Oh, I know who that is without even clicking. Styropyro from LPF. Wish the damn guy would stop making public show off videos. Not helping. He could post private videos to LPF if he must.
Yea, it’s real. It’s the diode module from a casio projector. But you’re looking at ~$1000 just to get the module. Then you need to build drivers to power each one. And I believe divergence using the stock lenses isn’t very good. He calls it a “40W laser” but you’d need a single beam for that to be true. They aren’t combined or even brought really close through knife edging. It’s just for youtube views.
I guess this thread will go no where. Just like gun owners don’t want their guns taken, us laser hobbyist don’t want our hobby taken. There are a lot less of us, so us laser hobbyist will surely lose our rights.
Just keep in mind that it is a very short step from that point to regulating high power flashlights.
This report is disturbing. It’s not just a subjective report as most others are. But a real article from a peer reviewed journal which lists objectively seen eye damage. And the worse part is that the pilot reported that it happened at 1300 ft. It appears he was looking right at the laser’s direction when the flash happened so it was able to get straight his right eye instead of at an angle. Still, to cause that damage this had to be an uncommonly powerful laser. The authors mention that as well. “with the distance involved, we suspect the laser had a radiant power of several watts”
This was not something that is available at WL or some other chinese sites. This had to be a semi-custom made laser 5-7W. Unfortunately there is a seller with a whole laser website who has an easy no soldering kit for a 7W 445nm laser (priced over $1000). He sells them as “kits” specifically to avoid being shut down for selling complete lasers. Which is what they really are.
I love “news” reporters, only incidents that make good headlines are reported about. A real documented incident of eye damage, at 1300ft no less, and not a peep from reporters.
I wish the article wasn’t behind a paywall.
Actually there are some “ifs” involved, but generally pilots land the plane visually below 500 ft, unless the visibility does not allow that, the airport has the correct equipment and it’s operational, and the plane is equipped and certified to use that equipment. The ‘self-landing’ stuff ain’t cheap, ain’t legally required, and because of that the close finals are flown by hand while the rest of the flight is automated.
It’s not that simple. First the problem here is not so much the pilot’s eyes but their ability to see through the windshield. Many laser hits simply turn the winscreen into a glowing green mass nothing and nobody can see through. The tiny scratches there from cleaning, bug inpacts, etc act like prisms and spread the ‘green’ all over the window instead of in just one spot. They are taught to not look at the laser directly and there are laser filtering glasses but those only work on part of the spectrum and there are 3 different ones you’d need to filter all green lasers (though one covers the most commonly found wavelengths). Now the pilot can’t see greens well which can throw off their depth perception, make it hard or impossible to read instruments and messages on the cockpit screen, and even prevent them from seeing the grass they’re about to fly into. And they may not have the right glasses on.
If you want to hear from the world’s pilots about this and anything commercial pilot related, go to the PPRUNE forum website. What you learn there may end your days as a passenger on the airlines so beware. It’s a looooong way from what it once was and what you think it is now. The last few minutes of a flight are so busy that there’s not even time to fart and anything which disrupts that is very likely to bring confusion and danger leading to unpleasant results. The pilots have so little experience actually flying the plane that many of them barely can in good conditions even after having flown for years. God help them if something serious goes wrong because lots of them couldn’t get the plane down safely otherwise. And it’s not the pilots fault that it is this way- they don’t like it either and they are doing the best they can.
Now that I’ve done my responses, I’ll add my own thoughts. A handfull of watts of the correct wavelength is enough to endanger any flight seriously if the ‘shooter’ knows what to do. Just like most hackers being ‘script kiddies’, most laser operators who target planes really don’t know what they’re doing. They’re just trying to add to their ‘street creds’ among their own kind. There should be an attempted murder charge leveled against them for each person on the plane and for each person under the flight path it would have likely taken had the pilot not saved the day. Sentences should be run consecutively by order of the law. And they should be charged for reckless endangerment of the property involved- you got a few hundred million to pay for that plane you totalled and the runway equipment that got damaged boy? I didn’t think so.
No mercy. No quarter. And don’t let ME catch you targeting an airliner with a laser. You won’t like those results but you’ll remember them for whatever is left of your life- promise.
There is a guy on reddit who bragged about shinning his high powered flashlight into the windshield of an oncoming car to get them to turn their brights to low. And another bicyclist who was flashing a car in a neighborhood who he thought was driving too fast.
They are both going to end up with a reckless endangerment ticket/fine if a cop sees them do that. Couple of F$@$#*& idiots.
I think you may be missing an important point. No one is disparaging the concerns of pilots flying airplanes, just the knee-jerk, hate-and-panic-driven rubbish overreactions.
What if we all tried to come up with a solution for all of us, that doesn’t involve some forcible “ruling class” treating “the rest of us” like criminals for simply playing with toys. Herds have been culling “morons” for a lot longer than humans have been eating them. How could it possibly be hard for us?
Considering I’ve been here far longer than you and contributed more to BLF than you, it is very rich to try and label me a troll while you are being aggressive and single minded and essentially trolling yourself.
And I would hardly classify that as a ‘regular’ laser pointer. And if you had bothered to read the text for the vid, you’d see they say “30-200mW” laser not 5mW.
And lets not forget the physical limitations, that low flying helicopters simply aren’t common in all parts of every country.
The creative heart and soul of a people is crippled when large scale bans like these are called for. It puts a chill over the small few that are spending great mounts on money and time researching and experimenting with cutting edge technology. Let’s be honest. Pursuit of the the fastest, most powerful, beautiful, etc fuels the fire of inventiveness. Just look at some of the Light Cannons created by members on this forum. So of these beasts are starting to border on laser-like performance. Who knows how any one of these inventions may end benefiting the world. The same can be said for laser enthusiasts. Some of them spend 10’s of thousands of dollars and do deep research that may benefit us all in some way someday.
I find banning talk threatening to something I dearly cherish. We all know that firing a gun or shining a powerful aspheric flashlight at the cockpit of a plane endangers people and property. Shouldn’t the ban talk also be calling for bans on those even more dangerous objects/hobbies? The reason these calls to ban these much more dangerous objects are not made is because there is a large enough group of people who love those hobbies to make such calls trollish behavior. So a bully picks on the small that can’t punch back.
Criminalize the aggressive act, not the passion of a class of people.
This thread is awfully volatile… so not gonna say much, except that my eyes are dazzled and I see spots just from watching youtube videos of lasers hitting cockpits… I can only imagine what the pilots feel, quickly followed by the fear of “oh man, am I blinded and going to hit something!?”
But I agree with the “criminalize the act, don’t blanket ban the item” crowd.
Pilots also report seeing flying saucers and aliens. I’d prefer to believe results from properly controlled scientific experiments. Humans will report all kinds of crap if it suits them.
Citation needed to support this assertion.
Try to limit it to say the last 10 years or so.
Seriously — put both searches into Google Scholar, along with a search on laser aircraft, and you’ll find the scientific work you want.
Don’t trust me, I’m just some guy on the Internet.
I thought that they have only ever reported UFO’s? Like literally, Unidentifed Flying Objects. Anything travelling through the air or space that you cannot identify qualifies for that terminology.
No, they definitely report stuff as being extra-terrestrial. Lots of this kind of stuff since WW2. There’s wiki pages on it, etc. Humans can be really wrong, regardless of their job.
