...And that the thing they're shining a laser at famously knows exactly where it is located, and has two guys sitting in the front seats who are extensively skilled and identifying the range and bearing of things around them.
It's not like that. At that distance, the beam is wide enough to cover a large part of the cockpit, not to mention the glare. It's literally blinding light.
Have you ever had a truck flash its lights at you at night? It's like that, but much, much stronger, and you're in the most sensitive part of the flight, when if you fuck up, you crash.
What pilots are trained to do is switch off all the lights, so the idiot can't see you and can no longer easily hit you with the laser. You can imagine that's not safe either.
"That UFO just entered stealth mode!"
In case any one else has the same thought. Using it as a beacon for rescue will not work.
You say that, but once someone on the ground was shining a bright ass flashlight, not a laser but just as bright, at us and they were flashing ...---... (SOS in Morse). Apparently we were the 4th plane to report it to air traffic control. I've never seen that before or since, but at least that time it worked.
Oh I was informed the lazer would blind the plane and potentially cause the to crash. I know Jack about planes.
I think a stupidly bright flashlight is preferable to a laser, but the idea of signalling for help with a light can work. Please don't use lasers.
Good to know!
When will they equip planes with auto targetting lasers to instantly blind dumbasses who do this?
when the legal system stops prosecuting extremely negligent companies for hurting innocent bystanders in pursuit of prof... shit.
Allegedly negligent companies. The whistleblowers keep suiciding themselves for some inexplicable reason...
this one wasn't really easy to read on my phone, so I'm downloading and sending it here
plenty of aviation-related comics lately, I wonder what Randall has been doing
Maybe Mentour pilot plunged him into a deep rabbit hole
The title text sounds like styropyro. Wonder if he's working on a blimp...
We want Green Marios
Not Green Lasers
They should make it legal to shine lasers at aircraft. Rich people who fly low over residential areas for a hobby ought to fear for their eyesight.
Those residential areas with houses full of people that planes can crash into and kill everyone on the ground as well as in the air?
That'll sure show the billionaires... somehow...
Some of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make
It would put a stop to irresponsible flying right-quick.
You know, you are very concerned about people respecting you to the point that you throw massive hissy fits about it, and yet you seem to show no concern whatsoever for the lives of innocent people if it furthers some political goal of yours. Which seems extremely disrespectful to humanity overall.
I doubt you'll see the irony there, but I think everyone else will appreciate it.
Oh, it's you. Drag already sent you a message asking you not to interact with drag. Drag will ask again: don't bother drag any more.
Not my job to not respond to a comment on a public forum just because the person doesn't like me. Especially not such an abhorrent one. That's not how this works.
Oh goodness, you're the one folks have been talking about. I am suddenly much less confused.
Pilots are in general not "rich people". Many go into debt to get into the profession. Taylor Swift isn't flying her own jet.
On the other hand, if the eyesight of a pilot gets damaged, it can fuck up their career that they put insane money into - again, likely from debt. Not speaking about having to switch professions and losing a life's dream.
Drag isn't talking about passenger and freight aircraft. Drag is talking about hobby aircraft. Rich people don't fly planes for fun where you live?
That's what I mean, that's not rich people. Most of those are going to be training flights, statistically with both the instructor and the instructee being in various stages of "let's get into horrific debt so I can fly an airliner at some point" pipeline.
The minority of people who fly for fun are going to be doctors, engineers, and people like that who are working their asses off like everyone else, just lucky enough to afford doing this for a few hours every month, that costs a significant portion of their money.
Those people will also be less trained than airliner pilots, thus more in danger of fucking up and dying if you fuck with them.
Let people be.
I worked at a local TV station and we occasionally did coverage at the local airport that had a lot of small planes and no commercial flights. Like you said, we're not talking about one percenters here. We're talking plumbers that are way into flying. Not even necessarily someone who makes decent money like a plumber. It could be, just like a person in a menial job who spends all their money fixing up a muscle car, a similar situation.
People who fly small planes, as far as I can tell, do it because they're super into flying planes. It really has nothing to do with their economic status beyond "has enough money to buy a small plane." If you get an ultralight that you can just tow to the airport and don't need a hangar for it, you're talking maybe a $20,000 investment. I've seen ultralights for sale for a lot less.
They usually don't even have that kind of money here. It's either a group lease or mostly rentals. But yeah, GA pilots are a very dedicated bunch. And they are usually good people too.
That we have a society where people are allowed to commit this kind of violence without consequence is horrible.
Rich people don't fly planes for fun where you live?
not really. Can't remember the last time I saw a plane that wasn't a 747 or similar
So you don't have little Cessnas that fly in circles over people's houses for shits and giggles?
No, that's usually a rural thing. And those are usually cropdusters manned by farmers who, while I may not agree with politically speaking (based on the 8500 flags per section of irrigation), are doing a very expensive component of their job. And even then it's usually farmers with massive acrages that necessitated a plane over a Sprayer Tractor. They might do tricks and stuff when turning around but excessive trick flying about is how you wreck your plane.
Sure some wealthy people do have these private little planes/helicopters for recreational use. But they're far from cheap and still must answer to the FAA during flight. They pay insurance by the hour when in flight, and lying/fudging numbers can cost your pilot licence. (Google says it can take about 6 months for your 20 hours of practice flight time you pay for, totalling approximately $10-20k)
If you have an issue with a pilot flying too low, call the local airport, Tower Control might just find out a new plane owner has not reported their flights.
If the pilots don't want to be blinded, they can negotiate with the people on the ground. Lasers are the only weapon most people have to fight back against aircraft violence and seek an equitable resolution. Pilots shouldn't be above the rest of the world, detached from all the consequences of their actions.
Noise is not violence in the same way that murder is violence. And if your issue is them flying near residential areas, that increases the likelihood of another, uninvolved, innocent person being injured or killed in the crash. As I said in my other comment, violence inflicted on bystanders is abhorrent and not acceptable. Noise is a nuisance, murder is a permanent bad "solution" to a temporary minor problem in this case.
Noise is absolutely physical violence and inflicting it on thousands of people at once is unforgivable.
If you're talking about the constant noise from bit mining operations and the like, I'd agree with you. But having grown up very close to a US military testing airfield, I disagree with the assertion that aircraft noise is anything more than a nuisance. Throughout the first 26 years of my life, I lived in a place where squadrons of C-130's would do take-off and landing drills over my neighborhood. While it was irksome, like all aircraft, they were limited to flying during certain times of day, excluding emergencies, just like personal or private aircraft are. I suffered no permanent harm from it, and to be honest, our neighbors blasting loud music all the time and late into the night was more of a problem than the aircraft.
I think you are focusing far too much and placing entirely unwarranted importance on this issue, and your efforts would be better spent elsewhere. It will win you no favors to burn any good will you have on this issue when there are others that are much more important problems.
It seems like you don't have autistic noise sensitivity or migraines. When a plane makes noise that bothers thousands of people, autistic people will be harmed. People with migraines will want to kill themselves. Everyone is different, and the law needs to be able to protect the most vulnerable in society.
There is no reasonable way to eliminate all noise and I can guarantee that there are sources of noise that are louder and more pervasive/frequent than aircraft that you could focus this ire on. If someone is really so sensitive as to suffer immense harm from the noise of aircraft in their area, they should not live in that area.
Before you start on some tangent about how small, rural communities have aircraft noise as well as large cities, I would like to inform you that those small airports can be a vital lifeline for the most vulnerable in our communities. I have helped care for a patient that had to be flown to our hospital in a small airplane from a rural community about 500 miles away because an air ambulance helicopter couldn't make the distance and a ground ambulance would have been too slow. Putting too many restrictions on small airfields, especially in remote communities could very easily cause actual fatalities, not just disruption or distress.
autistic noise sensitivity [...] autistic people will be harmed
Being overly sensitive to noise isn't exclusive to people with autism, nor is everyone on the spectrum sensitive to noise.
It's as stupid an argument as saying we should destroy all the street lighting because of people who have migraines at night. Yeah, it really sucks having to deal with that. What sucks a lot more is unsafe streets because of the total lack of lighting.
You know what else sometimes flies low over residential areas?
737s coming in to land that are full of everyday slobs relying on two now-blinded pilots up front to get them on the ground during a critical phase of flight.
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