iPhone and SAA

[vodacom3g]

Leave it there, Vodacom3G - the problem arguing with idiots like rouxaflater and the pisscat is (as the old saying goes) that they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

I do not normally post, but his actions, so defies logic, that it leaves one gob-smacked.

To truly understand what you are dealing with, see - http://vlottenburg.co.za/paul/

Already posted before I saw your post, but yeah, you're right.

 

[charlie_82]

Already posted before I saw your post, but yeah, you're right.

Yes never argue with a fool cos he's probably doing the same

 

[Elimental]

One question, who can prove, disprove that a plane like the one in spain didnt crash because some knob left his cellphone on?

Yeah sure they always blame some temp gauge or something, who says that phones dont interfere with the readings the pilot get, then ignore them thinking that some idiot left his phone on and one day ignore the wrong warning when it does really happen?

 

[vodacom3g]

One question, who can prove, disprove that a plane like the one in spain didnt crash because some knob left his cellphone on?

Yeah sure they always blame some temp gauge or something, who says that phones dont interfere with the readings the pilot get, then ignore them thinking that some idiot left his phone on and one day ignore the wrong warning when it does really happen?

The causes of air crashes are *normally* well researched and documented, so we tend to have a clear picture of what caused them.

However, the thousands of 'near-misses' are not and these are the scary ones as we have no public knowledge of what caused them. Airlines are notoriously mum on any problems they experience. I've been involved in a few of these 'near-misses' on local flights (exploding engine, wheel on fire, etc.) but never read anything about it after the event.

So there well could be a number of situations caused by rogue ERP, but we just don't know.

So, why take the chance?

 

[Elimental]

The causes of air crashes are *normally* well researched and documented, so we tend to have a clear picture of what caused them.

True, but how many of this "facts" can you trust.

I personally know of a certain SAA plane that went down and what was released to the public vs what actually happened where totally different stories.

 

[OverKill69]

Fireworks in the Cargo hold... LOL

Airline Safety tip: Do not pack fireworks in Ammo crates. The baggage Handlers get confused.

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[ajax]

On what frequency, Kenneth ? There is a good reason the spectrum is divided...

Wrong! Transmitters don't produce clean signals. There are harmonics (I assume you know what that is...). They fall outside the fundamental carrier frequency being generated. While these are filtered, filters don't produce 100% attenuation. Apart from harmonics there are other effects such as PIM, (forgive me if I give explain the acronym and you already know what it is) Passive Intermodulation, caused by tiny macroscopic changes in the metal parts making contact to other metal parts while the transmitter is transmitting. PIM also produces "out-of-band" signals.

While the above "stray" signals are much smaller in magnitude, their proximity to aircraft cabling and navigational equipment could make them stronger than a distant, although higher powered, signal being received.

Furthermore, a 2W cellphone only centimeters from a sensitive cable, although shielded, can induce a strong current, which, although outside of the frequency ("Kenneth") could cause intermodulation distortion in the front end of the receiver it is connected to.

The above is basic stuff that is taught in any EMC course at reputable Universities.

 

[Rouxenator]

You know what - your right. You all convinced me. Every thing electronic should be switched off on planes. The article in questions here is preposterous for even thinking about allowing a consumer electronic device to be operated on a commercial airliner. The absolute horror here is that some companies like BA actually allows this. They are playing with fire and should direct their attention to this thread where they can gain expert knowledge from industry leading folks that know their stuff.

It is also horrific how Discovery and Nat.geo broadcast programs about air distasters and each of these episodes conveniently cover up the fact that consumer electronics like cellphones caused the disaster.

Thanks for converting me - now help me and we can convert the world out there. Shake them up, cure their yeast infection, bring them to their sense

 

[vodacom3g]

You know what - your right. You all convinced me. Every thing electronic should be switched off on planes. The article in questions here is preposterous for even thinking about allowing a consumer electronic device to be operated on a commercial airliner. The absolute horror here is that some companies like BA actually allows this. They are playing with fire and should direct their attention to this thread where they can gain expert knowledge from industry leading folks that know their stuff.

It is also horrific how Discovery and Nat.geo broadcast programs about air distasters and each of these episodes conveniently cover up the fact that consumer electronics like cellphones caused the disaster.

Thanks for converting me - now help me and we can convert the world out there. Shake them up, cure their yeast infection, bring them to their sense

Paul, come to the myADSL meet in Stellies next month and I'll buy you a beer and we can have a lekker chat / debate. You can even do a video recording on your mobile on how fast you got there!

Mel, are you coming? Did not see your name on the list.

 

[Rouxenator]

Paul, come to the myADSL meet in Stellies next month and I'll buy you a beer and we can have a lekker chat / debate.

If only I could get a beer every time I tell people what they want to hear

BTW - are you @ Pierplace or Techno ?

 

[vodacom3g]

If only I could get a beer every time I tell people what they want to hear

BTW - are you @ Pierplace or Techno ?

Neither, have a office in Century City, but I mostly work from my own offices in Plattekloof. Got a 2Mb Diginet line into the network, a 1Mb WiMax link and a 7.2Mb 3G connection, so I'm pretty well connected (if you'll pardon the pun!!)

Used to have an office in Techno, but they chucked me out, needed the space.

 

[Rouxenator]

Neither, have a office in Century City, but I mostly work from my own offices in Plattekloof. Got a 2Mb Diginet line into the network, a 1Mb WiMax link and a 7.2Mb 3G connection, so I'm pretty well connected (if you'll pardon the pun!!)

Used to have an office in Techno, but they chucked me out, needed the space.

Sweeet ! I have never been to Techno but I have attended a few meetings at Pierplace - what a mission for visitors who have to go all the way to the top floor of the parkade for parking I feel dizzy after all those turns but its got a nice view from there.

 

[vodacom3g]

Sweeet ! I have never been to Techno but I have attended a few meetings at Pierplace - what a mission for visitors who have to go all the way to the top floor of the parkade for parking I feel dizzy after all those turns but its got a nice view from there.

I'll take you through the NMC (Network Management Center) at Techno one day. Quite cool.

 

[Rouxenator]

I'll take you through the NMC (Network Management Center) at Techno one day. Quite cool.

Some of my co-workers have told me what it looks like. They said it is so neat you get chills down your spine when you think of the computing power it has and all the effort that went into making it. If was not for the security stuff I would have had pics of it as well as of "the cage"

Must admit, you guys do security pretty well - they might want to get some of that "enforcement" on SAA flights when they say "all phones off"

 

[vodacom3g]

Some of my co-workers have told me what it looks like. They said it is so neat you get chills down your spine when you think of the computing power it has and all the effort that went into making it. If was not for the security stuff I would have had pics of it as well as of "the cage"

Thanks, I'm pretty proud of the some of the technology in there...

 

[RogueRunner]

All it means is that it's not happened yet. If you follow air crashes you'll see that they're all caused by events that often occur on other planes but did not lead to a crash. Can you categorically state that rogue RF transmissions have NOT affected planes in the past?

But that's not the point here. There is a law, and it's being broken for no apparent reason other than the fact that it's 'cool' to do so. It's not even that you get some functionality leaving your mobile on, you can't make a call can you?


The fact is, a law is being broken because the criminal thinks it's 'cool'. And he's trying to justify it by saying he's not crashed a plane yet. So,the day he kills himself and a lot of other people, he'll say 'sorry'?


Does your GPS contain a transmitter? Think about it.

I am a pilot and I must tell you that if you are caught using these things on a commercial flight the captain can choose to make things very very unpleasent for you. The least that will happen is you loose your hardware, the worst is a night in jail waiting to see a judge! So go ahead, be cool and use them!!!

Best I can advice is ASK if you may use them, 99% of the time the answer will be no but during non critical stages of flight you might get lucky.

 

[Tns]

Does your GPS contain a transmitter? Think about it.

a normal gps is a receiver only and contains no transmitter. O, they don't like you using that too.,

ok so 3G card on laptop is fine but a phone is not......

 

[Rouxenator]

ok so 3G card on laptop is fine but a phone is not......

Don't try to argue with them in that direction. They are not too happy about it...

 

[ScrnScrm]

One question, who can prove, disprove that a plane like the one in spain didnt crash because some knob left his cellphone on?

Actually, even though you may not think it, the Spanair crash is an example of exactly why Cellphones are banned on SA flights at the moment. What most people don't realise is that it is seldom a single thing that causes a plane to go down. Its a combination of seemingly unrelated things that when thrown together, have catastrophic side effects. Spanair for example : it crashed because the flaps were not extended. So the logical question is - why were the flaps not extended? Well there is a takeoff configuration warning in a MD80 that warns the pilot if the flaps are not extended prior to takeoff. Part of the checklist is momentarily pushing the throttles forward, and if the plane is misconfigured, an aural warning sounds. For some reason, the Spainair Aural warning never sounded. Now the aural warning system is coupled to a ground proximity sensor on the airplane. It only works when the plane is on the ground. The plane in question had an aborted take off, and went back to the gate because of a warning light glowing for one of the avionics systems (pitot tube heat gauge). To fix the avionics, the ground engineer disabled the ground proximity sensor and for some reason it wasnt turned back on. Now add to this some other concurrent issues : the pilot was pressed for time because Spanair have a very strict departure SLA with their customers (if they late, passengers get rebates), their checklist only required an aural warning test to be performed once a day (this was not the first leg for the day, so they didnt do it), Unbeknown to them the plane thought it was in the air already, and they were dealing with rapid raising temperatures which would result in them having to offload passengers if they didnt get off the ground asap.

So if you look at it, there were numerous things that took that plane down. An element of pilot error (they were so rushed they didnt extend the flaps), a faulty aural warning system, mistakes in the check list (not checking the warning before every take off), and the pitot heat sensor that went faulty.

We will never know why the pilot didnt extend the flaps. We will never know what the source of interference was that caused the original sensor to go faulty and lead to the catastrophic chain of events. None of these issues on their own whould cause a plane to go down, but this unique combination did.

When the CAA bans cellphones, they have a specific reason. When things go wrong in the cockpit, and there are multiple failures/problems at the same time, the chance of something major happening is drastically increased. When they try remove cellphones (which are known to interfere with communications) out of the equation, they are increasing the chance of a positive outcome. Think about it. If the pilot is dealing with a major system problem like an engine out, do you really think he needs to deal with not hearing ATC instructions properly at the same time? Where do you want his attention to be : on fixing the problem, or battling to get through to ATC?

When the CAA gets comfortable that all the old generation cellphones that are known to be problematic are out of the system, there is a reduction in the amount of false fire alerts in the baggage hold, and that the avionics and comm systems are properly insulated, they will allow it.

Peace

 

[hexagon]

Cabling goes bad. Capacitor dielectrics break down over time. Ground shields become disconnected. Semiconductor junctions change characteristics. Dry or cracked solder joints may show up only years into operation. The circuitry may continue operating 100% percent normally, although the resistance to interference is decreased. Would anyone like to bet that all of e.g. the older 737's are operating as they were when new? It usually takes a combination of circumstances to bring down a passenger jet, but it's not a lottery I would like to play, especially on older planes still in service. 99.9% success would mean planes would be going down all the time - the industry has to have much higher standards.

Although cellphones are theoretically band-limited, it takes one bad diode in (accidentally) receiving equipment to make it non-linear and spread the signal all across the band. TVs, hi-fi's etc usually DO have protection against interference, but it's actually quite a hard problem - hence most commercial stuff has problems with cellphone interference.

If you're going to tempt fate, don't do it during take-off and landing. As others have said, 200 cellphones all boosting their power in an effort to stay in touch with base stations is a stupid risk that should be avoided.