People talking on flights has never bothered me as long as they are not shouting and it is not an overnight flight. However, I always get annoyed with the people who laugh so loud while watching the IFE. I'm glad they are happy and having a good time, but not everyone has to hear it.

The idea of cell phones affecting the aircraft is kind of crazy anyway. An airplane flies through millions of communication signals (radio, cell phone etc) that don't seem to affect the airplane. I'm not a communications expect though so I could be wrong.

Speaking of cellphone etiquette, have you noticed that after the plane lands, arriving either late or in some cases even early, and the gate is still occupied or the ground crew is no where to be found, that is becoming more common to hear both male and female PAXs curse into their cellphones without any regard for other PAXs?

CDMA would also enable high speed internet access, which would be great inflight. You would just need to have service with whatever company (Verizon or Sprint) that offered the high speed service.

I'm all in favor of banning the talking, but think of having BlackBerry inflight.... Sweet!

By all accounts I've seen, airborne cell phones do not adversely affect the airplanes, they affect the ground cell network. Other devices, such as GPS and FM radio receivers, do use local oscillators that can cause interference on radio frequencies allocated to navigation purposes. If you see someone using one of these, please gently inform them that they may be disrupting the airplane's navigation systems. Or ask the FA to do so.

When piloting a plane, I've only experienced what I would call cellular phone interference in two ways:

1. The pilot gets the phone too close to the instrument panel, and some of the instruments give faulty readings. In a large aircraft, I've never seen this problem coming from a phone in a cabin.

2. As the plane descends, the phones acquiring the network do have some limited crossover with the aircraft's radios. You can hear the phone handshaking over the COM and NAV radios. Normally, IMO, this isn't a big problem, as the readings are okay, but I can tell you that when I've been concentrating on a difficult approach, the interference has startled me. I'm sure this wouldn't screw up a professional pilot, but why take chances -- if you're landing in crappy weather, make sure the phone's off.

So, what's the deal with CD players? SwissAir was the very anathema of CD-players. Some airlines (EI) still ban them from the skies and make a huge hullabaloo about them, others don't seem to concern themselves with the IFs these use. Care to illuminate? @:-)

Thanks!

yea, I wonder how long it'll be before AA does like LH and makes the plane into a flying hotspot

Regards,

Chris

Crying babies are actually less obnoxious most of the "rainmaker" conversations I hear in F when we're parked.

"Yeah, we should hook up... that deal is done... ohh yeah.. ten mill."

THOSE always sound better in the AC bathroom! Honkin' good business, I call it...

I use a phone with a bluetooth headset. It's set-up to answer the call after one ring.

Sometimes I'll hear my phone ring (from the overhead locker) shortly after take-off, or before landing, followed by a 'Hello are you there' from my shirt pocket (sometimes it's my trouser pocket, wherever I stuffed the headset before the flight).

(edited for brevity)


Or maybe they should just create a vestibule! :-)

No! No! No! Being "stuck on the tarmac" is my favorite excuse for why I turn off the BlackBerry and phone...

Actually what I've read is that the problem with inflight cellphones is that because there's no tower nearby, the phone tries to find signal, boosts its transmission power to max, and floods the area with radio energy. Now imagine 200 of those at the same time all in the cramped confines of the plane. I can guess I can see how that might interefere.

I don't know about the GPS receiver, though. I once actually asked the pilot if I could use a GPS receiver on board, and he said sure, no problem. Of course I couldn't get any signal because all that darn metal above interfered with a clear view of the sky, but hey, the plane didn't crash.

If it were really a problem I suspect more airlines would ban them.

The biggest problem with electronic equipment is that it is hard for the FAs to know what is allowed and what isn't. It's not easy to tell that that CD player doesn't have an FM receiver as well. All of this is most critical during takeoff and landing.