Mobile Phones More Dangerous Than Thought

[Decker]

Sorry if this has been posted already.

The phenomena of electromagnetic compatibility and the aircraft industry is nothing new. Military aircraft have to withstand very high electromagnetic fields so that they can function as intended..attack the enemy even if they released a electromagnetic pulse such as a nuclear explosion - Russian fighters still use analogue components such as valves which are more robust that solid state components favoured by the west's aircraft builders.
Therefore, it does surprise a me little the civilian industry, who are well aware of mobile transmitters, cannot ensure there cockpit systems are immune to interference. The threats of mobile transmitters is well known so I am assuming the bods at Airbus will ensure the new A380 cockpit is immune. However, could it be a ploy between the builders and the airlines to make passengers use the seat back phones costing £5 per minute?[}:)]

[Decker]

Interesting explanation

[ChuckC]

Thanks, Decker. Good article.

Chuck-

[Scrooge]

ok,here goes...again...One of my fav showsMythbustersjust did a show on this,now for those of you that don't know the show the premis is that they take urban myths etc and try to prove them,read the bios on the crew this is not a Peter Pan group.

Anyhow on this show they built a cockpit setup and using various cellphones and a cellphone test rig (it tranmits on the same frequency as cell phones but at a lot higher power)and using a Faraday cage to bloke any outside electromagnetic energy they found....

That between 800-900 mhz one gauge a VOR gauge WAS affected,this made me sit up and pay attention because as you may know I have my own theroy on this.But as I was about to fire off an email saying hey guys those gauges are not shiled in anyways they pointed this out.

So what do they do...they borrow a Hawker 800 to test if there are any reactions.Now it is of course illegal to use a cellphone during flight so it had to be a ground test,but with engines running etc they test all the phones etc in the cockpit and the effects on the aircraft was....nothing.

So once again lets face the facts,anytime an aircraft is flying over land it is subject to a lot of RF energy,alot more than your phone can put out and the modern aircraft are of course hardened against this.

As I have said before a friend of mine works for Boeing,when I asked him this very question his answer was not a chance in hell.

The reasons for the ban are..if people used phones during flight it would murder the cell phone networks,you would be hitting a number of towers at the sametime.
While it is a 99.999999% chance that the aircraft would be uaffected by the phone it's that very small chance that some new phone comes with some gizzmo that could affect it and it's just not worth the risk.

On a side note im happy with the ban,who wants to be stuck next to some idiot that has to call their mother just to tell them that the FA has dropped of a bag of peanuts [:(!].

Of course at some point someone will log onto skype etc and start havinga conversation over the net on a net equipped plane,at which point im sorry to say some luggage from the over head locker may strangley fall [:I]

[Scrooge]

Oh and the reason phone calls are $5 a min from a plane is that they use a dedicated phone system.