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Bluetooth on aeroplanes – Safe? |
Fingers
Joined: Jan 29, 2002
Posts: 468
From: New Zealand
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Yes you can use bluetooth on an aircraft, it's legal but it's up to the airline when you use it, some say not at all(electronics) and some say only once the seat belt sign is off.
Virgin atlantic use bluetooth for their in flight entertainment so it's not a problem, gameboys and some laser equipment can interfer with navigational system, Boeing has written lots of letters to airlines about it. Boeing usually buy the equipment off the person and try and reproduce the effects them selves.
Now I'm sure some are asking how I know, I've worked on planes as an engineer for about 15 years, and have worked for about 11 airlines, all in technical roles and dealing with Boeing and Airbus on a daily basis, the real problems with gsm is like that article said, the speed that they're travelling. I've sat in the cockpit of lots of planes and run functional tests of all the systems and had no trouble, trust me I've seen it first hand. |
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Ru
Joined: Sep 01, 2003
Posts: 80
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Basically it comes down to the fact that the aircraft systems are either designed poorly so they may be adversely affected by RF signals, or that the affect of RF interference could be so catastrpohic that no-one wants to take the chance.
For some years now, all electronic products (at least in Europe) need to be 'CE' marked, which means that they are tested for both RF emmissions and the effects of RF interference.
If eveything is tested and approved by this, there should be no problems.
I just don't think anyone has the guts to say BT or whatever is okay on planes just in case there's one chance it may fall from the sky.
please connect a phone
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Fingers
Joined: Jan 29, 2002
Posts: 468
From: New Zealand
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Bluetooth is not banned on all flights. Why did you not read my post? And the interference from a gsm mobile on an aircraft is no worse than the noise you hear through your radio when your mobile is searching. Yes it can interfere with the VOR(Very high frequency Omnidirectional Range) nav systems but not to the extent that is dangerous. Most of the aircraft in the skys these days can withstand minor interference and with something like a 737-300 that has up to 5 different communications or navigations signals coming in at any one time, the plane is smart enough to know what it's supposed to be receiving |
Hosko
Joined: Sep 23, 2003
Posts: 11
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I work for a tv station and we are banned from having phones turned on when near the studios because they can interfer with the zoom servos they just zoom in and out uncontrollably, so possibly the same could happen with the servos in the wings if they started moving uncontrollably the plane is in some trouble. |
__spc__
Joined: Apr 04, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: To: Cc: Bcc: Subject: Message:
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Hmmmm.... smoking in the toilets, that's really bad, m'kay?!
This message was NOT posted from my P800 that I no longer have |
Fingers
Joined: Jan 29, 2002
Posts: 468
From: New Zealand
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No servos in the wings, the flight controls are all hydraulic. There are some electric actuators to move part of flight controls but they are all shielded and the entire aircraft is electrically at the same potential, you could put a continuity tester on any 2 points of any airplane and get a circuit. |
malcs
Joined: Oct 16, 2002
Posts: 292
From: UK
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really?? that means i could put a continuity meter point on on of the wings, and another on a chair-- and i would have a circuit?? scary thought if the aeroplane gets hit by lightning |
shaggyhog
Joined: Aug 13, 2003
Posts: 164
From: Scotland (in exile)
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as for working near TV studios isn't there a more logical reason why they should be turned off... 
(maybe to eliminate potentially embarrassing noise?) |
P800_Zen_master
Joined: Apr 01, 2003
Posts: 483
From: ????
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@malcs - I think airplanes have a special point on them just incase they do get hit by lighting it takes the huge current or something.
can someone confirm this?? |
tsujie
Joined: May 22, 2003
Posts: 26
From: Malaysia
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Quote:
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On 2003-09-24 23:22:13, skabbe wrote:
last time i used it we crached
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Artic Blue t68i, CommuniCam MCA-20 & MSI Bluetooth Key |
axoia2
Joined: Sep 15, 2003
Posts: 103
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yeah, I used to charge my phone plugging the batery charger on the lightning-antena of the plane. It charges faster if a bird smashes on it. (are we all druged?)
by wAz |
MumboJumbo
Joined: Sep 16, 2003
Posts: 42
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Quote:
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On 2003-09-25 13:20:33, malcs wrote:
really?? that means i could put a continuity meter point on on of the wings, and another on a chair-- and i would have a circuit?? scary thought if the aeroplane gets hit by lightning
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Well, if you had the door open and extremely long arms you could but I doubt that would happen at 30,000 feet so not scary at all really is it? |
Little Jon
Joined: Jun 11, 2003
Posts: 195
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Mobile phones will not cause fires at petrol/gas stations. This is an urban myth/legend (god, this bi-lingual English thing does your head in!).
See this link: http://www.snopes.com/autos/hazards/gasvapor.asp
Most refueling fires are caused by static generated by people getting in and out of their car while. In the US, pumps have a little latch that allows you to leave it pumping while you go off and do something else. This latch disengages when the pump detects that the tank is full. I've never seen these in Europe.
This latch is probably the biggest safety hazard at gas stations (other than people smoking, or doing something equally as stupid), as it encourages people to get back in their car and build up a charge on their seats. When they then get out (with insulating rubber soles on their shoes) and touch the pump handle, a spark can occur.
The important message is not to get back in your car while refuelling and if you do, you should touch your car to discharge yourself before touching the pump handle.
Also, never fill a container in the back of a pick-up truck, or similarly insulated from the ground. There was a fire in LA recently caused by someone doing that. If I remember correctly, the guy was standing on the truck bed filling a can.
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MumboJumbo
Joined: Sep 16, 2003
Posts: 42
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@plevyadophy
You may fool younger people in these forums but you won't fool me. Grow up dude and stop pretending you know people "in the know"...your friend "Peter" is a figment of your imagination. This article (you have basically copied a section from page 5 and added a line about the Nokia 9210 and P800) was written by Graham Kirby of the Intel Mobile Computing Group and not your imaginary buddy!
Here is where you dug up your supposed "in the know" reply...
http://www.intel.com/technology/itj/q22000/articles/art_4.htm
Can't wait to read what Peter's friends at TDK will tell him!!!!!!
Talk about your cover (and any credibility) being blown! Hahaha
[ This Message was edited by: MumboJumbo on 2003-09-25 20:02 ] |
plevyadophy
Joined: Mar 01, 2003
Posts: 177
From: London, England
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@ MumboJumbo
Hmmm.
Let me tell you this. I DID NOT invent anything.
I do have a friend called Peter. And he is a leading member of the mobile telephony world.
And it may well be that he "lifted" the contents of his email from the place you just posted. But then if he is an industry insider it is obvious he would have have access to various periodicals/journals etc. And if he copied the article to help us out so what?!!!!
Now, if you care to PM me I will provide proof that he does exist and what I posted was a verbatim copy of his email.
After providing the proof I hope you then have the decency to post on here a public apology. As you seem very keen to try and publicly undermine me, I hope you are as keen to publicly admit you are wrong.
Furthermore, I suggest you look at all my posts here, on HowardsForums, and My-Symbian (I use the same username on all Forums). Looking at my posts you will see that I am not the kinda character who deals in hoaxes.
I will be looking forward to your PM.
@everyone else
Today my friend sent me another email.
This is what he said:
----------------- copy email -------------------------
Hi,
I have read the Thread. I am not interested in joining the Forum to contribute, but here are couple of other thoughts…..
The main reason UK petrol stations will not allow the use of Mobile Phones (or any transmitting equipment for that matter) is that in the good ol’ days of Citizen’s Band radio (remember that?) it was found that the powerful radio signals being transmitted by some of the unlicensed AM based devices had the effect of slowing down the flow meter readings on the (then unshielded) new digital petrol pumps. The effect was exacerbated if the CB radio output was being amplified above 4 Watts and the trend at the time was to install transmit stage amps as big as 100 Watts so the Good Buddies in Watford could talk to their mates in Warrington! Word soon got round and lots of Herberts were driving into their local filling station, keying the mike button at the same time as the filling nozzle and then driving away with a full tank for 50p! The result was a total ban on the use of CB while at a filling station and a couple of small companies got big selling CB detectors to the petrochemical industry.
When mobile phones first were introduced in the mid 80’s, this knowledge was still fresh in minds of the petrol industry executives and so they effectively extended their ban to cover mobile phones too.
Of course today’s petrol pumps are appropriately shielded so they are no longer affected by RF, particularly not by the meagre 4 Watts to which mobile phones are limited. WiFi will soon become a standard at petrol stations as many companies open a Public Access Location (aka Hotspot) so that travelling execs and chip heads can fill up their email inbox at the same time as they fill their tank, stomach, mistress and whatever else.
On the Mobile Phones on in flight topic. I was doing some work with one of the Chief Scientists from the Boeing Connexions team earlier this year and he told me that a few years ago they had a funded and FAA sanctioned project to test the effect of MoFos on their aircraft. They loaded up a 747 with 200 mobile phones of all types, (GSM, CDMA, TACS, ETACS, PDC and even Mobitex which is used by US Blackberries), took the plane upto a safe altitude (around 20,000 ft) over a desert area and switched all the phones on. Since they were out of the reach of any base station, and the aircraft is effectively a Faraday Cage all the phones ramped up to full power pretty quickly and guess what happened.
Nothing, not an electronic sausage!
The conclusion is that the shielding which exists around all cabling and vital electronic compononets to protect them from the effect of a lightning stike, something that happens rather often to planes, also had the effect of screening out any possible interference from low power RF devices.
One problem which the airlines do see though (particularly in the example of Virgin who are already using Bluetooth for their entertainment systems) is that lots of passenger WiFi and Bluetooth devices being used in an enclosed space will begin to interfere with each other and degrade the quality of websurfing and entertainment experience being enjoyed by passengers. A good example of this was seen at CeBIT this spring when most of the WiFi demo’s crashed because there were over 700 of them in a single hall all trying to use the same bandwidth and there was so much freq hopping going on that the data never actually got through.
As I said in my earlier answer, much of this will in the end depend on Airline policy and the staff are in a postion where they can and must enforce that policy, no matter how wrong it may seem to the technically enlightened. In the end passengers/consumers have a choice. If you want to use your Bluetooth device on an aircraft, choose an airline that has a relaxed and informed policy on their use. Once Whiteknucle Airlines starts loosing business passenger revenues because they have a draconian policy banning BT and WiFi use on the aircraft, the economics will force them to review their stance.
One final thought! Never piss-off the cabin crew. They are the people who give you your food and drink and who knows what happens in the Galley when the seatbelt signs are on?!
Regards,
Peter
------------------------ end copy -----------------------
I hope you all find the info above useful
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Posted: 2003-09-25 09:15
