeping instead).

I wondered if that could have had any effect after I got home and realized I forgot to power it down.

Could that make a difference? Or is sleep okay?

when you sleep it, it turns off the hd and optical drive... it should be fine.

 

[IJ Reilly]

when you sleep it, it turns off the hd and optical drive... it should be fine.

I'm not sure these components are the main issue, where the production of RF is concerned. But the reality is, the RF output of the device is probably proportional to the power consumption, so the couple of watts the Mac draws to keep it in sleep mode probably isn't capable of producing much RF out.

 

[macOSX-tastic]

i completely agree with not using iPods and things, but what about digital cameras? ive taken pictures during takeoff before, and would like to again.....

S

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Sorry for the OT post....

But I figured someone here might know the answer. On my recent trip to LGA we were on an A319. When they shut down the engines for a ground stop, there was a sound like a sawing noise from the belly of the aircraft. What was that noise? Thanks.

 

[b.smart]

Cameras

Here's one thing that pissed me off about PEDs:

I had a connecting flight in Las Vegas. I had never been to Las Vegas before and I liked seeing all the huge hotels from the terminal and from inside the plane as we were taxiing to the runway.

I had a small digital camera in my shirt pocket. I pulled it out and turned it on long enough to take a quick shot out the window. I was sitting near a flight attendant who said rather rudely, "You need to turn that OFF!" I was in the process of turning it back off anyway. I don't see how the camera was a problem. I tend to think it was more of an issue that I was taking a picture of something (though she didn't know what) and she didn't like it. The fact is, if I was sitting in any other part of the plane, she would have been none the wiser to my quick shot.

What if it were one of those one-use cameras (which are about the same size as the digital I used), or even a manual 35 millimeter (with no electronics). I guess she wouldn't have the right to bitch? They can't really keep people from taking pictures of planes or of anything outside their window.