Can anyone explain lasers and pilots to me?

[last426]

I don't get it  Today the news claimed something like 500 incidents of lasers being shined at pilots from the ground and even claimed that some pilots were so harmed that co-pilots had to take over the plane.  This seems highly unlikely to me.  First, the plane is moving around 200 mph and the shiner is on the ground.  It would be terribly difficult to hit the cockpit with a handheld pointer.  I guess the shiner could put some kind of sight on the laser but it would still be very difficult to hit the cockpit.  But they aren't just hitting the cockpit -- they are hitting the pilot's pupil.  And not just for an instance but long enough to damage the eyes.  They would have to be shooting up at the same time the pilot is looking down. And if not "hit" how would a pilot even know someone aimed at him? I'm lazy so didn't google (just typed) this.  Kim

[Dans 68]

"When a pilot's eyes are hit by laser from the ground or wherever, first of all it impacts his night vision almost instantaneously," explained aviation expert Jay Miller. "If it's a very powerful laser, it can literally blind the pilot."  http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Pilots-planes-endangered-by-DFW-laser-beam-108306284.html

Dan

[TK73]

That is happening just up the hill from me here in Seattle, about a mile away.

Really, don't people have anything better to do?

[Todd Wilson]

You can buy lasers that will melt a trashbag if you shine it up close.  My friend had a laser that you could shut street lights off from several blocks away if you aimed it at the photocell on it.  It was strong enough you could shine it across town and hit a water tower and it looked like something out of a sifi movie.  Green line clear across the sky.   They arent hitting pilots at 30000feet   but down low when they are taking off or landing. I think it can also hit the windshield of the plane and create a glare that is preventing the pilots from seeing.
And sometimes its a direct hit into the eyes.

http://www.wickedlasers.com/



Todd

[last426]

Let me explain my question.  First, I know they are supposedly hitting pilots on approach or take-off (that's why I said 200 mph).  I know that there are some lasers that can harm eyes.  What I doubt is a person's ability to aim and shine a laser at a plane moving 200 mph and about a half mile away or so and get it so accurate that it hits a pilot's pupil for long enough to cause any harm.  And to do it 500 different times?  I'm just saying...  I think I will write to mythbusters.  Kim

[Todd Wilson]

Let me explain my question.  First, I know they are supposedly hitting pilots on approach or take-off (that's why I said 200 mph).  I know that there are some lasers that can harm eyes.  What I doubt is a person's ability to aim and shine a laser at a plane moving 200 mph and about a half mile away or so and get it so accurate that it hits a pilot's pupil for long enough to cause any harm.  And to do it 500 different times?  I'm just saying...  I think I will write to mythbusters.  Kim

Real easy to do.  AT that distance tracking something in the air would be easy. WIth the laser you would be able to see where you are pointing the whole time. LIke a tracer round in a gun so to speak. And like I said my friends laser years ago could accurately shut off a street light from several blocks away.


todd

[Old Moparz]

I agree, it sounds hard to believe it's a common occurrence, but then again, there are a lot of stupid people with free time on their hands. Ever spend time looking on youtube at videos of people doing idiotic things & recording them for no reason? 

The very dumb ones....  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKiB7OjaBnY

[Troy]

If you're lined up with the runway you'd only have to keep your aim in the vertical direction. Planes come in on a slope (pretty much pre-determined) so it's not like they're making drastic movements in any direction. I don't think it would work well on takeoff. Even large planes land at well below 200 mph. I don't know how strong of a laser you'd need to use.

Troy

[last426]

Real easy to do.  AT that distance tracking something in the air would be easy. WIth the laser you would be able to see where you are pointing the whole time. LIke a tracer round in a gun so to speak. And like I said my friends laser years ago could accurately shut off a street light from several blocks away.
todd

You say it is easy.  I disagree.  Try sitting about 20 feet from a wall and take a laser and try to hit the light switch.  The toggle on the switch is about the size of a pupil.  Now multiply the distance by 100.  And the difficulty might multiply exponentially.  Plus the beam, as all lasers, has to remain super concentrated and small.  What a great way to duck hunt.  Blast them and they fall in your lap.  Kim

[Todd Wilson]

Real easy to do.  AT that distance tracking something in the air would be easy. WIth the laser you would be able to see where you are pointing the whole time. LIke a tracer round in a gun so to speak. And like I said my friends laser years ago could accurately shut off a street light from several blocks away.
todd

You say it is easy.  I disagree.  Try sitting about 20 feet from a wall and take a laser and try to hit the light switch.  The toggle on the switch is about the size of a pupil.  Now multiply the distance by 100.  And the difficulty might multiply exponentially.  Plus the beam, as all lasers, has to remain super concentrated and small.  What a great way to duck hunt.  Blast them and they fall in your lap.  Kim

I just told you that you could shut street lights off blocks away with my friends laser. Thats focusing on the small photocell hump on the top.   This is not the red laser on the end of your flashlight or the freeby laser pens given out by a store for use in presentations. 
These are high powered lasers that they are using when they create the serious problems.

No one on the ground is gonna say I am gonna hit those pilots eyes and gets a direct hit. But from a distance they could track an airplane down low on their windshields and by chance it will hit the pilots eyes direct. And it probably wouldnt be a constant shine in the eyes. Between that and the glare off the windshield from the laser it would create vision problems. Add that its dark and in the cockpit  it would create blindness.

I have played with spiders across the room. See a small house spider crawling on the ceiling or up high and mess with hi while you sit on the couch, This was with a weak red laser that a flashlight I have has.  Playing outside at night with it you can see it in the air maybe 300 feet on a good night. You can still see a faint dot on a wall or tree. What is interesting is if you shine in on a street sign it will reflect the light and it creates a rather big spread of light coming back. A red splatter of sorts. My friends was  a 100$ laser  and it looked like a light saber across town to the water tower.


Todd

[last426]

Blast them and they fall in your lap.  Kim

I just told you that you could shut street lights off blocks away with my friends laser. Thats focusing on the small photocell hump on the top.   This is not the red laser on the end of your flashlight or the freeby laser pens given out by a store for use in presentations. 
These are high powered lasers that they are using when they create the serious problems.

No one on the ground is gonna say I am gonna hit those pilots eyes and gets a direct hit. But from a distance they could track an airplane down low on their windshields and by chance it will hit the pilots eyes direct. And it probably wouldnt be a constant shine in the eyes. Between that and the glare off the windshield from the laser it would create vision problems. Add that its dark and in the cockpit  it would create blindness.
[/quote]

I understood what you wrote but I just don't agree -- your experience, though likely true,  with a friend's device and a stationary stoplight is so dissimilar as to be unconvincing.  And to claim that a brief hit in darkness would cause blindness is really stretching without medical evidence.  But you do agree that the chance of it hitting a pilot's pupil are small.  That coupled with my belief that there are very few people attempting this convinces me that this is a myth, much like shark summer was.  Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[hemi68charger]

Real easy to do.  AT that distance tracking something in the air would be easy. WIth the laser you would be able to see where you are pointing the whole time. LIke a tracer round in a gun so to speak. And like I said my friends laser years ago could accurately shut off a street light from several blocks away.
todd

You say it is easy.  I disagree.  Try sitting about 20 feet from a wall and take a laser and try to hit the light switch.  The toggle on the switch is about the size of a pupil.  Now multiply the distance by 100.  And the difficulty might multiply exponentially.  Plus the beam, as all lasers, has to remain super concentrated and small.  What a great way to duck hunt.  Blast them and they fall in your lap.  Kim

Well, whether you agree or disagree, it's happening.. Laser's move at the speed of light, 186,000 mph !!!! So, the laser catching up with the plane is trival. If you have some who's practiced (for they have nothing else better to do), they can do it. Hell, if a bullet can hit a plane shot by a human, a laser traveling at the speed of light wouldn't have any problem. I know about my shooting an airplane. Happened frequent enough that upon approach to our Air base in Iraq, we had to sit on our kevlar vents so the bullets wouldn't pop our tushes.. 

[learical1]

Laser's move at the speed of light, 186,000 mph !!!!

try 186,000 miles per SECOND, not per hour.

[bull]

Kim, if you can't make sense of it then it obviously isn't real. Therefore, this must be an urban legend and/or a conspiracy to... um... control something or someone.

[Troy]

Hey, when I was a kid I was told you couldn't hit a bird in flight with a BB gun either. Well, if you've got enough time and ammunition...

Troy

[mikepmcs]

Hey, Randy can do it with a 100mph fastball.
http://fanshots.com/video/randy-johnson-hits-bird-with-pitch

BTW: I have no opinion on the laser crap.

[last426]

Kim, if you can't make sense of it then it obviously isn't real. Therefore, this must be an urban legend and/or a conspiracy to... um... control something or someone.

C'mon guys.  I got one guy saying his friend shoots stoplights, another saying that light has slowed down to 186k mph.  Now you believing something that you can't explain.  But Bull you are correct.  As a dues paying skeptic if there is no scientific explanation for something, I don't believe it (until it has been scientifically explained to me).  What happened to the engineers on Dodgecharger? Are we left with only opinions and guesses? Hmmm, the world changes.

I did a quick search and this guy expresses my concerns:
http://dahnbatchelorsopinions.blogspot.com/2008/10/can-laser-pointers-really-blind-pilots.html Kim

[A383Wing]

it ain't all that hard to understand...I have played with lasers for a while now...(not at planes, mind you)

laser light travels at 186,000 miles per second...and the beam that comes out of the little laser pointer does not stay "pencil tip" size as it travels outward. So, as the light travels, it gets "wider" as it approaches the plane, and in the split second that it happens to hit the area of the plane window, the pupil of the eye sends a signal to the brain to stop receiving the light impulse and close the iris of the eye.

There are videos all over the NW News stations of the "green" laser aimed up at planes....it's not a "steady" direct beam constantly on the window...any "flash" of light through the window that the pilot sees for even a split second will do the damage.

You don't have to directly hit the window...just anything shined in the general area of the plane's nose will do the damage

I used to have one of those little hand party lasers that you could have on a key chain....our cats loved chasing the little red dot all around the carpet....but when I took it out and shined it on a tree across the street, the little "dot" grew to 20 feet wide one block away....now, how high is the plane when it's landing at night? Do the math....

it's happening all the time....

[Todd Wilson]

I was at a Kiss concert one time and they were in the middle of a song and Paul Stanley stopped playing and started yelling and the rest of the band quit playing. Entire place was quiet.........He told who ever it was to put the laser away and stop shining it into his eyes or he would get the crowd to shove it you know where or the concert was gonna end! HEHE!   No more laser after that!


Todd

[bull]

C'mon guys.  I got one guy saying his friend shoots stoplights, another saying that light has slowed down to 186k mph.  Now you believing something that you can't explain.  But Bull you are correct.  As a dues paying skeptic if there is no scientific explanation for something, I don't believe it (until it has been scientifically explained to me).  What happened to the engineers on Dodgecharger? Are we left with only opinions and guesses? Hmmm, the world changes.
Kim

Well, you framed the topic in such a way as to ask for an explanation and yet after the first couple responses it became apparent that you already had your mind made up and wanted to argue. I'm sure you've become irritated by people who ask you for an explanation to something they know little about only to have them argue with your reasoning and/or facts. We've all encountered that I'm sure. And I'm sure we've all responded to it in the same way: "If you didn't want to hear my opinion, why did you ask?"

[Brock Samson]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/26/BASR1HEHNR.DTL&tsp=1

[Todd Wilson]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/26/BASR1HEHNR.DTL&tsp=1

Thats impossible Brock! I dont believe it!


Todd

[last426]

Here is a bit from the article I cited (and case closed so far as I am concerned, the uproar is overstated as I thought) Now that I think about it, it would be easier to shoot at a driver's eyes from an overpass and I have never heard of that.  
And check out my hemi at http://www.marlia.com:

Laser experts say even souped-up laser pointers put out power in the milliwatt range and don't pose much danger to flight crews because of the distances between ground and planes, and because of the difficulty of focusing a beam directly into the cockpit of a fast-moving plane.

Do any of my readers know anyone who can maintain aim for several seconds on something the size of your pupil at a range of greater than a thousand feet (at least) with the target moving at 150-200 mph and at an angle to boot? Most people can't keep them aimed at a word on a power-point laser at a range of ten feet more than a second.

The single conviction in Calgary aside, a more reasonable explanation is that pilots are catching sight of bright green reflections and reporting them as lasers, since they now expect to have lasers shone on them.

For a laser to cause blindness, it has to damage the macular region of the retina, and for it to damage the macular, it has to enter the eye directly along the visual axis at an angle of incidence that is perpendicular to the corneal plane - i.e. it has to be shone from the exact position that corresponds to where the pilot is looking. Assuming that the pilot is looking at the runway, someone with a laser has to be standing there for the laser to cause blindness.

Can you really imagine in your wildest dreams that someone with a laser pointer is actually able to stand at the edge of a runway without being apprehended by security personnel?

These laser stories have been reported before at many airports and not one instance has resulted in actual blindness. Seems to me the greater risk to the aircraft is the pilot's temporary distraction.

Pilots should be cautioned not to look directly at a laser if one is actually directed into the cockpit. As long as the laser beam does not enter directly into the eye along the line of sight, it will not cause functional vision loss.

Think about this for as minute. How do other pilots who can tell the authorities where the people using the laser actually are without first concentrating on the light source? And having done that, don't you find it odd that they didn't suffer from eye injuries? Evidence that supports this: (1) the Westjet pilot was released without injury from hospital after his laser incident in Calgary; (2) of the 73 cockpit-laser incidents reported, none of the pilots thus far have been diagnosed with laser damage to their eyes.

Even if for a split second, the beam hit their eyes, the distraction would be minimal because there are so many other distractions that their minds are focusing on when they are flying their aircraft.

Now with respect to the complaints of pilots complaining that laser beams are hitting them in their eyes when they are taking off, I find those claims incredulous. The pilot's cockpit in a Boeing 747 is at least 19.3 metres (63.5 feet) above the ground. That is as high at least as a three story building. The average runway for such a plane is at least 3,962 metres (13,000 feet) in length. That is slightly more than three and a half miles away from the opposite end of the runway. When a 747 is fully loaded, it requires at least 10,137 feet of runway before it can lift off. Now all the time the plane is approaching the man with the laser at the end of the runway, the angle between the ground where the man is standing and the pilot in the cockpit is steadily increasing so by the moment the pilot is ready to take off, the angle is such, that the beam would only hit the ceiling of the cockpit.

Now we all know that the lift off is quite sudden so allowing for the possibility that the man would be aiming the beam at the pilot's eyes a second or so before the plane suddenly rises, the pilot's cockpit would be at least 900 feet further back which would mean that the man with the laser would have to aim his laser beam at the pilot's eyes that are approximately 2,000 feet from him. Ask yourself this rhetorical question. Can anyone using a small laser pointer, even while holding it against a fence in order to steady his hand actually successfully hit a pilot's eye at that distance? Most people using a rifle and lying down, can't even hit a bull's eye on a paper target at sixty feet in which the bull's eye is the size of a silver dollar.

Now you could say that all the man would have to do is simply move the beam sideways back and forth and sooner or later, the beam would strike the pilot's eye. To do that, he would need a gun sight; preferably a telescopic gun sight to do that and the laser pointer would have to be mounted accurately on the gun. But even that wouldn't work because no gun sight is so strong that the man could actually see the red dot at the end of the laser beam striking the inside of the cockpit when it is 2,000 feet away.

What I have said in the previous paragraph would apply in landings other than the angle between the ground and the pilot since in landings the angle would decrease. However, by the time the pilot's plane touched the ground, it would still be too far away for the man to accurately aim the laser beam at the pilot's eyes.

Most of the laser incidents appear to be easily handled by air crews however; any kind of distraction during takeoff or landing is a concern. This is why anyone found pointing a laser pointer, especially one that emits a green beam, should be arrested and if convicted, dealt with severely.

[Brock Samson]

one time we played a gig at a RAVE type club also known as 1015 Folsom,.. so the light show they had was alot of electronic computer controled lights and a lot of Lazers,.. everytime theose things would flash across our eyes we were completly blinded though we were all wearing sunglasses it made no difference what so ever... in fact near the end of our second set the tumpet player who stood infront of me as part of our three piece horn section was so dioriented he stagged backwards and crushed my 16 pin connector cable to my synth. and I had to do an emergency repair which took a few minutes, that cable cost approx. $70 buck but I had spares of everything for just such a contingincy...
I recovered enough to get off the last solo and the climactic ending to our show... Feet don't fail me know by Funkadelic... anyhow yea, they blind quite effectivly and we all complained about it bitterly to the managment after,.. the show was a huge success anyhow...

[hemi68charger]

Laser's move at the speed of light, 186,000 mph !!!!

try 186,000 miles per SECOND, not per hour.

Foiled..  That's what I meant to say.............  A freudian slip... I'm a geophysicists, not a proof-reader.........