Laser beams tracking aircraft. This is crazy...

[Sonar5 3]

Ok Jeroen, now that this LASER story is debunked, let's work on these chicken farmer terrorists.If they teach those things to fly at around 2000 Feet AGL, the entire Airspace of the world is at risk. They Must be STOPPED.I will do my part to eat more chickens though.I Encourage all to eat as much chicken as possible, as we might be saving our Aircraft from a terrible Chicken scourge. :-) :-)Now where's my BBQ sauce....?Regards,Joe

[AlaskanFlyboy 7]

From real world experience, I don't care if it's a laser or a spot light. If it temporarily blinds me, or it's night and instantly zaps my night vision, it's just become a pain in the butt. Hehe. And yeah, those lasers on those telescopes and in those things the surveyors use (I believe their some sort of high-tech transit) go for miles.I doubt most conventional laser pointers and laser sights will go that far because many of them aren't lasers but heavily focused LEDs. Lasers, to my understanding, tend to be pretty fragile and delicate instruments so I don't think any of the so-called "laser pointers" or "laser sights" are really lasers since these two items tend to take a lot of abuse. That and with a laser, the farther you were from it, the smaller it would appear to you. laser pointer and laser sight beams tend to widen out as distance increases as well. So the fact that some people are mentioning these things as bothering pilots at 2000 feet doesn't sound like an actuality. The beam by 2000 feet would have widened out far enough that it's probably pretty dim.----------------------------------------------------------------John S. MorganReal World: KGEG, UND Aerospace Spokane Satillite, Private 130+ hrs.Virtual: MSFS 2004"There is a feeling about an airport that no other piece of ground can have. No matter what the name of the country on whose land it lies, an airport is a place you can see and touch that leads to a reality that can only be thought and felt." - The Bridge Across Forever: A Love Story by Richard Bach

[Sonar5 3]

Actually many of them are lasers and not LED's, IMHO.Read up a bit on them, and you will find that for a slow as $95.00 you can have a 5mw LASER that will go about 10,000 Feet.That's what I have which I use for Astronomy.Now, are there a bunch of cheap look alike LED Pointers. Yeppers, buyer beware as usual.And as for Pain in the butt, yep could be, but no more than flying into haze that you did not know was there, and I bet that haze lasts longer than a few seconds too. Last Time I flew into Haze it took more than afew seconds to do my 360, and fly back out of it. All on Instruments too. No Big deal. Same with Clouds.Regards,Joe

[michal 44]

>I doubt most conventional laser pointers and laser sights will>go that far because many of them aren't lasers but heavily>focused LEDs.Not true. These are full fledged lasers, albeit using solids for lasing action. "Fragility" you are talking about is a trait of gas lasers. >That and>with a laser, the farther you were from it, the smaller it>would appear to you. Hmmm... not sure what you mean but laser light is being subjected to difraction (like any light) therefore it also spreads out with distance but at a much lower rate than say light shined by a flash light. The amount of this "spread" depends heavily on the geometry of the lasing cavity. The longer the cavity the less spread.No matter how hard you would try to "focus LED lights" you could never get even close to a fairly low spread of the beam coming out of those pen-like pointers.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

[AlaskanFlyboy 7]

I should probably clarify my terms. When I spoke of laser-sights and laser pointers, I was refering to the common hand held pointers used in presentations and the common hand-gun mounted laser sights.----------------------------------------------------------------John S. MorganReal World: KGEG, UND Aerospace Spokane Satillite, Private 130+ hrs.Virtual: MSFS 2004"There is a feeling about an airport that no other piece of ground can have. No matter what the name of the country on whose land it lies, an airport is a place you can see and touch that leads to a reality that can only be thought and felt." - The Bridge Across Forever: A Love Story by Richard Bach

[michal 44]

>I should probably clarify my terms. When I spoke of>laser-sights and laser pointers, I was refering to the common>hand held pointers used in presentations and the common>hand-gun mounted laser sights.OK. I had no trouble understanding what you were referring to.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

[Guest B52Drivr]

Dear Joe,No one here is deneying you have done your homework. No one in this camp is also saying you might not be right. My only concern is that I also hope you are right. Because if you are not, we have a seriuos problem.I personally don't think it's just so much BS . . . again, where there is smoke, I beleive there is fire. That is my opinion, I am entitled to it as you are yours. And again, I do hope you are very correct.Best,Clay

[michal 44]

I think you two are arguing over nothing. Both of you may in fact be correct. Whether it is kids playing with laser pointers or terrorists getting to know their new "weapon" - we won't really know until we get more facts and data - these can only come in time. Either scenario I consider plausible. And even if these are not "laser" terrorists today, they may be here tomorrow. We shall see ...Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

[Sonar5 3]

Follow-up...Well, it looks like the guy from NJ is allegedly a Marooon. First he says his daughter pointed it at the Police helicopter. Then the Maroon goes back to FBI HQ, agrees to take a lie Detector Test, apparently fails it, and then allegedly admits it was he who pointed his 5mw laser at the police Helicopter.Well, if Martha can get 6 months for lying, this Maroon should get at least 6 months for lying if convicted.As this is the same guy they interrogated for hours until 5am, I can only say the Authorities did a good job, as this Maroon knew exactly what he was doing apparently, and I should not have been so harsh on them in my previous posts. For that I apologize.Just keep in mind there are thousands of these in the public and it was the person who used it wrongly, and not everyone goes out targeting aircraft.I can only hope as I have said before that this leads to education on both the Pilot side, as well as the public.It is still Legal to point these things at stars and such, just not aircraft.And if found guilty, I say lock this guy up with at least 6 months.Regards,JoeFrom:http://www.nydailynews.com/front/breaking_...0p-229568c.html"NEWARK

[Guest Ken_Salter]

Nice, trying to pawn it off on his daughter...

[Sonar5 3]

That's the part that got me too.If there was ever someone that deserves 6 months, it's this guy, IMHO. Maybe he was hoping his daughter would back him up, and she didn't. Good for her, as I teach my kids it is not good to lie about anything.You know I was thinking about something else. When I fly in the daytime, say late afternoon, one of the legs will always be right in the sun.We as pilots deal with this everyday by wearing a good pair of Sunglasses (Serengeti here), and looking away slightly from the direct light.Now I've never had a laser pointed at me, but I wonder why the Pilots can't wear protection as they do for the sun. If the Military has them, why not commercial aviation?I use a filter to view the Moon through the scope because the brightness can harm my eyes, so why not for Pilots?It is a huge sky, and lasers do make it a lot more easier to point out stars constellations, etc.It should be noted that one has to have intent to be convicted. If some plane flies through a beam on accident, I still say tough cookies if the person using the laser didn't have intent and was not aware of a plane nearby.Regards,Joe

[bob.bernstein 0]

<>Jw..if you mean between laser and led, the difference will be that the led light will not be visible more than a few yards away.

[Guest P3_Super_Bee]

This is nothing new(well maybe, jackass kids with laser pointers is) but the laser at an aircraft isn't. The old USSR and the US used to do this crap back in the cold war. P-3s if you notice the windscreens have a goldish tint to them,this is a laser blocker/filter. We even had laser detectors in the windows. There were a couple of P-3 flight station crews actually blinded permantly from lasers. Most like some USSR aircrews as well.:-outtahttp://publish.hometown.aol.com/p3superb/i...s/sign_name.jpgThere is a fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness".- unknown"My daddy gives me up, to fight for you"- a US Military Members Child

[rickalty 0]

"And gee, the pilots seem to be quite concerned about it . . . that's enough for me."The pilots are concerned about it because they're reading the same press releases you are, and know no more about lasers than you do - as evidenced by the pilot who was concerned enough to make a report when he saw a laser 11 miles away. Had he had any knowledge of the subject, he'd have known they presented no meaningfull danger to him. Now every time a pilot sees an astronomy club with a spotting laser he's going to freak out and report some terrorist was targeting him.Let me tell you something else.... military target illumination lasers are not visible at all. That's a large part of the point of them. Some snake eater points a designator at a target, and a smart bomb homes in on the reflection, WITHOUT the bad guys ever even seeing the illuminating beam. You think the military wants to issue their guys with lasers that produce a beam that points straight back at the user? It'd be a "Shoot me here" sign for all to see.Even commercial targeting lasers don't present a visible beam except in smoky or foggy air - just a red or green dot on the target. The types of laser that produce a visible beam are ALL of non-hostile use, such as construction levels and astronomy spotters.Richard

[Guest]

NO laser (in fact, no highly focussed beam of light) produces a visible beam unless there's a lot of reflecting surfaces in the path of the beam (in which case you see those particles and not the beam itself).Construction levels too you won't see unless you blow some chalk dust or something in its path, despite what the commercials show ;)Astronomy spotting lasers (never knew they use those) will work the same as military ones but in the visible spectrum so the dot is visible without special equipment and of course typically (the ones used by observatories to measure the distance to the moon are rather more powerful but they have to warn the aviation authorities for a TMA to be erected before they can use them) at lower energy levels.