That is what happens when morons get things like lasers and guns! I would not dream of shooting a passing car or say, plane! Why point lasers at windshields?
as harsh as it sounds, the penalties for these idiots who laser aircraft should be charged with attempted mass murder & terrorist activities, & sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole. ( ie: blinding pilots could cause a crash killing hundreds in a worst case scenario.)
Do those planes have some sort of sensor to indicate if a laser is pointing at it?
From the article: after a Virgin Atlantic plane bound for New York turned around because of a laser beam that caused a crew member to feel sick.
Ths plane was in the air, how can somebody feel sick, are these people staring out the window the whole flight?
If a alarm start buzzing and you see a red light flashing that your plane is being targeted, yes I can imagine a reaction to stress.
Then try to hold a tight beam ponted at any point, it is hard, so now this point to aim is way up in the sky and moving, at such a distance the tiniest movement of the hand will cause the beam to be hundreds of meters off target if you were targetting a plane)
I dont get it other then an warning system onboard.
^
Some green lasers leak IR, but it is mostly a danger to folks in the near facinity. IR tends to disperse and is hard to focus.
I saw some footage yesterday from the cockpit. Not sure if it was the incident in the OP. The laser was dead pan on a part of the front window. Seems it would need some type of military-grade targeting system to hold it that steady.
Happy to learn Sharpie thanks, it seems so unlikely these things can be bought ofr ordinary folks so this must be different from all the lasers for sale on budgetsites then.
If a plane can be brought down by a kid shining a home laser pen at it, then perhaps the airlines should do better training, tech, or system to prevent that. Because, I’m sure a terrorist isn’t going to be shamed into not bring down a plane, if it’s that easy.
“brought down” is a troll, right? This aircraft was “brought down” by either the pilot or copilot along with air traffic control.
That’s like saying “If my grandmother had wheels she’d be a wagon.”
They’re not going to replace every window in the cockpit before every flight.
Plexiglass accumulates scratches in use and lights up like a panel light when brightly illuminated by a laser.
You can see the videos.
There are kids out there with industrial lasers, and any pilot who’s been dazzled doesn’t know how long it will take to recover.
No pilot would continue a transAtlantic flight in that condition — relying on the copilot being able to handle everything that could happen — not on an aircraft loaded with passengers.
A plane can be “brought down” — caused to return and land — in response to all sorts of spurious crap, much of it less actually damaging than a laser strike.
No report about this incident which I’ve seen even makes a guess about the power of the laser. If fact even when they arrest someone and have the actual laser in hand they still virtually never mention such details. Have you seen anywhere that even identifies it as a green laser?
Morons who aim at planes are not that likely to have green lasers that do over 1W. You need to spend a lot of money and do some research to get over 1W in either DPSS or direct diode green wavelengths. If these people had the brains to do even a tiny bit of research they wouldn’t be aiming at planes. The vast majority of morons will just have lasers brought from random sellers. Poor quality DPSS 532nm lasers made in china as quickly and cheaply as possible. Because output power with DPSS depends on careful alignment, what you get from these cheap lasers varies a lot. 10-80mw is the usual range for basic ones. A hundred to a couple hundred mw for more powerful models. With the more powerful models, the advertised mw power is nearly always exaggerated, often greatly exaggerated. The people who buy from these sellers never have a laser power meter so there is no reason for the sellers not to make up random high numbers.
Then there is the fact that when you get into these very high powers the lasers don't do tight beams and the divergence is worse. You can get higher power density W/cm2 from a lower mw laser with better divergence.
Concerning the IR which is present in unfiltered 532nm lasers, as ImA4Wheelr said the divergence of it's IR is high. Even at moderate distances it won't be harmful.
[quote=Sharpie]
these lasers also pump out massive power in infrared, can do and have resulted in serious retinal burns to pilots, sometimes career limiting.
[/quote]
Show me even a single report of serious retinal burns in pilots from IR. At the distances that they are hit from the W/cm2 is just not high enough.
A laser with 1W of actual power would need to be closer than 175ft to potentially cause damage. Not serious retinal burns, not even minor burns but a "minimally detectable change to the retina". You can't get that close to planes taking off or landing. So it's flashblindness at worse not "serious retinal burns". Now I am not saying that these laser incidents are not serious. They certainly are. Who here wants to be on a plane with a pilot who is even distracted by a moron with a laser? And flashblindness could result in a cash, kill people.
I love my high power lasers. I actually use them for utilitarian purposes too. Just like with my high power flashlights, I don’t use them in a way that can harm anyone. I also carry one when hiking as a back up way to start a fire and signal for help. Guns are much more dangerous than lasers and I don’t want to lose those either.
What do you find if you search for, just for example, “3-watt laser” — anything available?
Spyder 3 Arctic Blue Handheld Laser - Wicked Lasers www.wickedlasers.com/arctic
Wicked Lasers S3 Spyder III Arctic blue laser is the world’s most powerful … with fully variable power control, feel the power with up to 3.5 Watts of laser energy.
Now change it to “4-watt laser” — find anything?
Yep. Plenty for sale cheap. A few cautions start showing up, e.g.:
You Probably Shouldn’t Buy This Laser – Built on Facts
Jun 30, 2010 - As a result, the average power of the laser is 1 watt, which puts it solidly in Class 4 territory. The infrared beam in invisible, so while a green 1 …
——ok, that’s 4——
Now change the “4” to “5” and search again.
46 items found for 5watt laser
First one is:
5000mw 532nm Strong power military green laser pointers burn match candle lit cigarette wicked lazer torch 5Watt+5 caps+charger+gift box
US $ 22.51 - 27.37 / Piece
Free Shipping Via ePacket (Standard)
Sold: 27
Nah, no kiddie is going to spend that much money, right?