another aircraft incident

[TheDukeAnumber1]

The report said that they only got flashed twice, and with how big the beam is at 5000ft it's not hard to believe that the windshield was hit with a handheld. And from what I've seen the laser light can be reflected un such a way that at light it really would impare their ability to fly the plane while being lased.

But I gotta say, being that far away, it's highly doubtful that they were actually injured.

 

[Digital]

The report said that they only got flashed twice, and with how big the beam is at 5000ft it's not hard to believe that the windshield was hit with a handheld. And from what I've seen the laser light can be reflected un such a way that at light it really would impare their ability to fly the plane while being lased.

But I gotta say, being that far away, it's highly doubtful that they were actually injured.

I'm not going to say that we should ignore any type of high powered light source being emitted at a airplane but I believe it should be in the hands of the manufacturers to prevent this. Either with coatings or other means to block this type of attack.
The fact they haven't yet tells me two things. One it isn't a big concern for them, and two the actual danger to the plane is minimal.

 

[Atomicrox]

It's pretty much impossible to injure a pilot that far away with a handheld.

At 0.5mRad we'd have a dot diameter of 76.2 cm and an area of 4560 cm^2 at 5 kft away. That means you'd need a 4.5 W laser to get to the MPE of 1 mW/cm^2 (and much more than that to have a reasonable chance of injury).

 

[nouthyella]

I'm not going to say that we should ignore any type of high powered light source being emitted at a airplane but I believe it should be in the hands of the manufacturers to prevent this. Either with coatings or other means to block this type of attack.
The fact they haven't yet tells me two things. One it isn't a big concern for them, and two the actual danger to the plane is minimal.

Applying a coating would mean covering the entire cockpit window with material resembling that found in laser goggles. This would reduce cockpit visibility as well as make the pilots literally colour blind.
It is equivalent to asking everyone to wear bulletproof vests because they are at risk from being shot by gun-wielding madmen.

 

[vk2fro]

Yep and pilots rely on colours outside to determine things like "which way is that other plane going off in the distance" and "am I high for the landing". Blocking out say green colours would render nav lights on other planes ineffective, as well as some of the visual aids on the ground used for landing.

 

[lazeristasUVISIR]

There goes a good excuse to shine planes: you are charging their battaries :na:

Laser power beaming keeps drone fully charged

A demonstration of "laser power beaming" by Lockheed Martin and LaserMotive has proved that a laser situated on the ground could act as an energy source for an operational UAV in flight, and recharge its on-board power cells.

Laser power beaming keeps drone fully charged

Don't to that with civil planes.

 

[Quetzal]

So, if you see a predator drone coming straight at you, don't hesitate to point your laser at it.

On second thought, if a Predator is coming straight at you, you might want to consider running away as fast as possible, and NOT fiddling with your laser.

 

[ryansoh3]

Here comes the Hellfire missiles.

 

[DrZoidberg]

If you got a powerful enough of a laser you could just destroy the hellfire missles
:lasergun:

 

[btc5]

I don't believe in eye injury from 5,000 ft. Why don't they use front glass absorbing lasers. We have 21st century