Lasers + Aircrafts

Dont know when this was...just saw it on YouTube.

YouTube - Green laser hits plane landing in Spokane

What made me post this is what he said at 1:09. (plus the federal offense part/FBI part)

Thank god the FBI deals with these assholes

Truly,you should never shine a laser directly into the sky.Some planes fly at over 4000 feet, and sometimes you can't see them, so you think its alright to shine a laser into the sky.

The problem is is that the cockpit windows are polarized,meaning that if a laser hit it it would shine all green.

20 years of prison? Seriously?

Grix said:

20 years of prison? Seriously?

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They said up to, but yeah it could be 20 years...

Lol if that happened in the canada the guy would be free after few years.

Momo66342 said:

Truly,you should never shine a laser directly into the sky.Some planes fly at over 4000 feet, and sometimes you can't see them, so you think its alright to shine a laser into the sky.

The problem is is that the cockpit windows are polarized,meaning that if a laser hit it it would shine all green.

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well I work at the airport and you can clearly tell the deference between an airplane and a star. An airplane has a red blinking beacons, red, green and white lights/strobes all over. and its moving. 4000 feet is a bit low and you would clearly see it. The average altitude that a commercial airline flies is about 30,000 feet and you can still see it. but most of the problem with pointing a laser at a plane comes when the plane is taking off or landing. so you would have to be in directly in front of the plane to cause the most problems. but you still shouldnt point a laser at an aircraft.

20 years doesn't sound unreasonable. You SHOULDN't be doing it. Drinking weed, smoking alcohol, doing alcohol is one thing, endangering others is another

Very Well Said, it's nice to here someone with the right experence put this in the proper perspective, seems a few people will guess about things and then post it and all that seems to do is confuse some people. I myself have watched satellites on many occasitions so I know very well things can be seen easy at 4000 feet. thanks for the good info a4rings !!!

Peace All Pyro... :eg:

a4rings said:

well I work at the airport and you can clearly tell the deference between an airplane and a star. An airplane has a red blinking beacons, red, green and white lights/strobes all over. and its moving. 4000 feet is a bit low and you would clearly see it. The average altitude that a commercial airline flies is about 30,000 feet and you can still see it. but most of the problem with pointing a laser at a plane comes when the plane is taking off or landing. so you would have to be in directly in front of the plane to cause the most problems. but you still shouldnt point a laser at an aircraft.

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themandalorian said:

20 years doesn't sound unreasonable. You SHOULDN't be doing it. Drinking weed, smoking alcohol, doing alcohol is one thing, endangering others is another

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i lol'd

Lmao me too i just re read that. Yeah you can see I don't do those things

You can drink the THC if you get a drink from a cannabis club, dunno about smoking alcohol though LOL

Momo66342 said:

The problem is is that the cockpit windows are polarized,meaning that if a laser hit it it would shine all green.

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Nonsense. If they are really polarized, it would just mean that the laser beam (which is polarized) would be attenuated by 0 to 100%, depending on the relative orientation of the planes of polarisation.

themandalorian said:

20 years doesn't sound unreasonable. You SHOULDN't be doing it. Drinking weed, smoking alcohol, doing alcohol is one thing, endangering others is another

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Well, how many people get killed by "driving under the influence", not to mention other deaths and violence for which alcohol is the trigger every year? If shining a laser at a plane can give you 20 years even if nothing happens, then being caught with a sixpack of beer should surely rate "life" with no possibility of parole...

I said nothing about driving drunk. And not only, that driving while high. How can anyone think that is ok?

dr-ebert said:

Nonsense. If they are really polarized, it would just mean that the laser beam (which is polarized) would be attenuated by 0 to 100%, depending on the relative orientation of the planes of polarisation.

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I'm not sure if it has anything to do with polarization, but...




"Glare from a legal 5 milliwatt laser pointer located 1200 feet from an aircraft. The pilot cannot see the runway when the laser is on the cockpit window."

Laser Pointer Safety - Tips on keeping laser pointers safe and legal (from ilda and AxiZ; all about shining lasers at airplanes)

Figured I might could provide a pilot's perspective on the issue.

Im currently a pilot for a major US airline, flying an aircraft that seats 120 passengers. In my opinion, the laser pointer threat is really more of an annoyance than a serious hazard, having a laser flashed on the windscreen ( WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY POLARIZED) at night would most likely produce a momentary bright flash but actually hitting us in the eyes is very unlikely. Not saying it couldn't happen though. We routinely deal with limited visibly, flashing runway light, fogged up windscreens on a regular basis. Having a laser flashed at the cockpit would be most likely somewhat distracting, annoying and would probably piss me off quit a bit. Even though I don't believe it is a serious threat to aircraft, I believe someone dumb enough to do this deserves the full penalty of the law and a good punch in the nose.

What on earth would motivate a person to interfere with the operation of a 150,000 lbs aircraft traveling at high speeds during night landing is beyond me. I am not at all saying that the laser could not temporarily prevent you from seeing the runway adequately during landing, just that the pointER would have to have a steady hand and be lucky.

I guess the reasons for this are the same as why some hunters take a shot at small aircarft flying low. And there have been pilots killed from being shot by hunters...

@randomlugia, I've seen the PPT where that picture came from. It is a simulation of a picture taken with a camera. I've done my own tests: looked into the beam of a 250mW LPC-815 with bare eyes, from 5m away of course there's a trick to it: I've DEFOCUSED the beam to a diameter of about 70cm, simulating how it would look like from about 1500m distance (I've calculated the parameters in advance and knew there was no danger, even then I first wore sunglasses). Taking the differences in power, wavelength, and distance into account, I'd say the picture looks about right, except that the eye would not see the overpowering white spot in the middle - visibility would not be quite as poor around the laser beam.

Of course, someone shining a laser at a plane from this vantage point would have to be very close to the runway - most likely within the airport perimeter. In that sense it is not representative of actual laser incidents.

Somebody who owns a gun knows it is for killing, so a hunter shooting at an aircraft certainly has a different motivation than someone shining a laser. Most people who own lasers, including the ones here, just know how the beam looks (weak, in most cases it has to be rather dark before you even see it), or the spot (very bright up close when focusing for burning, interestingly bright if you shine it at a wall a couple 100 feet away, but nothing you'd think twice about looking at). But who knows what it looks like to look into the beam from a large distance? Well I do, but who else ever even thought about actually doing this experiment? (Even the makers of the FAA study used just a simulation!) I've no doubt that the people shining lasers at an airplane have no idea that the effect is fundamentally different from doing the same with a high-power flashlight.

No, I don't propose people should go ahead and point laser beams at airplanes (to forestall some knee-jerk reactions). I don't even propose people throw stones at planes. But hysteria is not the answer either. Education is - on all sides.