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Cellphones on planes - trial

Ugh, imagine people with their keypad tones switched one, texting the whole flight. BEEP BEEP BEEPEDY BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
 
There is a Sydney airport message board... I guess they have message boards for everything nowadays. I'm against cell phones on planes because I like my peace and quiet on the flight.
 
The trouble with mobiles on planes is not so much a question of whether they can cause problems or not, it is a question of knowing which ones do so. Some studies have shown with absolute certainty that certain phones can interfere with the electronics on planes, especially in certain combinations. At the same time, some phones are completely safe. The problem is that it is almost impossible to prevent only certain phones on certain networks being used, by far the easiest, cheapest and safest solution is to just ban all phones.

Edit : Some links.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16722523.100
Its researchers generated simulated cellphone transmissions inside two Boeing aircraft. They concluded that the transmissions could create signals at a power and frequency that would not affect the latest equipment, but exceeded the safety threshold established in 1984 and might therefore affect some of the older equipment on board.
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http://www.newscientisttech.com/channel/tech/mg18725161.600-cellphones-at-35000-feet.html
One of the few studies to analyse pilots' accounts of systems failure, published in 2001, examined reports filed between 1986 and 1999 to the NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System in the US. It revealed there had been 86 malfunction incidents of some sort traced to passengers using electronic devices inside the cabin; over a quarter of these were attributed to cellphones
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DME is a navigation aid used by aircraft to determine their distance from a particular radio transponder en route. So if two passengers were sitting next to each other, one making a call on a CDMA handset and the other on a GSM handset, that could cause interference signals on GPS and DME wavebands.
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In July 2003 the FAA received a report from a pilot who did not wish to be identified that a Samsung SPH-N300 cellphone, which is equipped with a built-in GPS receiver, caused an aircraft's GPS to lose its signal completely (NASA technical report, March 2004, Evaluation of a Mobile Phone for Aircraft GPS Interference).

The pilot's company managed to repeat the effect in several subsequent flights, in different geographic locations, on different days, and with three different GPS receivers, each using separate antennas. Every time the phone was turned off the interference vanished. Nguyen managed to reproduce the effects in a lab and measured significant interference in the GPS wavebands. It was the first confirmed, independently repeated example of interference between cellphones and flight systems. And the phone wasn't even carrying a call.
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No!
And this from a philosophical Taoist...

If anyone , ever, is permitted to use one of these toys of the devil on an aircraft I am on, I swear I will do things to him compared to which Claus Larsen defenestrating a sky marshal at 30,000 feet is the merest expression of pique.
I swear I shall start travelling with a set of bagpipes - and I will not hesitate to use them!
 
I don't have any problem with the idea of mobiles on flights, and I don't really understand why people do. Flights are hardly havens of "peace and quiet". And there are always ear-plugs.
 
Hey Acuity, ever wonder why they pass out headsets for people to watch the movie, rather than just blast the damn soundtrack all over the plane?

The plane is already loud enough. I don't need people talking in my ear.

~~ Paul
 
I understand the rationale behind banning all phones being switched on. What I object to is being asked to switch off my PDA because the flight attendant thinks it's a phone. Whilst the man opposite fiddling with his laptop that has a modem card sticking out of it remains unmolested. AND the young girl watching a movie on her (wireless enabled) PSP. Thank you Easyjet.
 
If some idiot wants to talk on the phone during a flight fine. Just step out on the wing and yak away. Otherwise, shut the hell up. I'm afraid I'd last about 30 seconds before I dunked somebody's phone in a cup of coffee.
 
Big Les said:
I understand the rationale behind banning all phones being switched on. What I object to is being asked to switch off my PDA because the flight attendant thinks it's a phone. Whilst the man opposite fiddling with his laptop that has a modem card sticking out of it remains unmolested. AND the young girl watching a movie on her (wireless enabled) PSP. Thank you Easyjet.
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The logic behind it is that things that deliberately transmit should be worse than theings which don't, so a phone could cause problems while a laptop shouldn't. The main problem is that this is just not true. As described in the second article I linked, 1/4 of problems traced to electronics were caused by phones. That means 3/4 of them were caused by things that weren't phones. The thing is, all electronic devices emit radiation. Mobiles and other communication devices may actually be safer than things like laptops because they focus their emissions in a narrow bandwidth and are low power enough that their normal losses aren't high enough to affect anything. However, high power electroincs like a laptop will emit much higher power noise and have the potential to affect aircraft systems. Although I'm not aware of any studies on this, there are anecdotal accounts of this happening, for example, from the first link in my last post:
Air crew on one flight found that the autopilot was being disconnected, and narrowed the problem down to a passenger's portable computer. They could actually watch the autopilot disconnect when they switched the computer on.
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The trouble is, politics and economics are involved as well. Mobile phones have been banned effectively since before people actually had mobile phones, so this is just something people have come to accept. Allowing things like laptops may be inconsistent, but since people are used to being allowed them there would be a huge outcry if they were to be banned now. At the moment there just isn't the research showing they are definately enough of a risk for it to be worth banning all electronics, so there is no chance of the rules being changed in the near future because any airline that actually did so would lose huge amounts of customers.
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
Hey Acuity, ever wonder why they pass out headsets for people to watch the movie, rather than just blast the damn soundtrack all over the plane?
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I think that the utility of mobile communication will (relatively quickly) outweigh the annoyance for most people. Planes are noisy anyway, yes. I use them a lot (and am lucky enough to be in business class quite often). I rarely regard them as places of peace and quiet, despite how the adverts make them look.

I'm just about old enough to remember public opinion being pretty opposed to the "scourge" of mobile phones being used in various other public places (such as restaurants, on buses . . .) but opinion seems to have softened steadily as people have decided that their usefulness more than compensates.
 
Freethinker said:
If some idiot wants to talk on the phone during a flight fine. Just step out on the wing and yak away. Otherwise, shut the hell up. I'm afraid I'd last about 30 seconds before I dunked somebody's phone in a cup of coffee.
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In what way(s) is talking on the phone more offensive than talking to the person next to them?
 
acuity said:
In what way(s) is talking on the phone more offensive than talking to the person next to them?
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1. Volume. People on cellphones talk far more loudly than people conversing with someone two feet away. Why? No idea.
2. Precisely because they are not speaking to those around them. They are treating them as if they were not there and had no say at all in what the people around them should do. OK for me to whistle all the way from Heathrow to Boston? Hum? Sing? Pick my nose? Good manners include considering the feelings of the people around you.
3. Imbecility. "I'm on the plane!" Yes, I know. I'm sitting beside you.
4. Mobile phones seriously annoy me at the best of times. On planes, I'm seriously stressed because I'm scared of flying. If ever I lose it and stuff a mobile phone down someone's throat, it's most likely to be on a plane.
I'm a nice guy. I'll probably just seethe for six hours and have a heart attack in the baggage hall, but you might be sitting beside someone a lot twitchier than me.
5. It's not just planes. Some trains in the UK have "quiet cars" no phones allowed. A mate of mine was on one when the passenger beside him pulled a phone and made a call. When he started a second call, my friend took a digital recorder out, placed it prominently on the table and switched it on.
The fellow gave him a very annoyed look, but took the hint and got up and went to the corridor to make his call.
6. Using phones where people have no alternative but to listen is displaying the manners of an oaf.
 
Maybe an airline could try "quiet flights" and "use your phone flights", or have a "switch-it-off side" and a "yak-away side" on the same flight, and see which tickets retail for more.

Anyway choice would be a fine thing if technology/safety issues were cleared out of the way.
 
frank462 said:
No!
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acuity said:
I think that the utility of mobile communication will (relatively quickly) outweigh the annoyance for most people.

...
I'm just about old enough to remember public opinion being pretty opposed to the "scourge" of mobile phones being used in various other public places (such as restaurants, on buses . . .) but opinion seems to have softened steadily as people have decided that their usefulness more than compensates.
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NO. I mean yes, what Señor Sam said.

Dog, flying's horrible enough already.

Technology-mediated obnoxiousness, especially of the sonic kind, is getting worse and worse. Leaf-blowers. Cell-phones. Insane driving in huge vehicles. Internet flaming. Motorcycles w/o mufflers.

Why do people do this? Because they can.
 
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Acuity said:
I'm just about old enough to remember public opinion being pretty opposed to the "scourge" of mobile phones being used in various other public places (such as restaurants, on buses . . .) but opinion seems to have softened steadily as people have decided that their usefulness more than compensates.
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No, they suck in all those places, too.

~~ Paul
 
Acuity said:
Maybe an airline could try "quiet flights" and "use your phone flights", or have a "switch-it-off side" and a "yak-away side" on the same flight, and see which tickets retail for more.
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Excellent idea! Like the old smoking and nonsmoking sections. And hopefully the blithering chit-chat section would go the way of the smoking section.

To paraphrase Susan Ertz:

Millions long for peace and quiet who do not know what to do with themselves on an airplane flight.

~~ Paul
 
What I want to know is, why are RECEIVER-ONLY radios banned on airplanes? They don't even broadcast any signals, fer cryin' out loud!
 
Cell phone use is generally allowed on trains. I used to ride the Metroliner frequently when I lived in Philly. The very last car on the train is called the quiet car and no loud talking or cell phone use is permitted therein. I tried it a few times and thought it was nice but nothing special. However, when I tried to ride in the regular cars again with all the cell phone blabbering, I resolved to always be in the quiet car. A long walk at the depot but definitely worth it.

Maybe those who don't think plane rides could actually be worse should take a train trip.
 
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