Originally Posted by
Boggie Dog
Yes, documentation is required to prove a theory. While I agree that evidence suggest there is in fact no hazard we don't know what devices were used on each flight.
All I am suggesting is something like a 3x5 card where each person would indicate their seat position and what PEDs they used. The flight crew would report if any anomalies to flight systems occurred during the test period. If this was done on all flights over six months that would represent a very large amount of data and could prove that PEDs present little if any flight hazard.
I don't currently exercise the privileges of my FAA certificate but with over 20 years experience I don't think FAA will act without documented evidence they can point to limiting their liability. My idea is a easily designed testing method that would be inexpensive to document the exercise.
There would be no scientific validity to your "test". You make a massive assumption that everyone would participate AND that everyone would tell the truth. There are plenty of flight crew that would lie about negative effects so they could maintain the status quo.
However, the date that exists proves there is no impact. You would NEVER be able to replicate the variety, type and conditions of the multitude of devices used over 30 years and 500 million commercial flights. You are asking for an additional 0.2% more data while ignoring the 99.8% of the data that is out there.