Autoland and PEDs

BobDDuck

Island Bus Driver
Just flew in to Oslo on SAS and prior to starting the approach the captain made a PA stating that they would be performing an autoland due to the weather (freezing fog... yuck) and that they needed all personal electronic devices turned off and not just in airplane mode.

Is this a thing at other carriers? It's not for where I'm at (321 and 330) and I've never heard the announcement made in the US since the whole airplane mode thing started. Just wondering if it's an EASA vs FAA thing.
 
Don’t know if it’s common but I flew on US Airways back in 2013-14 into smf and the captain came on and made a similar PA for an ils.
 
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Just flew in to Oslo on SAS and prior to starting the approach the captain made a PA stating that they would be performing an autoland due to the weather (freezing fog... yuck) and that they needed all personal electronic devices turned off and not just in airplane mode.

Is this a thing at other carriers? It's not for where I'm at (321 and 330) and I've never heard the announcement made in the US since the whole airplane mode thing started. Just wondering if it's an EASA vs FAA thing.
As far as physics are concerned it's not a thing but I have no doubt someone that doesn't understand the electromagnetic spectrum had made it a mandatory pa.
 
We had that for a short time in the 2014 time frame for when we did CATIII approaches, but we don’t have autoland in the Q
 
As far as physics are concerned it's not a thing but I have no doubt someone that doesn't understand the electromagnetic spectrum had made it a mandatory pa.
*raises hand*

United made a concerted attempt at flagging cell issues on their aircraft with respect to VHF radio and nav issues, over 500, and Boeing addressed all of them in one day (it appears) and said they were all wrong. They didn't explain why or anything, just said they're wrong.

I don't think it's gonna get anyone killed but some GPS antennas are noisy and my dad's old Magellan (Texas instrument build) GPS can knock the F out of every gps including a cell phones gps. With the right antenna and a 12V battery I should be able to knock all the GPS use within a 5 mile ring no problem. Military is still screwing around with GPS jamming west of the rockies, I have no idea what they're testing except probably an antenna and power setup for an LCR circuit that will knock out 150 mile ring. I'm not sure if the ground based WAAS will fix that.

I personally would feel better if we would address all the issues found over the years. I don't think it's gonna get anyone killed, I'd just feel better.
 
Flew into Paris on Air France a couple of weeks ago. Freezing fog, low vis, and a similar announcement was made.
 
I’ve heard PAs staying that it may be required at some point, but never seen it implemented.

I wonder if they had to turn off their iPads up front.
 
Seems like a PA would cause unnecessary panic in the cabin. We don’t make those PAs at 9E. Just go on with business as usual.
 
*raises hand*

United made a concerted attempt at flagging cell issues on their aircraft with respect to VHF radio and nav issues, over 500, and Boeing addressed all of them in one day (it appears) and said they were all wrong. They didn't explain why or anything, just said they're wrong.

I don't think it's gonna get anyone killed but some GPS antennas are noisy and my dad's old Magellan (Texas instrument build) GPS can knock the F out of every gps including a cell phones gps. With the right antenna and a 12V battery I should be able to knock all the GPS use within a 5 mile ring no problem. Military is still screwing around with GPS jamming west of the rockies, I have no idea what they're testing except probably an antenna and power setup for an LCR circuit that will knock out 150 mile ring. I'm not sure if the ground based WAAS will fix that.

I personally would feel better if we would address all the issues found over the years. I don't think it's gonna get anyone killed, I'd just feel better.

This will be the major differentiator for the GARMIN Autoland system. With Garmin, you will HAVE to have your phone up and running; The Garmin A/L App runs on the iPhone. :biggrin:
 
It's a thing at my small carrier. Our Cat II/III auto land checklist even has a verbatim PA for us to read to ask to power down devices. I was surprised to learn about it too.
 
*raises hand*

United made a concerted attempt at flagging cell issues on their aircraft with respect to VHF radio and nav issues, over 500, and Boeing addressed all of them in one day (it appears) and said they were all wrong. They didn't explain why or anything, just said they're wrong.

I don't think it's gonna get anyone killed but some GPS antennas are noisy and my dad's old Magellan (Texas instrument build) GPS can knock the F out of every gps including a cell phones gps. With the right antenna and a 12V battery I should be able to knock all the GPS use within a 5 mile ring no problem. Military is still screwing around with GPS jamming west of the rockies, I have no idea what they're testing except probably an antenna and power setup for an LCR circuit that will knock out 150 mile ring. I'm not sure if the ground based WAAS will fix that.

I personally would feel better if we would address all the issues found over the years. I don't think it's gonna get anyone killed, I'd just feel better.
Active jamming is a different thing.
 
I know AA had to make that PA at some point. Not sure if they still do.
A couple weeks ago I was riding an AA 321 into ORD and they made that announcement. As someone mentioned upthread, I wondered if they turned theirs off.

It was pretty lousy...I want to say between 800-1000 RVR.

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