One Dumb Ass With Wicked Laser Ruins It For All Of Us

[ARG]

You may want to resize and crop that sig picture a little, it's rather large.

 

[LasersAndCoolStuff]

Very sorry will do very soon

 

[LasersAndCoolStuff]

Oh and how do you get it to say class 3b laser underneath your username?

 

[jeffreythe00]

Its a ranking system. The more posts the higher your laser rank. Though ranks don't mean anything. You could PM coldshadow/Avery and ask him to give you a custom rank.

 

[LasersAndCoolStuff]

ok thank you

 

[Pman]

Articles don't quite jive as the second one makes it sound as if they didn't know it was powerful before going back in for a second look. First one says they did so trying to protect the guys eyes.
Have never seen anyone report an injury like that on the white portion of the eye and find it suspicious.
This does NOT excuse this idiot in any way shape or form for using it irresponsibly!

Yes I expect this administration to go overboard as usual.

 

[Meatball]

I wrote Ernie Stephens an email, showing him the math. If the laser and helicopter were perfectly stationary to each other for .25 -10 seconds, the assumed overspec arctic laser at 1W, traveling some 800 feet through a perfectly clear atmosphere, at a full angle divergence of 1.92 mrad, would have to be 100% transmitted through the chopper's window to cause an irradiance in the the cockpit of 586 uW/cm^2. To qualify for OD1 goggles use, the laser would need to cause 3.4X more irradiance... even while all the other variables listed were achieved perfectly.

Like Mr. Roberts said, it is much more likely that he rubbed his eye with his glove. His ophthalmologist only "later on" connected the injury to the laser. IIRC, a laser injury on the eye has to be observed by the doctor within a day or two before becoming indistinguishable from any other eye ailment cause. He probably called it more of a "laser related" injury. At most, the pilot rubbing his eye was related to there being a bright light being "flashed" into the cockpit.

At 800 feet, no one is that good of an aim.

Tyler

 

[Encap]

You are right idiots using laser in an irresponsible and illegal manner has caused a lot of trouble and the passing of restictive laws and policies.

I am with InfinitusEquitas who mentioned "What I'm afraid of now, is more drastic policies like those in Australia, where mere possession is a crime."

The USA has more than enough laws, rules and regualtions on the books already concerning lasers ---more and will not stop idiots from being idiots.

The law signed by Obama on 14 February 2012 combined with the opinion of the FDA's CDRL attorney that any any handheld laser is a is either a pointer. for demonstration or Survey. Leveling , and Alignment laser are all the same catagory. This has resulted in the FDA policy expanding its interpretation so that all handheld lasers -- not just pointers---no matter which category (demonstration or SLA) arfe all treated the same.
The result restricts handheld laser’s power to less than 5 milliwatts of visible light and effectively making importing or selling/reselling within the USA of anything more powerful, illegal.


See: http://www.laserpointersafety.com/rules-general/uslaws/uslaws.html#US_FDACDRH_21_CFR_10401011
and
http://www.laserpointersafety.com/perspectives/sla/sla.html

 

[trussmonkey25]

Now if my hand helds are illegal. can i turn them into labbies by putting a camera mounting hole in it for tripod use ? I use one of them for cutting posts...er. to line up. where to cut them evenly.

 

[jArdi]

"once word gets out about how nasty these devices are, will the bad guys begin using them to shoo police helicopters away, because they know the pilot will want to avoid the possibility of taking a hit?

to tell you the truth, i never thought of this. i wonder if it would cost too much for them to keep a pair of glasses under the seat or something in the cockpit? i mean, people will always have lasers; passing another law will just deter people and make it a bit harder to get them. But i mean yeah there are probably better ways, but you its absolutely better then nothing. And at least maybe they can make sure to catch the asshole -_-

 

[mojo_1234]

for a German citizen US laws are something like the "holy land" :beer:

I'd been f*?!ed up by customs because of to simple f*?!ing diodes (HL6385DG).

-mo-

 

[grainde]

to tell you the truth, i never thought of this. i wonder if it would cost too much for them to keep a pair of glasses under the seat or something in the cockpit?

Ive seen a few videos, from inside the cockpit, of police helicopters taking hits from lasers. It looked like the pilots have special visors to protect against green (and therefore probably also blue) lasers. They certainly had them when they switched to IR to track down the perpetrators. :beer:

 

[Pman]

The more I investigate the more I believe this was typical sensationalism. Want a big story, create one. Finding it extremely difficult to believe that kind of injury on the white solera could occur that far away with that power and in a helicopter.
Didn't the article say that they messed with it in person..... hmmmmm

 

[pschlosser]

I actually prefer labbies over hand-helds. I use most of my lasers at home, in the garage or near power sources. Even so, if they outlaw handheld lasers, because they are portable and/or concealable (among other things) I see even labbies being threatened. The bulk of the reports I've seen of people shining lasers at aircraft are doing so either from, or very near their homes. Hence, they could be using a labbie with a lengthy cord powered from home sources.

 

[InfinitusEquitas]

I'd like to believe at least some common sense would prevail if new laws are created to effectively make handhelds illegal, and labbies would be spared.

To me it's ludicrous to think that someone who purchases a labbie, would use it for the purpose of simply shining it outside at planes.

The incident from this article is actually one of the very few instances where a more expensive laser is used. In most cases it's a cheap ~30-100mW green pen.

Unfortunately the scenario that would be more likely as an argument against a labbie, is that it can be pointed into the sky, and left on for a prolonged period, potentially in the path of a plane.

 

[WizardG]

As bad as incidents like this are for the `reputation' of lasers I'm still relatively optimistic that little or no new legislation will result from them. What worries me is the potential for someone with a few bucks and several screws loose to do real damage. Think arsonist with a 100W CO2 rig in the back of a van. That kind of thing would get the attention of the powers that be very quickly.