[AZ-Observing] Re: Phoenix man sentenced for shining laser at two commercial airliners, police helicopter over Valley

  • From: "Rick Tejera" <saguaroastro@xxxxxxx>
  • To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2012 09:50:18 -0700

Dan,

I agree, It's doubtful the claims made, though I will concede the risk is
certainly there and there are better ways to see how far the beam goes. I'd
think that to hit a pilot of an airliner in the eye, you'd have to be well
ahead of the plane and it would need to be coming at you so the beam could
actually make it into the flight deck. Given the geometry, you'd need to be
pretty far away, which would, with the garden variety laser make the beam A0
pretty spread out and thus b) weak. Shining it from below would just hit the
bottom of the plane. The flight deck would be well insulated from the beam.


That being said when SAC holds the Thunderbird Starwatch, I always remind
people to be careful with their lasers as the park is directly under the
approach path to Sky Harbor for arrivals from the north when they are
landing east and also we're only 5 miles from Deer Valley Airport as well
and arrival there will also overfly the park.

Now, I would also think that the situation for helicopters is much different
as they have a much wider cone of visibility from the flight deck, so I'd
take fewer grains of salt on report of helo pilots being affected.


Rick Tejera (K7TEJ)
Sagauro Astronomy Club
www.saguaroastro.org
Thunderbird Amatuer Radio Club
www.w7tbc.org
30 Meter Digital Group # 5794


-----Original Message-----
From: az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:az-observing-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Dan Heim
Sent: Thursday, 09 August, 2012 09:15
To: az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [AZ-Observing] Re: Phoenix man sentenced for shining laser at two
commercial airliners, police helicopter over Valley

Of course that's a stupid and dangerous thing to do. But ever since I first
started hearing about it, I've had to wonder just how "dangerous" 
that really is. I mean, I've got a green laser, and on many occasions
accidentally reflected it off a shiny surface into my own eyes. The natural
reaction is to quickly look away. No prob.
Now with a pilot, the distance between laser and eye is gonna be MUCH
greater, and they'd need to be looking downward to get the full impact. 
Sure ... a green dot bouncing around the cockpit could be distracting to a
pilot. But I just have a hard time buying these "temporarily blinded" 
reports.

These newer lasers, the ones that approach 1W power output could be more an
issue certainly. But I don't believe the garden variety laser pointer could
be that dangerous to pilots.

Dan Heim

On 8/9/2012 12:12 AM, TFW/Thom wrote:
> http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/local/cop_shop/article_4f453d8c-e1c3-
> 11e1-ae68-001a4bcf887a.html?google_editors_picks=true
>
> Thom Walczak
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojydNb3Lrrs
> --
> See message header for info on list archives or unsubscribing, and 
> please send personal replies to the author, not the list.
>
>
>
>    


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