Using an handheld GPS in an aircraft (737)

[Blatman]

Yeah but... oh never mind. Bring on the welder...

[jonlewis]

Two principle reasons for not using electronic equipment...

First, personal stereos.... By far the most likley time to need to make an urgent announcement (i.e brace were going to hit the tree) are during take off and landing. If you are listening to Guns and Roses... you may not hear it.

Second Mobile Phones... During the 1990's airphones were introduced on many services paticularly in the States, and therefore they want to make money from them. More recently, the activation of Mobile Friendly aircraft (yes you still have to pay extra for this type of "roaming") means that they still want to make money.

If you assume that the above types of equipment are the most common, then ban the lot take off and landing is the easy to administer option.

Funnily enough, it is not good PR for a Airline to say we may need to crash and we want you to hear th announcement.... so they make up the Interference argument.

[DavidR]

Much of the reasons for banning the use of electronic equipment on planes goes back to the 1970's. Electronics on aircraft became much more complex and portable electronics became cheap enough for many people to have them.

Engineering practices were rooted in the 50's and 60's and RFI (radio frequency interference) later referred to as EMI (electromagnetic interference) were understood in military and scientific circles but almost unknown in consumer electronics production.  

During the 70's I worked on the largest and fastest computers ever made at the time and we spent months tracing faults caused by electrostatic discharges, poor screening and "leaky" covers. The faults were the equivalent of trying to find out today why a light bulb flickered for one second in May 1983. This was considered valuable because the equipment was processing vital business data and the price could bear the cost.

Aircraft manufacturers already had their planes in service and many more in design. To increase the design spec or testing to ensure that planes were immune to RFI was prohibitively expensive so it was easier to ban use of personal electronics.

All the other reasons people have referred to are valid but secondary to ones described above.

as an example, there is a car park in petersfield where you will rarely find a BMW parked. The reason is that BMWowners avoid it because their wireless key fobs won't unlock the cars. RFI is suspected but no one will investigate because the BT building with all the aerials on top overlooking the car park  "is probably the cause". BT say its clean. BMW can't find a problem. But the cars all work fine when taken two streets away.

This approach was supported by the fact that there were also strange occurrences reported in aircraft, crashes occurred for undetermined reasons and urban myths repeated. So it became traditional for manufacturers and airlines to support the ban "just in case" cos no one knew whether there would be a faulty walkman or mobile phone on board.

Recently there have been two separate occasions when NTL cable boxes, which are wire connected to their source of data, have started radio transmitting on the new satellite emergency frequency and caused coastguard helicopter callouts and search and rescue ops until the source was located 3 miles inland. If an NTL box can do this then why can't a faulty walkman affect a plane electronics?

I would rather electronics were banned on board than be in the aircraft that had a faulty DVD player that affected the landing system.

Sorry about the long post, the subject must have touched a nerve.

David

[Richard M Green]

Which is all jolly interesting, albeit dated, (and the effects of RFI, both intentional and inadvertent, on fast jet systems are something that I've spent a lot of time working on), but fails to offer a satisfactory answer to my original question which was:

I'd be fascinated to hear the reasons why a handheld GPS Receiver shouldn't be used during the take-off and landing phases of flight in an airliner.....

Unless that is you're inside an airliner that is still fitted with 1960's nav kit that was wired up by BMW, whilst flying over Petersfield on a Tuesday and attempting to listen to Guns'n'Roses on your GPS receiver.....

Anyway I think it's time that we ended this topic of conversation before your local AQ suicide merchant reads some of the (mis) information on this thread and works out that he doesn't need a couple of pounds of semtex hidden in the sole of his shoe, and can instead achieve the desired result with a Walkman. Inshallah!!!

[V 8]

I *know* what Magnum does for a living. I'll take his word on aircraft safety over that of a welder any time...

Class!!

[V 8]

I'll take his word on aircraft safety......

Which is even more interesting given that I won't get near the things.....

Obviously seen your driving

[susser]

Well there's alot of stuff there to be sure to be sure.

I saw that Ryan Air generally accepted it, and with the permission of the captain;

Smashin

Went and done it, with the permission of the Captain. Slavered all over the engines, inhaled the Avtur,Dribbled over the droops, stall preventing spill door thingys wot flap open on high AsOA  etc on landing etc.

Can't wait to do it again.

The guinness when prepared with love by an Irish Barman was beautiful. It was still pretty good when toshed into a glass by a funny foreign waiter as well.

The Eagles were that good that 'er indoors has decided she wants to go to Wembley this sunday to see them all over again. "Wot" I splutters, "I can get a pair of  five point harnesses with aircraft buckles for the price of them seats"

Oh well.