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  • From: Greg Cox <glcox AT pobox.com>
  • To: "Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [internetworkers] in flight broadband wireless
  • Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2003 12:25:01 -0400 (EDT)

> What I really like is the whole implication behind the "extinguish
> all electronic devices" command.
>
> Basically, they are telling you that any moron with cell phone,
> PDA, gameboy or any other electronic device can cause the plane
> to crash.

It's not really an "if you hit 'send' on your phone then the plane
will do a half roll on short final" thing. Though it'd make a
good cartoon. The flight systems are pretty hardened. If they
weren't, you wouldn't get to use anything, ever.

It's more a combination of
"no, really, your laptop and cellphone, though they may be an
extension of you, put them under the frickin' seat,"
and
"the FCC regulates the radio interference electronic devices may
put out, but we can't account for other countries' regulation.
Besides, whoever manufactured it, we can't account for glitches
that end up screwing with the radio."

It's not really a big deal in the enroute portion of a commercial
flight: you're on a flight plan that clears you to a certain
point (usually your destination, though it could be to a point
along the way where you'll hold awaiting further clearance),
and you have ways of getting there: dead reckoning by map,
watch, and slide rule. Calls to the ground, if missed, aren't
critical, and no-radio/lost-communications procedures would
cover you nicely.

In towered airspace, the ground wants more explicit control of
your movements because there's so many planes around. Once
you've gone a reasonable way out, you'll get a call to "resume
own navigation," meaning that Departure isn't telling you what
heading to fly anymore, so make a turn for your first waypoint.
Coming in, same thing: you'll get altitude, heading, and speed
assignments from Approach, and missing those is pretty ungood.

> Not exactly a move for building confidence in the safety of air travel...

What's wrong with 'better safe than dead?'


p.s.: I know the Ground, Tower, and Approach frequencies for RDU;
I can find them for any U.S. airport (where applicable). I also
have a transmitter, and I know the phraseology of air traffic
controllers. While it's not likely they'd follow an instruction
of "descend and maintain 3000" when they should be at 5000 (odd
voice, lots of background noise, and I'd have to stay stuck-mike
to not let Approach fix the false instruction), do you really
want to take the chance that they can sort it out in time?

-G "say intentions" C





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