All portable electronic devices...

[CirrusMonkey]

Oh, you'll be taxiing at 80 knots soon!

Who doesn't, on the last leg?

 

[Autothrust Blue]

Show me a picture of you in your leather coat and cowboy boots!

Hey, I wear boots and the U-boot coat...

(oh no.)

 

[Deleted member 27505]

That's not exactly what it says.

91.21(b)(5)
(5) Any other portable electronic device that the operator of the aircraft has determined will not cause interference with the navigation or communication system of the aircraft on which it is to be used.

My boss is yapping on his phone as we roll down the runway all the time. He talks until the signal drops. I've determined that it doesn't interfere with anything in the aircraft.

And all the way until the nose wheel rises, you're legal. After that I wouldn't go admitting "indiscretions" online...

 

[rframe]

My tablet EFB gets updates via 4G constantly, haven't died yet.

 

[Deleted member 27505]

Please understand I'm not trying to get on a soapbox. I just empathize with the FAA on this point alright guys? So keep that in mind reading the following.

While I agree with the sentiment, I'd hope you guys can feel the pain of the FAA who has certain requirements and mandates which govern certification and operating PED's below the 10,000 mark conflict with those mandates. HIRF (High intensity radio freqs) causes issues, it's why we certify with that in mind, and the industry hasn't been able to keep up with technology.

I don't think a kindle is going to bring down an airplane, but cell phones have been shown in the past to cause known issues with VHF nav/comms and we haven't done enough with bluetooth (which signal was shown to interrupt transmissions on electrical signals between boxes) and even this near field stuff coming out. Cell phones, tablets, and gizmo's will continue to innovate and communicate in new and brilliant ways, ways which are not uniform in application or manufacturing. By the time the FAA could put out a SAE or DOE doc on how to test for those devices and industry could respond they'll be 10 iPhone/android iterations from when we wrote the docs and we'll be obsolete before testing. The safest way is sometimes the more illogical and tedious way, but it saves us from actually having to test the units, which would mean regulating and stifling the innovation and moneymaking potential.

Anyway, gizmos good. Just keep them off below 10k

The Navy has tested everything for interference. And what they haven't tested the independent testing labs have.
I'd be more concerned with GPS getting jammed intentionally or otherwise, by somebody on the ground. Jamming GPS is like pushing the EASY button. What's really cool is when you just distort it a wee tad so instead of lining up on final, you line up on the 280 highway.
The whole cell phone interference thing is nonsense. The rules against cell phone use on planes come not from the FAA, but from the FCC. That's because the original cell systems were based on a ground umbra geometry. Push a signal from above the towers and now you've got one phone talking to six or eight transmitters and the whole system goes haywire. Modern systems haven't worked that way for decades. But the law remains. Laws should be like houses in Switzerland, You don't get to build a new one except on the site of an old one. Otherwise we end up like we are, having to plod through a 20 foot deep miasma of molasses in order only to do simple tasks like get on a darned bus.

 

[Deleted member 27505]

I take pictures with my Canon 7D all the time from airliners, never once have I been asked to stow it or turn it off thus far.

My favorite was showing a SWA Stew our current position on the moving map of my Garmin 696. She thought it was real cool, and told me about a similar doohicky she had in her family's waterski boat. Hate to say it guys, but's that's why I kinda love SWA. Okay, they tend toward the insular, jingoistic end of the spectrum, but doggonit it, they tend to act like real human beings.

 

[jynxyjoe]

The Navy has tested everything for interference. And what they haven't tested the independent testing labs have.

I worked for one of those independent testing labs, the one that taught the Navy every year about DO-160D (at the time, it went to E now it's all the way to G). Furthermore I was at Pax River a few times at their testing facility for the Osprey, when were you hanging around? Who do you know in the team at Pax?

I'd be more concerned with GPS getting jammed intentionally or otherwise, by somebody on the ground. Jamming GPS is like pushing the EASY button. What's really cool is when you just distort it a wee tad so instead of lining up on final, you line up on the 280 highway.

You don't need to be that silly. There are keychains online that you can buy (just illegal to operate) which completely do the job for a half mile or so. With my 12V batter and some aluminum foil I can increase that to the size of a city. This is ancient knowledge though- this has been public knowledge for 15 years or so right?

The whole cell phone interference thing is nonsense. The rules against cell phone use on planes come not from the FAA, but from the FCC.

Fiction can be fun, it comes from both

That's because the original cell systems were based on a ground umbra geometry. Push a signal from above the towers and now you've got one phone talking to six or eight transmitters and the whole system goes haywire. Modern systems haven't worked that way for decades.

They still work that way, they just shunt the MAC address when the system picks up the same MAC address on more than X number of towers. At least 8 years ago that's how it worked. Are you a Cell tower guy or an aircraft certification guy? I'm the latter, so my experience is only with that field, I only know the cell stuff through an uncle who worked for AT&T for decades.

But the law remains.

The laws remain on the FAA side too, those laws you don't think exist. The BCAA has them too apparently (so rumored). Any time you think the cell phone can't cause interference to a VHF comm, you and the CA can leave the phone on, invariably you'll get some interference on the way up that you can hear. Or just fly long enough (last time I heard it was two plus years back DEN Center) and a controller on the ground will leave the phone on in his little dark room and you'll get something similar (except it'll be on every transmission).
I've noticed larger jets are fairly immune to the problem, Saabs and 1900's aren't so good and I've had the CRJ do something similar but sometimes I can't tell if it's just screwing with my headset ANR or otherwise. United pilots spent months categorizing a thousand devices over six months one time and Boeing spent one day refuting all the evidence they'd come up with. Impossible, but that's what Boeing is selling. It's unlikely the interference is going to bring down an aircraft and there's an honest discussion that's been ongoing for years about if the amount of microwatts of interference being created is worth worrying about, but none of the serious discussions involve questioning if there IS interference. There is interference, it's measurable, it's been measured in the past by a few non government groups. One of them went so far as to say there are an average of 4 cellphones left on every flight (SWA was the airline used so you can approximate ratio).

Laws should be like houses in Switzerland, You don't get to build a new one except on the site of an old one. Otherwise we end up like we are, having to plod through a 20 foot deep miasma of molasses in order only to do simple tasks like get on a darned bus.

I don't know what that means.

 

[ChasenSFO]

My favorite was showing a SWA Stew our current position on the moving map of my Garmin 696. She thought it was real cool, and told me about a similar doohicky she had in her family's waterski boat. Hate to say it guys, but's that's why I kinda love SWA. Okay, they tend toward the insular, jingoistic end of the spectrum, but doggonit it, they tend to act like real human beings.

You know, its strange, I've flown Southwest 11 times and never had a cabin crew that was anything out of the ordinary despite their reputation. No complaints though. The majority of my flights on Skywest, I've had very cool flight attendants, especially on the Brasilia. Often times if I had my badge on and the loads were light, they'd sit next to me and BS for most of the flight. That's the only airline that ever stood out to me consistantly.

 

[wheelsup]

You know, its strange, I've flown Southwest 11 times and never had a cabin crew that was anything out of the ordinary despite their reputation. No complaints though. The majority of my flights on Skywest, I've had very cool flight attendants, especially on the Brasilia. Often times if I had my badge on and the loads were light, they'd sit next to me and BS for most of the flight. That's the only airline that ever stood out to me consistantly.

I had a lot of students that were Mormon. They are good people, and SkyWest for sure hires a lot of them.

 

[mshunter]

"DAMNIT! Phones dead. I forgot to turn it off again."

Because searching.g for cell towers in cruise costs a lot.of battery.

 

[Deleted member 27505]

I don't know if this will serve to inform or distract, but I found it interesting. Funny the tidbits gleaned snarfing FBO bandwidth during those insomniac rest periods.
http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/docs/rpsts/ped.pdf

 

[Autothrust Blue]

I don't know if this will serve to inform or distract, but I found it interesting. Funny the tidbits gleaned snarfing FBO bandwidth during those insomniac rest periods.
http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/docs/rpsts/ped.pdf

That's...yeah, that's interesting actually. Good stuff.