Torc wrote "the law seems to be based on the possibility that 250 people all talking on celphones inside a big Faraday cage might just cause some interferance with a plane's navigational system."

No Torc, the law has nothing to do with that. The regulation has nothing to do with protecting aircraft.

The regulation is for the sole purpose of protecting the operation of the cell phone system. Do you understand that? Can you get that through your thick skull?

Attendant: "Stop playing on that GameBoy..."

Passenger: "It's not a bloody GameBoy!"

Attendant: "Well whatever the fark it is, alright?!!!"

Flight Crew Memeber: "Oh great!!! This is all we need!"

So the real question is when did the FCC and the FAA get into bed together? And what's the payoff? Verrrrrrry interrrrrrresting.

1) Airlines install air-phones on their planes
2) Passengers don't use much 'cause they're too expensive
3) Passengers bring their cell-phones on board
4) Air-phones' use drops even further
5) Airlines don't get their return on investment on air-phones
6) Airlines make cell phones illegal, though no-one ever shows cell-phones to be dangerous to airplanes

Draw your own conclusions.

GB: The link Pershing posted seems to indicate otherwise. It's the FAA making the law, not the FCC.

Drgeoffrey: A lot more can go wrong on a plane then a terrorist attack or a crash where everyone dies. Flight crew members are trained to handle inflight medical emergencies, emergency evacuation of a plane and the like.

I have several friends who work in the industry and if you knew the crap that they have to put up with in the course of their jobs, you'd be a little ticked too.

sounds like the FCC would benefit much more.

This is how it all started. The FCC figured out they couldn't bill people for their airtime while they were using their phones on flights, so they needed to stop people from using making cell calls in the air. The FAA needed to make money while people used phones while flying in their planes. Some hotshot from the FCC did lunch with some yayhoo from the FAA and, wahh lahhh: no cellphone use allowed on planes, and instead you could pay for airplane headrest cellphones charging outrages prices. All in the name of air security.

speaking of cellphone tetris playing terrorists, how come we can still take lighters on airplanes but not nailclippers?

Hydrostatic_Equilibrium:

Because the pilots might need to borrow a lighter to light their joint. As for the nailclippers, we all know they can substitute for a roach clip and the pilots have been warned that once the joint gets too small, they could burn their lip trying to suck on it and crash the plane in the process.

CerebralParsley:

Ah, thanks, I was just wondering :)

MrKraclenutz: Fishbulb

Speaking as someone who's talked on cellphones while flying on dozens of planes, I think it's safe to say that the "turn your cellphone on and the planes will fall out of the sky" school of though is total bullshiat.

GunBoy was right about the Al Qaeda plot. I'll give you credit when I notify OPeration TIPS of their plans.

href="http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/topstory2/1567765

And laptops and gameboys too. God I hate planes.

Tried to HTML it and screwed it all up. Bah.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/topstory2/1567765

AHAHHA, nice CerebralParsley very nice...probably true too

I think the problem is that the cellphone signal creates interference with the cockpit radios; which isn't a good thing considering that a plane that remains out of contact with ground control could possibly be shot down. of course if the dude just turned off the damn phone and read a magazine he'd have saved himself a lot of trouble. ha!

Personally, I'd like to see similar sentencing for using a cell phone in a theatre.

Oh yes, I am very very interested in the concerns of my fellow Americanins.

This cellphone thing is very bad. It seems about as bad as being shot through the foot for not obaying your..... Bathroom attendant!

But my fellow Americans, I would like to know what sort of cellphone causes the most problems on the airplane, so I will know to never ever bring one, and can tell my two hundred... paper boys to never ever bring them either.

Because, my Americanin brothers, we are all very very sad about the crash of the filthy capitalist towers, and must make sure we have a very safe anniversary, bless us Al............. The Great Flying Monkey! Yes, The Great Flying Monkey bless us all, my friends!!

Pleasing to respond promptly about cellphone question, as I have very little time to not buy 200 of them.

GunBoy is right about the reason for the cell phone ban. However, the rule was made back when all the phones were analog. Now that they are virtually all digital, each cell has around ten times the capacity, and because of the modulation schemes used, the system is much more tolerant of a strong, high-altitude signal that hits numerous cells.

It's time to lift the ban. Particularly if PDAs are allowed, which use the same frequencies and modulation schemes to access e-mail.

Also, with the digital modulation, the likelihood of a cell phone interfering with a plane's nav or com systems is greatly diminished, due to the much lower power and the digital modulation scheme.

Cell Phones.

CELL? Terrorist?

TETRIS: TERRORISTS?

Is there a hidden meaning somewhere in here?

'He had been warned twice by cabin staff and once by a passenger to switch off the phone, which triggered an argument during the Air 2000 flight on which there was 206 other holidaymakers and six cabin crew. '

How stupid is he no tto have learned the first couple times!?

hey, if they're ditching that stupid "Are you sure you packed your own bags? are you REALLY REALLY SURE?" question, they might as well lift the inane electronics ban. or at least let minor things like CD-players and handheld things on.

The argument isnt if HE thinks his phone interferes. Its that the flight staff told him turn it off. He refused, 3 times. Therefore he refused a command by an officer of the airline. They turned him over to the authorities, because refusing to comply with airline officials is a crime.

If they tell you to bend over and stick your head up your arse, you do it. You smile and say how far. You then sue the pants off them later. But once you complain, you lose. Sorry. It's the same with COPS. Obey the minimum you are told, or violate their order, which is a crime.

My record is over 1000 lines on the Game Boy version.

Probably more than this retard got.

Too bad there wasn't an Air Marshall or an armed pilot that could have blown this asshat away for being an obnoxious dickhead and not following orders.

They need bouncers, like they have in strip clubs, who kick the asses of unruly passengers and toss them off the plane.

God, over reaction.

First off they can cause no problems to the airplane, the only reason that they are banned in the states is because the FCC says so. The FCC is worried that you could contact multiple cell sites thus wasting valuable air time.

Now as far as transmissions, well aviation beacons transmit in the 118mhz range (there are a set of freqs but I don't feel like digging them up), while analog cell phones transmit on the 800mhz range and digital is normally 1.9ghz or 2.1ghz.

As you can see there is little danager to navigation. Also for Altantic crossing you have to have double INS (which requires no radio navigation inputs), plus updates from either a ground based nav aid (if within range) or GPS (which almost always works).

The judge is over reacting and he himself should be thrown in jail for suggesting that. I know that I wouldn't trust my $100+ cell phone to some stranger.

CerebralParsley
Cell Phones.

CELL? Terrorist?

TETRIS: TERRORISTS?

Is there a hidden meaning somewhere in here?

LOL Is your name John Ashcroft? :)

[obvious] tag

Either no one got my joke, or I was way out of line...

Or maybe I made a stupid joke.

BlossomBubblesButtercup:

I have been called many things, but never anything so insulting as John Ashcroft.

I rue the day that I am compared to Herr Ashcroft.

Okay, here's my take. I used to carry a CD player on flights, and long ago a stewardess stopped by (we were taxiing, she was doing that walk down a moving plane walk-check thing) and asked me about my cd player. Her only concern was if it acted like a walkman (getting radio stations) or just played CDs. I told her, than asked why.

The gist was, you could use anything electronic, no worries. But RADIOS were the problem. Radios send out a signal as well as receive, the small booster signal the radio sends out to amplify the radio signal... THAT jacks up planes. Super hetrodyne is the possibly mangled spelling of that receive/broadcast function in radios.

This is, of course, back when Flight Attendants were called steward/esses, but not quite so far back as when you could smoke on a coast to coast flight. But later on, I imagine it became easier to say 'turn off ALL electronic devices' rather than 'everyone but folks with walkmans/radios are good. Now here's why...'

So there is the basis (or a decent hypothesis) as to why you get yelled at for electronic device use.

As for unruly passenger beatdowns, air rage is nothing new. One of the first cases I ran across was where a young guy freaked on a plane, became erratic and brash, and so six people jumped up and helped beat the shi.. er, I mean subdue the guy. They subdued him so well he died. Something about standing on his throat stands out in my mind. All of the people involved served no time, as the Judge ruled they were acting in basic self-preservation and the general welfare of everyone aboard.

Fast forward to now. So yeah, when I saw a woman talking on her cell and blow off two earlier warnings that it needed to be turned off by a Flight Attendant, I got ready for some THROAT STOMP...er, I mean.. it was annoying to see. But the Flight Attendant came back once more and totally put the everloving fear of Airline Justice 'We can bump you to another flight' Smackdown upon her, and it was all good.

Theater cell phone use should be penalized with the insertion of the cell phone in a democratically chosen orifice of the perpetrator's body.

TheRapy:

I thought it was pretty funny. Especially in the way it was worded.

How, came I, to be laughing so...

He had been warned twice by cabin staff and once by a passenger to switch off the phone, which triggered an argument during the Air 2000 flight on which there was 206 other holidaymakers and six cabin crew.

Well, what the fark did he expect. Asshat!!!!!!!

Morons.

...I forgot to mention that if they have strip club bouncers on flights, they should also have strippers.

if airlines wanted to tell you to remove your shoes, you have to comply becuase when in the air, they are the law, this guys was told to turn off his phone, didn't and paid the cost, no matter if it was sending or recieving signals, even though if it was on, i would imagine it could potentially revieve a call thus send a signal. but no matter, he was a dumb A55, didn't comply and paid for it.

My question is:

What if you are on an airplane and are talking to someone with a cellphone that has a built in speakerphone, and the person on the other end says, "Man I saw 'Crossroads', Britney was the BOMB!". Which one of the following occurs?

A) You get arrested for Having a cellphone on
B) You get arrested for saying "Bomb" on an airplane
C) Your friend gets arrested for saying "Bomb"
D) Your friend gets arrested for liking "Crossroads"
E) You get arrested for knowing someone who liked "Crossroads"
F) All of the above
G) None of the Above

-joelmole

This is how other countries handle people who screw around on planes and don't do what they are told.



Now... for all of you ACLU homos who want to make excuses for this obnoxious retard, here's my take.

DO WHAT YOU ARE TOLD ON A PLANE. It doesn't matter what your half-ass scientific opinion on instrument interference is... just do it.

Your life and the lives of others are in the hands of that pilot. Forget about terrorism, plane crashes are pretty ugly for everyone involved. Believe me, I have been to some...you don't want to partake in the experience.

And after 9/11, you better do what you are told by the crew on any plane I am on, or I assure you that I will personally get out of my seat and kick the living shiat out of you.




OK? Are we clear?

that last sentence should read:

"and are talking with a cellphone that has a built in speakerphone to someone"....

The way i said it above made it sound like the other person had the speakerphone...that wouldn't make any sense, now would it?

"He said the switching on of a mobile could prove fatal, causing the autopilots on aircraft to malfunction and also affecting the communications systems."

This proves that ignorance can appear in any country.

Maybe I'm off base here but it doesn't appear that the problem is truly being addressed. After all, isn't the real crux of the whole cell phone use on a plane debate not whether or not a cell phone can interfere with a planes navigation and communications but rather why haven't these essential aeronautical technologies been updated to be impervious. These everyday consumer electronics are carried on board by damn near every passenger. They aren't going away, and banning them is only going to create criminals out of ordinary citizens and leave the real problem unresolved.

Anywho... It just seems to me that if a cell phone can take down an airplane the problem is with the airplane, not the cell phone.

IAMGOD2U..LOL you'd just better hope the flight attendant is there to back you up or you gonna look silly sharing a prison cell with the guy you tried to discpline.

Iamgodtou:

Thank God somebody shot Rosa Parks for being all self-righteous. No one likes people that want change.

Lunatic Tasske:

Rosa Parks had it coming if she tried to take over the bus and drive it into the Denny's and kill innocent people...

Hey, you're preachin' to the choir bro. Let them have their pancakes and eat them too.

Any time you are feeling itchy... I can open one of these for y'all.