Please switch off all electronic equipment....

[border-rider]

It probably could be rigged to only carry data

[perpetual dan]

with sufficient rate limiting and artificial jitter to break VOIP etc, I hope.

[spesh]

Oh, has anybody yet found the cause of that Air France passenger jet that mysteriously downed in the Atlantic?

Yes, one of those sequence of events things....but the initial cause was an instrument anomaly, not one caused by EMC though.

As for the volcanic ash, no one knew it was dangerous until some years ago an aircraft flew through such a cloud and promptly lost power to all 4 engines.  Thereafter a precautionary principle was applied, until such time as there was sufficient evidence that some ash types and densities were not dangerous.   As that evidence built up, some airlines were clamouring to get back in the air before the rules were changed.  Far from doing so to make money they were just desperate to put a stop to a catastrophic haemorrhaging of cash while they were not flying.

There's some interesting stuff on David Learmount's blog on the Flight magazine on the subject of volcanic ash and its effect on air operations. Airbus and Easyjet, in conjunction with the Norwegian Institute of Air Research, have been looking at an airplane-mounted infra-red ash sensor since the 2010 Eyjafjallajokull eruption - the last blog post has with pictures of the latest trials over Mount Etna.

Here's a link to all of his posts tagged with "volcanic ash"

http://www.flightglobal.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?blog_id=166&tag=volcanic%20ash&limit=20

The picture further down, showing an airliner caked in ash from a Chilean volcano puts things in some kind of perspective.

[spesh]

[snipped]

Aircraft and IFE systems are currently being rolled out which allow the safe use of mobile phones in the air. Whether that's a good thing or not depends on your perspective, but it will be quite soon that your ears will be assaulted by the person next to you calling Aunty Nell and exclaiming, in a voice that needs no electronic aid to transmission, "Guess wot, I'm on A PLANE!!". Relish the silence while you still have it.

We have so-called "quiet carriages" on trains, so why not a "quiet section" on an airliner?

Though I would attach the price premium to the seats where you're still able to inflict your half of the conversation on the passengers in earshot.

[Cudzoziemiec]

In the USA, mobiles may not be used in any customs or immigration area, including baggage halls. Failure to comply can result in embarrassing consequences!

Similar rules apply in the UK, if one believes the signs on display, but I've never seen them enforced.

[Jon P]

If you could use them on flights you'd have the usual types stultifying the rest of the cabin with moronically banal verbiage with the crew unable to deliver the safety briefing properly, moreover the alpha male types who just have to ensure that they are the very last people to be standing up and rummaging unnecessarily in the overhead lockers would probably find a way to include a mobile phone in the act too.  So I don't give a damn whether it's a well-grounded safety risk, or even an airborne one!

[TimO]

In the USA, mobiles may not be used in any customs or immigration area, including baggage halls. Failure to comply can result in embarrassing consequences!

Interestingly I didn't see any signage to that effect when queuing up at SFO, and people were certainly using their phones.  I did send a quick SMS to the chap I was meeting, but that was the limit of my use.

I fly back in just over 12 hours, so no one on my flight use any electronic devices you're not allowed to.

[bomber]

For GA I like having a mobile handy as I have the number for tower on speed dial and my handset bluetooths to my headset, so radio failure is less of a concern.  Do get the GSM handshake noise occasinally though through the radio, and have heard ATC put in a complaint that they could hear it on their end from someone else's aircraft.

On the subject of ash, the met office has rented the hanger next to us for their new toy;



(writing on the side says "Civil Contingency Aircraft")

[Cyclops]

In the USA, mobiles may not be used in any customs or immigration area, including baggage halls. Failure to comply can result in embarrassing consequences!

Similar rules apply in the UK, if one believes the signs on display, but I've never seen them enforced.

A friend of mine when we were queuing at immigration in Edinburgh was hauled out of line by the police and given a severe dressing down for phoning his wife

[TimO]

At Heathrow yesterday, I think the signs just said something about not using the phone at the customs booth itself, which seems entirely reasonable.

I saw someone hanging up with a "I've got to hang up, I'm just going through customs" seconds before handing over their passport to the customs bod.  No one seemed worried about it, including the bod in the booth.

I fly back in just over 12 hours, so no one on my flight use any electronic devices you're not allowed to.

No one did, I survived.