It's Probably Nothing

well now Kevin, it takes only ONE crash to kill a shit load on ppl. wait till the dear little darlings figure out there are two pilots on board and team up, maybe then you can go help with the body bags. The problem is the little darlings never have to face consequences when they git stupid, just had that discussion earlier today when a friend on a more personal level. Idiots with lazers have been a problem for a lot of years now. I remember telling one of these fools about 15 yrs ago I would beat the shit out of him if he shown the damn thing in my GD's face one more time!!!!

I like it, but it may upset a lot of other people in that house or apartment(:

Actually KPD, there is a very good reason that cellphones and other PEDs (Personal Electronic Devices) should be shut off in flight. Cellphones are very 'dirty'; they emit radio waves on many more frequencies than the one they're assigned. The wattage may be small but the wires and cables for the planes nav systems are in the ceiling and floor of the aircraft a few feet away. On 9/11 when dozens of passengers in each airliner simultaneously received panicked calls from their loved ones on the ground, many of the planes experienced interference that caused the autopilots to shut themselves off, unexpectedly forcing the pilots to fly manually. In Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum (RVSM) airspace planes are spaced 500ft from each other, ie some at 39,000ft, some at 39,500ft, some at 40,000ft etc. The planes systems must hold altitude to within + or - 16ft. Do you want to gamble two planeloads of passengers that a human pilot can control his aircraft to 1.25% of his assigned altitude? Note that most airliners are not manually flyable at their normal cruise speed and altitude. If the systems fail the aircraft has to slow down and descend to denser air to be manually controllable.

Regarding the helicopters in Cairo being unaffected by lasers, that would probably be because military pilots wear laser blocking visors that specifically exclude the wavelengths used by most laser and lidars. Military spec lasers will burn a spot on your retina in a millisecond.

For that matter, the solution may be as simple as a set of goggles or a super-duper sunvisor for the airline pilots.
www.noirlaser.com/about/laser_pointer_hazard.html

I did notice that all the places mentioned have high Muslim populations.

My mistake. I distinctly remember being told it was 500ft separation on the course I took a few years ago. They say the memory goes first, I forget what the second thing is....

Kevin sonny BOY, there are some very good "toy' lazers out there, and some dimwit(maybe like you) wouldn't know shit from shingles, now as to the airport thing (the lazer aspect has been addresses by Yukon Gold) once the industry had been convinced that they are harmless, then the ppl wanting to actually use lazers that are harmfull will be free and unrestricted to inflict actually damage. They use very low power lazers for eye surgery, and I can show U how to take a common pen lazer and focus it to be quite effective at the range that my GD was to the idiot. It's LIVs like you that are the problem in much of todays society.

Al, I'll agree with you about turning off cell phone transmitters during flights, but the policy of the airlines at present is totally asinine. I've been told to turn off all electronic devices and have asked the stewardess if I can get a screwdriver to open the back of my watch to pull the battery -- this usually receives a totally blank stunned look. My cell phone is put into "flight mode" before takeoff but is still on yet taking digital photographs seems to draw the ire of stewardesses who haven't a clue about the degree of shielding on modern electronic devices. No one appears to be asked to turn off their hearing aids although such devices are far less well shielded than laptops and tablets.

I have a computer speaker system which seems to rectify RF at cell phone frequencies and gives me advance warning of when a cell phone call or text message is coming in or when my cell phone contacts it's local cell station. Despite multiple other devices on the same frequencies in my basement, none of them trigger my "cell phone sensor". That's because the radiated power of a cell phone is massive in comparison to the tiny amount of RF interference caused by a laptop or tablet.

A far better policy on aircraft would be to have an RF strength meter which would read the total RF output power from various devices in the cabin and selected passengers could be told to turn off improperly shielded devices. If a device is FCC approved, there's almost zero chance that it has any significant RF leakage.

As far as the laser pointers go, this is an absolutely idiotic alarmist article. Laser diodes are easily purchased and are such a staple of modern electronics that a ban on hand held lasers would just result in people ripping apart DVD recorders to get high power laser diodes. High power IR lasers are used in industrial applications and would be far more dangerous as the first indication that one had been looking at a ground based laser for a pilot would be when he went blind from his retina being fried. Laser pointers have very diffuse beams and shining one on the sidewalk from 17 stories up in Vancouver gave a spot which I estimate at an inch or so in diameter. The laser diodes used in laser pointers are rather poor quality and can only blind someone at close range. Even if one has a high power laser diode, it's no guarantee that one won't get a huge amount of beam spread with distance. I gave up on trying to use modulated cheap laser pointers for long distance communication as they are just too crappy for this application.