mahohmei

I have a feeling there is only one reason all electronic devices have to be turned off during takeoff and landing:

Emergencies requiring evacuation are most likely to happen during takeoff and landing, obviously, The flight crew do not want to have to compete with Angry Birds or texting when they're trying to get you to evacuate.

Bart

This ranks right up there with other studies how cell phones are secretly frying our brain cells every time we use it; how we're slowly being poisoned whenever we drink water directly from the tap; how the combined fumes emanating from the chemicals that are put into carpet fibers, plaster on the wall, and spewed out from unclean air conditioner ducts are slowly deteriorating our health, and how french fries from McDonalds is killing us.

prushing

Myth busters tried to cause problems with cellphones on a plane. They even took and unshielded the wires on the plane and couldn't pick up anything even using old cellphone technology.

http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/my...struments.html

WillCAD

Actually, there is another, related, reason: Extreme pitch, yaw, or roll maneuvers are most likely to occur during take-off, approach, and landing, as well. During extreme maneuvers, any PEDs - or books, or other loose items - in pax hands can easily become flying missiles in the confines of the cabin.

LuvAirFrance

I wish they'd publish not the RESULTS of the study but what was actually done. I have the feeling someone sat down at a keyboard and wrote what appeared to be "findings" with no actual research. I mean, unless the press or some real gadfly put the heat on them, how would anyone know that "study" was a misnomer?

Allan38103

It's true.

My brother in law's second cousin's barber read about it on the internet, so that settles it.

AngryMiller

All electronics equipment on board an aircraft, I would suspect, is subject to EMI/RFI testing for both causing interference and being adversely effected by interference. The RF environment at an airport is pretty intense (at some places at the airport you could pick up a flourescent tube and it would light due to the intensity of the RF fields).

IMHO it is a thing where the flight attendants don't want to deal with an obnoxious chatterbox who is disturbing the other passengers. Got to call this one busted but the folks enforcing it can make ones life difficult.

homeward_bound235

Yes, all electronic equipment on the planes is tested at often brutal levels of broad spectrum interference, and any device that didnt function 100% would result in the FAA oversight of the test declaring it a failure.

During takeoff and landing, the plane is within range of cell towers. Logic would suggest one cell tower is emitting thousands of times what one cell phone does, and it doesnt seem to be an issue.

Also, since the 1960s, military aircraft have been designed to withstand the EMI from a nuclear detonation. I'm fairly confident that we know how to make aircraft withstand a cell phone. No mention if this is only old aircraft or not?

Mabuk dan gila

A terrorist could put one Nokia 3210 in a sock, start wildly swinging it around the cabin, and potentially take out half the crew.

celticwhisper

Which makes it all the more absurd because they never say "Please put away all books," just "please turn off all electronics."

And while I'm thinking about it, here's the study I want to see:

Take a plane full of laptops, GameBoys, iPods, portable DVD players, etc. No cell phones, no wifi enabled on the laptops. Self-contained electronics only. No signals transmitted or received.

Take off.

Land.

Report what happens.

'Cause while I'm willing to believe that in some isolated cases, RF interference can play hell with avionics, I refuse to believe that completely self-contained electronics that are not intended to transmit or receive signals over the air are able to crash planes. And if they are, the FAA and airlines need to worry less about people's laptops and more about fixing or engineering past the goddamn problem with the planes.

NY-FLA

Observed on UX last week. (I know it's been like this forever, but the timing in this case was just perfect.)

FA makes the announcement: "It's now OK to use portable electronic devices, as long as they don't have transmit capability. Electronic devices that transmit may interfere with the plane's navigational capabilities. We'll now begin the beverage service. Beer, wine and cocktails are for sale for 7? dollars and can be paid for with credit cards only."

Then; out comes the cordless credit card machine which, of course, would be worthless without its transmit capability.

Amazing to me how gullible the airlines think their passengers are.

WillCAD

I agree, which is why I would like to see the pre-flight announcement changed to say, "Please secure all loose items and be sure there is nothing unsecured sitting in your lap."

But they won't do that because it would, by definition, preclude anyone from flying with a lap child, and that would bring bad press to the airlines. They would be lambasted as "money grubbers" or "greedy" or words to that effect, while the truth is that any parent who flies with a lap child is putting their child's life in danger over the cost of another seat.

mre5765

"Do as I say, and not as I do."

Superguy

I remember asking the question about wireless and planes at Networld back in '04. I was in a class with a recongized guru in the field (Craig Mathias, if anyone cares). He said he gets that question a lot and he posed to some Boeing engineers. Boeing's response: do you really think we'd design a plane that could be brought down by a cell phone?

Fredd

Is it simply an exercise in crowd control, like the requirement to stay seated with seat belts fastened during the safest part of the trip, approaching and leaving the jet bridge parking place?

I've even been known to furtively leave my Bose headphones switched on at forbidden times - in my world that's living on the edge.