Lasers, Here we go again.

[PhilMassey]

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/holiday-laser-displays-raising-safety-concerns-for-pilots/

[plasmadrive]

This is the cry wolf syndrome...  Those little lasers have no ability to cause any harm or even flash blindness at anything close to that distance..

[PhilMassey]

In other news.

Disco balls banned for blinding pilots.

And, forget about any dteams you may have had about getting those moving head lights.

[robongar]

Now, don't laugh at me. Laugh at my neighbor. She told her husband to switch his laser off. As she saw at least one plane slow down to see there address.

[bisquit476]

This is the cry wolf syndrome...  Those little lasers have no ability to cause any harm or even flash blindness at anything close to that distance..

 

As someone who works for an airline, you have no idea what you are talking about. We've had numerous pilots hit by those "little lasers", and thank god there are 2 pilots in the plane. The beam widens at that distance, but it still causes problems with a pilots sight momentarily, plus the fact that it's illegal.

[EmmienLightFan]

I saw this type of light in the UK in a shop fir the first time this year. I have never seen one being used.

[plasmadrive]

As someone who works for an airline, you have no idea what you are talking about. We've had numerous pilots hit by those "little lasers", and thank god there are 2 pilots in the plane. The beam widens at that distance, but it still causes problems with a pilots sight momentarily, plus the fact that it's illegal.

You may have had pilots hit by other hand held lasers, or illegal lasers running too much power,  but not by these yard laser with enough intensity to even cause flash blindness.  Just a matter of crying wolf and ignorance.. I am sorry, but first off the math doesn't work out. There is not enough light energy given off by those little yard lasers to cause any sort of eye damage or even temporary flash blindness at any kind of distance.  They have a very weak beam and that beam is split hundreds of times making them even weaker.. than there is divergence.  The beam on those diverges (spreads) something fierce.   By the time they get to even 1000' they are less than a small flashlight at 20'.   There is no way in hell at 22,000' you could get enough energy to cause an issue.  It is pure BS...  The FDA has set down legal and safe amounts of light and those legal yard lasers are far below that threshold.  

 

Remember, we are talking legal yard lasers here.  Not the hand held laser pointers.  Another thing is that a plane flying at 500mph would not encounter such a beam for more than a fraction of a second unless it was straight on to the cockpit.. and have you ever seen a commercial airplanes cockpit.  You can't really even look down.. it would have to be at a pretty minor angle which means longer distance. 

 

Media sensationalism at it's best..

[DevMike]

And you plasma would be completely wrong.  I am a pilot and let me tell you being hit by even a little hand held laser pointer is not fun.  I'm sure my brother pilots will also chime in about exactly how dangerous it is.

 

In a pitch black cockpit (which is how we fly at night), even a laser pointer that hits the windscreen will light up the  flightdeck enough to completely destroy a pilots night vision.  It's not very easy to land a hulking piece of metal when you can't see the runway.

 

Just because you don't believe it or think the numbers don't work does not make you right

 

Edit:  Some light reading -> https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/lasers/

Edit 2: Oh, and when I said brother pilots, I meant women pilots too!!!!!  Not trying to be sexist

 

The best lazy 8's I've ever had the pleasure to be in the cockpit for where flown by one of the lady pilots at the flight school I attended.  She was awesome.  We'd hit the top of the turn, the stall horn would chirp like a baby bird and she was +/-10 feet EVERY time.

[k6ccc]

I'm a fixed wing pilot and I've never encountered one of those new fangeled "Star Shower" things, but I have seen first hand what a consumer grade laser pointer looks like.  REALLY BAD comes to mind!

 

I can also tell you that last time I rode with the police helicopter we were intentionally tracked with a laser pointer.  I will point out that the two people involved left the scene that night in the back seat of a police car in handcuffs.

[Orville]

Sorry PlasmaDrive, I have to side with the pilots here [and why there are NO lasers in my display of any kind!}.    And my reason for siding with the pilots, you say these yard lasers are too weak to do damage, boy are you way off the mark.   There are a lot of them in use in the surrounding subdivisions by me, one was pointed{angled} in such a way it hit you right in the eyes from ACROSS the street, but lit up the side of the home nicely too.    It was harsh and it was blinding.     Took me quite a while before I could see much of anything and I'm already legally blind, and it sure didn't help any.   Now this was at least a good 5-6 houses away, and again, on the opposite side of the street.

 

I think they really should ban those things because if they can hit a pedestrian walking on a sidewalk and blind from that distance, what do you think that's going to do to a driver that may encounter that, let alone the airline pilots getting hit by them.

 

I personally think these things were, and are the worst invention ever put out for amateur use in Holiday decorating, especially when those folks may not even be aware of the dangers they impose on pilots, automobile drivers, motorcycle riders, bicyclists and pedestrians that encounters a misaligned yard laser for Christmas use, and they advertise them for year round use too, so some folks may leave them up as a permanent fixture year round.   And I've seen them aimed skyward to light a tree too.  Definitely not a smart move, but folks may not really know what they're doing, they may not even know it's illegal to point them skyward because of the airlines and helicopter pilots can be blinded by them.    Guess they'll learn a hard lesson when the FAA comes to call with those hefty fines and possible jail time.

 

I'd rather leave the lasers out of my display, then I don't run the risk of this or some smart-aleck coming into my yard and re-aiming them skyward for the fun of it, and we all know how children{and some adults} can be, think they're just playing a joke, but then gets the display owner into serious financial problems because of their so-called prank.   No thanks!

Edited December 11, 2015 by Orville

[ItsMeBobO]

There are many sites like this with explicit warnings   http://www.lasersafetyfacts.com/3R/ 

LASING AIRCRAFT AND VEHICLES IS ILLEGAL
In the U.S., aiming a laser at or near the flight path of an aircraft is a federal felony, punishable by up to 5 years in jail and a fine of up to $250,000. Other countries, and U.S. states have similar laws for interfering with safety; such laws may be used to arrest, fine or imprison a person for aiming at aircraft and vehicles.
The power of the laser does not matter. Even if a laser's power is relatively weak, aiming ANY laser beam at an aircraft or vehicle is illegal.
Persons aiming higher-powered beams are especially likely to be caught, because the beam is very visible from the air. It is easy for police helicopters to trace the beam back to the perpetrator's location.

 

At the same time, sites selling decorative laser have little or no warnings.   This page says nothing about the possible illegal use. 

http://www.holidaycoro.com/Outdoor-Static-Red-and-Green-Laser-p/829.htm

[k6ccc]

Persons aiming higher-powered beams are especially likely to be caught, because the beam is very visible from the air. It is easy for police helicopters to trace the beam back to the perpetrator's location.

 

To follow up on this, and what I said in post #9.  Having been in a police helicopter that was being laser tracked, it does not have to be higher power laser, and it is EXTREMELY obvious in less than one second that you are being tracked, as opposed to a laser that swept across the sky and happened to hit you.  In our case, we were first hit from almost a half mile away, for only a second or two.  The observer and I (both on the right side, and looking at the incident on the ground we were there for) did not see it, but the pilot on the left side did and was able to identify the location within a block.  About a half hour later we were able to fly near the one block area and we were tracked again.  It took all of a second or two to ID the location to between the garage and house in one particular back yard.  We were tracked off and on for several orbits around the general area.  With the camera system it was no problem to get pretty good descriptions of the people involved.  <sarcastic mode> Once ground units made contact, we returned the favor and pointed 40 million candle power back at them </sarcastic mode>.  they were using an ordinary consumer grade green laser pointer.

 

Just for good measure, our PD air support had been involved in busting someone the night before who was pointing into the cockpits of airliners on short final of a regional airport.

[plasmadrive]

And you plasma would be completely wrong.  I am a pilot and let me tell you being hit by even a little hand held laser pointer is not fun.  I'm sure my brother pilots will also chime in about exactly how dangerous it is.

 

In a pitch black cockpit (which is how we fly at night), even a laser pointer that hits the windscreen will light up the  flightdeck enough to completely destroy a pilots night vision.  It's not very easy to land a hulking piece of metal when you can't see the runway.

 

Just because you don't believe it or think the numbers don't work does not make you right

 

Edit:  Some light reading -> https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/lasers/

Edit 2: Oh, and when I said brother pilots, I meant women pilots too!!!!!  Not trying to be sexist

 

The best lazy 8's I've ever had the pleasure to be in the cockpit for where flown by one of the lady pilots at the flight school I attended.  She was awesome.  We'd hit the top of the turn, the stall horn would chirp like a baby bird and she was +/-10 feet EVERY time.

No Mike, I am not wrong.. I excluded hand held lasers from my comments specifically.  I was talking only about those legal lawn lasers.. Need to read all of the comment and not just part or you will make the mistake you did. Those legal lawn lasers are only allowed to emit a specific max amount of energy and are not a danger.  As a matter of fact the FDA does not consider them a hazard to people on the ground right in front of them, so how would you explain at 22000 feet it would hurt your night vision any more than say, a flashlight? 

 

Getting hit with a hand held laser of more than legal power is indeed an uncomfortable situation... I have been a laserist in the past for many years and I sat on the board of directors of the International Laser Display Assoc. for several years, and this very kind of misinformation is partially fueling the problem with perception vs. reality.   Now there is a lot of crying wolf and sensationalism by the media and by pilots. 

 

Again.. I am not talking about hand held lasers as I said the first time.. just these toy lasers that are split into hundreds of beams that are very very weak.   

[plasmadrive]

I'm a fixed wing pilot and I've never encountered one of those new fangeled "Star Shower" things, but I have seen first hand what a consumer grade laser pointer looks like.  REALLY BAD comes to mind!

 

I can also tell you that last time I rode with the police helicopter we were intentionally tracked with a laser pointer.  I will point out that the two people involved left the scene that night in the back seat of a police car in handcuffs.

Well let me enlighten everyone just a tad.. What you are calling "consumer grade" is most likely not.  Here's the thing.. some people have hand held lasers that are upwards of 1watt.  Those are NOT legal.  Anything above .005 watts are NOT legal.  Those that are illegal are what are causing you pilots so much grief...   My intention is to get people to stop lumping all lasers in one category.. the FDA doesn't.. and they are very conservative when it comes to MPE. (Max Permissible Exposure).  Class 1 lasers are legal and are what those lawn lasers fall under, at least the ones I have seen.  I also don't think the FDA would allow a general population sale on the lawn lasers if they exceeded the Class 1 rating.

• Class 1 : The sources of this class do not present hazard, due to their performances. The beam carries energies and intensities inferior to the lowest M.P.E. values. 

Edited December 12, 2015 by plasmadrive

[plasmadrive]

There are many sites like this with explicit warnings   http://www.lasersafetyfacts.com/3R/ 

LASING AIRCRAFT AND VEHICLES IS ILLEGAL

In the U.S., aiming a laser at or near the flight path of an aircraft is a federal felony, punishable by up to 5 years in jail and a fine of up to $250,000. Other countries, and U.S. states have similar laws for interfering with safety; such laws may be used to arrest, fine or imprison a person for aiming at aircraft and vehicles.

The power of the laser does not matter. Even if a laser's power is relatively weak, aiming ANY laser beam at an aircraft or vehicle is illegal.

Persons aiming higher-powered beams are especially likely to be caught, because the beam is very visible from the air. It is easy for police helicopters to trace the beam back to the perpetrator's location.

 

At the same time, sites selling decorative laser have little or no warnings.   This page says nothing about the possible illegal use. 

http://www.holidaycoro.com/Outdoor-Static-Red-and-Green-Laser-p/829.htm

You are correct about AIMING at a flight path.  aiming is an intentional act by definition. 

 

You are right about that not having any warnings on the ad, but maybe the box.. I don't know.. if they are not certified to meet CDRH regulations for the application they are not legal.   His add says 100mw for red and 30mw for green.  If you take 100mw and break it up 100 times, that would put you at about 1mw per beam.  1/5 the legal limit set my the CDRH.  There are other criteria but these cheap lasers most likely don't have low divergent beams and are most likely not pulsed YAG. 

 

Keep in mind.. I am ONLY talking about the legal lawn lasers with all the multiple beams. 

Edited December 11, 2015 by plasmadrive

[Orville]

And they say nothing in the TV commercial spots either about any safety issues using them and even show them pointed skyward to illuminate a tree, landscaping, or larger house{2 story for example}.  

 

But after my own encounter with a misaligned one, don't want any part of them.  Good thing my wife was with me since she had to be somewhat of a seeing eye helper for a while after I was blinded by the darn thing.

 

So maybe there are some out there in use that ARE over the legal limitations. just know the one I got blinded with was definitely no fun at all, and we were walking around the neighborhood just looking at the Christmas lights/decorations.   If I'd have been by myself, this could have been a lot worse.  

 

So low power or not, I sure don't like them, and again, being in the cross hairs of two major flight paths for 2 airports, and sometimes these planes are really low, or sometimes the law enforcement helicopter is flying around over the area, I just feel I'd NOT be very smart adding any type of laser lighting or any type of really high intensity style lighting to my display{and that also includes no strobes outside or directly pointing out or in a window from inside}.

Edited December 12, 2015 by Orville

[Archer]

Until laser sales are banned from over the counter and background checks are implemented prior to owning them and they are only available on the black market you can expect more and more reports of pilots being hit by lasers. On the otherhand, are there any statistics of more laser hits during this time of year vs no holiday times or is it just a great time to blame our displays? If there are statistics, are they tied to Christmas Light displays?

[PhilMassey]

Here’s my take on the issue and a little more background, for what it is worth.

I have  50mW green and  1mW red and green  pointers. Even the 1 mW jobs are very bright and are the kind that the idiots are lasing low flying aircraft with. They are cheap and readily available.

The 50 mW is insanely bright and is the bottom end of the scale for the enthusiast market. Lase an aircraft with these and they will find you and rightfully lock you away.

On top of that many of the cheap green lasers are badly filtered and put out huge amounts of invisible IR which is very bad for the eyes, needless to say.

The green pointers are even advertised as good for pointing out celestial objects at star parties. What could possibly go wrong with that?

 

The star shower type projectors, are of the order of 1Mw, BUT split into hundreds of beams by a diffraction grating.  This dilutes the power and range considerably.  Power is a fraction of a mW and effective range, at best, a few hundred feet.  These are not the problem the single beam pointers are, BUT, if they become defective, are modified or become damaged, they could become so.

Having said all that, Lasers should always be pointed down, should never scan the audience, and you should always be aware of where the beams are terminated. I believe they should also never be unattended.

The FDA and the ILDA have pages of law and guidelines for the proper use of lasers.

Unfortunately, the market is becoming swamped, by poorly made, poorly regulated, and very poorly documented devices.

The genie is out of the bottle and all we can do is try to educate wherever possible.

[indi]

Reading the local paper this morning and there was an article about people stealing these out of peoples yards. Easy to do as they are just stuck in the ground. All may controllers are chained together and to a tree. But there are a lot of plugs to unplug to get the controllers. I think they wouldn't want to  spend that much time to get a controller, but I could be wrong. Thus, the chain. Don't know how you would secure a Star Shower type laser.

[EvilM0nkey]

Mne is inside the house and shines down and out one of my windows. There is no way in the world the one I have could get up to a plane. There is just zero way that could happen.