Lasers Close Flight Path

Lasers Close Flight Path

www.news.com.au

SIX planes had to alter their flight paths into Sydney airport after pilots were targeted in an unprecedented laser "cluster attack', authorities say.

(visit the link for the full news article)

The newspaper article differs slightly from the online article.

Here's the paragraph of the newspaper article that I think is a joke:

Federal Home Affairs Minister Bob Debus said he would look at banning the import of laser lights and increasing jail times for offenders.

Another example of taking away our basic right to enjoy toys? How many more times are we going to be told what we can and can't do or have?

www.news.com.au
(visit the link for the full news article)

So you think it's right to take those "toys" and blind pilots that are trying to land a planeload of people safely? There has been at least one pilot that was hit by one of those lasers that was having trouble seeing HOURS after the attack was over. Yes, they're toys, but when you use them to endanger what could be hundreds of people they aren't toys anymore.

Ok, fine. Use your same argument for guns. They're also toys, so are we allowed to take them away or not?

A few people mis-use lasers, so does that give the GOVERNMENT the right to ban them for all users? I don't think so.

Yeah, you're right. Let's not ban them. So what if a plane carrying 400 people crashes because the pilots were blinded by a laser. It's just a toy right?

Yeah, you're right. Let's not ban guns either. They're common items at US schools, anyway.

It is not the fault of the gun, or the laser - it's the fault of the user. Again, what right does a GOVERNMENT have to ban an item that's freely available in other countries?

Freedom of choice is not a freedom anymore.

Yes it is the choice of the person using it, but how exactly do you plan to STOP them? The number of people that have been caught is miniscule because most airports have huge numbers of buildings and houses around them. So what's YOUR plan to stop them from blinding pilots that are trying to land or that are taking off?

Tezza I think your indifference to cockpit laser attacks is childish and less than exemplary. Your emphasis on the right to own a laser and lack of concern for the safety of hundreds of people is......sick. How bout we put your mum, daddy, grandparents and you in a landing plane getting cluster lased and see how you feel about it then.
Regards,
John

They could simply put a reflective "tint" on the windows and problem solved.

Stop giving "terrorists" ideas and FIX the PROBLEM.

I don't even see why they have windows with all the auto pilot crap the pilots don't even fly the damn things anymore.

LOL @ outlawing lasers you guys are cowards . How bout you move to a country with no planes if you think its that bad?

[edit on 29-3-2008 by oLDWoRLDDiSoRDeR]

Uh, yes they do still fly it. They are still responsible for landing and taking off, and that sort of needs them to be able to see. Do you have ANY idea how many runway incursions there are every MONTH? If a pilot couldn't see the runway, he'd never know there was another plane there and go around and we'd have THOUSANDS of people dying.

reply to post by Zaphod58


It wouldn't be hard to put senors in the planes and along the runways that would warn them . Same as a visual warning . It would tell them which way to "vier(?)"

Just as good would be "VR" helmets like fighter pilots have , Yet another solution.

[edit on 29-3-2008 by oLDWoRLDDiSoRDeR]

And it's going to take a few years to develop that system, and it's going to take a few billion dollars to develop and install that system because you'd have to install them in EVERY runway around the world. Which would increase traffic congestion while the runway was closed down, and increase the runway incursions. And in the mean time you have planes flying that still require windows, and are still getting hit by lasers, increasing the chance of accidents even more.

I don't know where you got your information from but fighter pilots don't wear VR helmets. Never have.

[edit on 3/29/2008 by Zaphod58]

Originally posted by jpm1602
Tezza I think your indifference to cockpit laser attacks is childish and less than exemplary.

Thanks for your comments, John.

I'm not sure where you think I state aiming and pointing lasers at planes is a good thing to do? I don't. It's wrong and dangerous. However, banning the importation of the laser pointers will not solve the problem.

In a similar way, we've dealt with some road deaths where teenagers have dropped large rocks onto passing cars from freeway overpass bridges. We've also dealt with teenagers placing rocks, logs onto railway tracks to derail trains. In either of those instances, we don't seek to ban the importation of rocks and logs, do we?

The latest spate of shining lasers onto planes is no different, in essence, from the angst fuelled 'urban terrorism' that we're already familiar with.

Banning the lasers is not a solution to the anti-social behaviour.

Most correct Tezza. Perhaps I read more into your comments that was there.
My apologies.

Blinding pilots with a laser is what I would consider a "terror" attack, and those who would do it are in fact "terroristis".

With that said, you can't ban something and expect the problem to be solved. Lasers are easy to build (relatively) and banning them will just make a black market for them, but will not fix this problem, or even reduce it's frequency.

Heroin is banned, people still shoot it into their arms everyday.

In the U.K. guns are banned, people still get shot all the time.

Hey people get run over by cars all the time, so lets ban cars, or better yet lets ban pedestrians.

Oh come on Zaph I'm not buying that you actually believe that argument. Banning lasers because some idiots abuse them? You know there's a Bible's worth of "ban object X because stupid guy Q abused it" counters. Like lets ban box cutters, eh?

Fight the problem not the symptom. When someone gets caught in the act, treat them the same as if they had a rifle trained on the plane. In the mean time I like mirror tinting.

The problem here is that they CAN'T catch them. There are apartment buildings all along the flight path of most airports. You can't know which apartment or in some cases which BUILDING it's coming out of, and unless the police happen to be right there when it happens, or there's an incident like the one where that idiot used his laser on a police helicopter, there's no way to catch whoever is doing it.

If it was something they had a chance in hell of catching them doing, then yeah I'd agree with you. But in this case, I think we should ban THIS PARTICULAR laser pointer. It's not ALL laser pointers that are the problem. There's one in particular that has a lot of output power, to point at things far away, and is capable of causing retina damage.

[edit on 3/29/2008 by Zaphod58]

Meh, put one of those bubble cams on the nose that detects and automatically targets the laser source with a bee cannon. Cyclical 10,000 bees per minute. Problem solved.

Costs too much. No way would the airlines want to pay for that. They're having a hard enough time getting them to put any sort of missile defense on their planes, and those are relatively cheap.

I wonder if it would help to equip commercial aircraft with 3-4 not-too-costly digi-cams?

If they were used on takeoffs and approaches it seems to me that tying the digi-cam into an accurate timer and also recording location via GPS you'd be able to see just where the lasers were coming from.