Soon, you might be able to use certain electronic devices during takeoff and landing

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I always use it any way. Bunch of bollocks like the general phobia of using a phone at a gas station or people that think wifi gives them headaches, absolutely no evidence for it being dangerous or disrupting equipment.

Those kinds of rules are the favorite of all rent-a-cops and stewardess, the kind of law that no one quite understands but must be enforced because it gives them a minuscule amount of power over other people.

Also, air on a plane was much cleaner when smoking was allowed, but airlines are cheap and don’t want to use fresh air for their cabins and would much rather recycle the same stale disease ridden air for hours.

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I’m with you on the first part - I never fully turn off my devices either as it seems stupid and unnecessary. Can’t wait for these recommendations to be fully adopted.

Your second statement is ludicrous however. Air flow through the cabin is controlled by the air conditioning packs in the engines and there is simply no advantage to “recycling” the air as you claim.

Go right to the source for information: http://www.boeing.com/boeing/commercial/cabinair/facts.page

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I’ll believe it when I see it. I was going to be allowed to take my pocketknife with me too, until I wasn’t.

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I suspect that the real risk source from tablets and laptops is that if the plane moved violently they would be thrown around the cabin and they are heavy, hard, and a bit pointy.

I dropped an ipad onto a hardwood floor once from 2 feet up. It hit straight on one corner and took a 1/4" deep chunk out of the floor (ipad lived, weakly attached magnetic cover was judged stupid).

Phones, eh, probably light enough to be unlikely to really hurt someone, but an ipad to the head could really mess you up.

what’s heavier: an ipad or a hardback book?
guess which i’m allowed to “use” during take-off

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don’t worry, they are going to mess this one up too.
“Downloading data, browsing the web, and talking on the phone would remain prohibited, though reading e-books, listening to music, watching movies, and playing games would be permitted during all phases of flight.”
yeah, that’s not vague. anyone see the overlap in “browsing the web” and “listening to music, watching movies”?

The way I’ve read it this study was done by the FAA for electrical interference while anything having to do with communication still needs approval from the FCC. There are overlapping regulations involved here.

Prior to the smoking ban air was circulated more frequently and never used recycled air, rather then the current method:

I’d think at that point your biggest worry would be
a)the crash itself killing you
followed by
b)some poorly stowed luggage braining you
c)being smothered to death by that fat guy’s corpse that’s sitting next to you
and finally
d) being eaten by wolves like in that movie I saw

a flying iPad may be quite low on that list.

Again, that is just a myth…the same link explains:

How long have recirculation systems been used on passenger airplanes?

Recirculation was in use before the jet age began.

For example, the Boeing Stratocruiser of the late 1940s was equipped with an air recirculation system but it did not include HEPA filters.

In jet airplanes, filtered or recirculated air combined with outside air came into use principally with the introduction of high-bypass-ratio fan engines.

At Boeing, this began with the 747 back in 1970. Keep in mind that air recirculation is common in building ventilation systems.

I think you’re reaching for some kind of conspiracy theory here and I’m not sure why.

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sure, i’ve heard that as well, but pilots have been using ipads during takeoff and landing for years not months. this is in the OP

I don’t mind putting my netbook away during takeoff and landing.

I resent having to do so while my plane is 17th in the queue for takeoff, or ninety miles out from entering the approach.

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Like most rules that seem to make sense on first inspection, the real problem is with enforcement. It’ll be almost impossible (and most certainly more time consuming) for aircrew to differentiate between a passenger reading an eBook or surfing the net, or if their iPhone/iPad is actually in airplane mode. That means that “for your safety”, aka “ease of enforcement and winning of arguments”, airlines will still use their existing blanket policy of “turn it off” rather than try and deal with any complexities of enforcement these new findings will bring.

$0.02

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It’s a second world problem too… or it would be if we were still in the 80s and there was still such a thing as first world, second world and third world countries.

Soon, you might be able to use certain electronic devices during takeoff and landing

I always have. Number of crashes: zero. Number of near misses: zero. Number of stewards/esses looking for who ever could be the source of some disruption or oddity sensed in any control up front: zero.

I fail to understand why people are up in arms about not being allowed to use an iPad for ten fuckin minutes. Maybe it’s a dumb rule, maybe there’s no evidence of interference with avionics, but it has a microscopically negligible effect on your comfort, convenience, or freedom.

It’s like complaining about an ordinance that forbids smoking within ten feet of a public building entrance because you want to smoke eight feet from the entrance.

I would like to be able to use my GPS during take off and landing to watch the speed and position of the plane. I think it has been banned as a “electronic device” but it does not transmit, only receives satellite signals. I have not had a good answer from anyone who knows if it really causes problems, but when I was on a small plane and asked the pilot, they had no problem with it. I hope I will be allowed to use it, but doubt that it will happen, because it seems most people (even those involved with aircraft) do not know much

the inconvenience of a pointless rule is not a gauge as to whether or not it should be enforce or kept.

If you can’t think of any reason to keep it, then that should be reason enough to remove it.

Hmm. And in the real world, it’s going the other way. I was on a flight from Charlotte, NC to Albany, NY yesterday on which the announcement was made: “Federal regulations do not recognize ‘airplane mode’, and all cellular telephones must be fully powered off and stowed in the overhead bin or under the seat in front of you for the entire duration of the flight.”

Has anyone heard of that before? I realize that the relevant Federal regulation is actually, ‘all instructions of the flight crew that claim to pertain to the safety of the aircraft must be followed without question,’ so the airline can get away with saying that Federal regulations require anything, but I’d not heard anything about this particular oddity before.