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FrozenGate by Avery

took my 445 on a plane

BShanahan14rulz said:
I'd defocus it and just call it a really bright blue flashlight. But I don't travel much.
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One of my Canadian friend did the same when he travelled abroad last year. He just defocused it and declared it as the named laser illuminator. It was a 150mw focus adjustble green laser. :yh:
 





What would the beam look like from a plane? Same as it would look from far away under any circumstances. Check out the video of the guy shining his 1W 445nm from the Eiffel Tower - it would probably look like that but dimmer, given the fast motion of the plane and that it's probably much further away.

In other words, you'd hardly see anything.
 
I would not operate a laser on a commercial plane for a number of reasons. However, I do not believe that they are prohibited from being carried aboard aircraft.

TSA: Prohibited Items
 
yeah I don't think it's a good idea to play with one on a flight. All it takes is one paranoid passenger to report you and chances are you'll at the very least be asked to put it away, at the very worst it could lead to an "incident" which would end up with laser pointers being added to the "banned from flights" list.

Nobody wants that. Besides, is there a reason you HAVE to play with a pointer during a flight?

Trust me, you REALLY don't want attention that badly.
 
MojoLA said:
What would the beam look like from a plane? Same as it would look from far away under any circumstances. Check out the video of the guy shining his 1W 445nm from the Eiffel Tower - it would probably look like that but dimmer, given the fast motion of the plane and that it's probably much further away.

In other words, you'd hardly see anything.
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Imagine you're a clownfish swimming just over the tentacles of a sea anemone and this 40 foot whale shark is swimming along the surface and eyes you up... :p

shark.png
 
MojoLA said:
What would the beam look like from a plane? Same as it would look from far away under any circumstances. Check out the video of the guy shining his 1W 445nm from the Eiffel Tower - it would probably look like that but dimmer, given the fast motion of the plane and that it's probably much further away.

In other words, you'd hardly see anything.
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Not trying to sound contrary :D and I'm not saying you don't have a valid point, but if you would hardly see anything from that distance then why the great concern about planes being able to see our lasers hardly at all from the ground, let alone being a huge distraction ?

Let me see if I can answer my own question now that I think about it, the only time our lasers shining skyward could pose a problem is if we shined them directly at a plane (but don't do that), but if we were just shining them in the sky (but not at them directly) they might not even notice the beam at all ?

(having said that I still believe we should be very careful at night to not shine our lasers skyward if we see any planes in the area, just to be on the safe side :D)
 
What pilots are complaining about (perhaps over complaining) is the flash, not the beam... even from a distance, if the laser hits you at zero axis, for a split second you might see a bright flash. This is the concern.

But even the flash from a 1w from the ground, while visible, isn't really going to blind anyone. I'm not even sure it would hit them long enough to see a lingering spot.
 
MojoLA said:
at the very worst it could lead to an "incident" which would end up with laser pointers being added to the "banned from flights" list.
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Or worse, you could end up with a laser pointed back at you, courtesy of Mr. Air Marshal.
:tsk:
 
Gsquared18 said:
Or worse, you could end up with a laser pointed back at you, courtesy of Mr. Air Marshal.
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Actually, you bring up a good point, and something I hadn't thought of until I read about it here - that perhaps the biggest danger of playing with a laser pointer in public is people associate that dot (especially a red one) with guns.

And it's not even a stretch for someone to make a panicked assumption that the person aiming a laser is doing so from a gun's aiming device. I wouldn't blame a cop for pulling out his weapon on someone playing with a pointer (although shooting someone without actually seeing a gun is probably less likely).

In any case, I wouldn't want to be the guy who scares someone half to death when they see a dot on them and think they're about to get shot. Especially when there HAVE been incidents of psychotic snipers shooting random people.

As much as it sucks, lasers are often associated with guns - something to keep in mind next time you're playing around with your pointer in public.
 
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