Originally Posted by plunet

The act of trying to pool power from multiple seat sockets is just dangerous and against electrical codes and liable to end up dispensing an electrical shock. I posted a link to a flippant way of cooking a frankfurter yesterday but your reply makes me suspect you are actually seriously thinking about this.

Let's have a think about it... You would effectively need to have a 4 headed cable.... 4 male plugs all joined together at some point leading to a female plug or directly to the appliance.

The problem here is that when you plug in the cable into seat 1, the protruding prongs on the plugs on cables 2, 3 and 4 are now live/hot. Add a bit of unexpected turbulence or someone misjudges things and that's someone who is now in need of medical attention. You could probably do something to mitigate this with inline switches but they would need to be double pole (both live/hot and neutral) and ideally switching all 4 cables at the same time. These kind of switches do exist but typically only for commercial/industrial applications.

Another issue is that you or I don't know the detail of the aircraft electrical supply. Most importantly is whether the supply to these different seats are all in phase with each other. If they are not in-phase then you would likely end up with some kind of kaboom when connecting sockets together that have different phase supplies. Whilst I am sure there are RCD/GFIs deployed on these circuits, you just don't know how it's all going to react. Joining together AC circuits from different phases always has a bad end result. Any other devices on the same circuit will also see an electrical surge and over-voltage situation and you might now blown other passenger devices and depending on the electrical blast radius, maybe also impact other stuff.

A different issue is that although the inferred supply is 125W per seat, you can also assume that there is some circuit and power protection for multiple seats, and it's highly likely that should all these sockets you are targeting be on the same protection device, the device would be rated lower than the maximum theoretical rating of (say) 500W. Exactly what the margins are here it's impossible for me to say. Assuming there was any sense in this idea (which there isn't) you would not be trying to target the full rated power draw through any one circuit so this would suggest that adding a 5th seat supply would be sensible. Which of course it wouldn't be for other reasons.

This is so dangerous from an electrical point of view, I wouldn't be surprised if this was discovered and there was any smell of anything having gone wrong (let alone a whiff of a hotdog) I wouldn't be surprised if you were not slapped with a lifetime ban, and that just assumes it didn't cause a problem where the aircraft didn't have to divert due to a medical emergency arising from electrocution, or being met at the aircraft door by Her Majesty's Constabulary (or other equally fine local law enforcement) due to high-flying stupidity and probably something along the lines of endangering an aircraft.

Just stop. Stop now. Pranks are all very well but safety is not something to risk at 30000 ft.

Originally Posted by DaveS

Nothing that would not be picked up by the normal security procedures. Having 7,398 AA batteries in your carry-on is going to need a really good explanation.

Originally Posted by powershell

Thanks for all the responses although not the answer I am looking for not yet convinced, this is not some sort of joke
I will revert in June after I have made the trip, thanks, folks.

Originally Posted by powershell

Thanks for all the responses although not the answer I am looking for not yet convinced, this is not some sort of joke
I will revert in June after I have made the trip, thanks, folks.

Originally Posted by HIDDY

Originally Posted by AJA_

Check-in staff to passenger: "I'm sorry sir but that exceeds the allowable dimensions for cabin bags and even for checked luggage. You cannot take that in the cabin and will have to pay £65 excess baggage fee to check it into the hold. Unfortunately we do not accept cash. All major credit cards accepted. Any chance you would like to leave anything behind?"

Originally Posted by powershell

Thanks for all the responses although not the answer I am looking for not yet convinced, this is not some sort of joke
I will revert in June after I have made the trip, thanks, folks.

Originally Posted by Sparkyfletch

Please send flight details when known - between the FT collective I'm sure one of us could alter a travel plan to act as expert witness?

Originally Posted by HIDDY

Originally Posted by DaveS

Nothing that would not be picked up by the normal security procedures. Having 7,398 AA batteries in your carry-on is going to need a really good explanation.

Originally Posted by muscat

I'm fairly sure that "picking up" the case at security to put it on the belt would be a major problem, if it hadn't already collapsed the luggage trolley.

Originally Posted by sweetsleep

It is now June 10 in the US and inquiring and interested minds wish to know if the trip was a success or has it still not happened yet?