Several People Questioned Over Laser Beams

[DoYouEverWonder]

January 2, 2005

TRENTON, N.J. -- Authorities investigating two incidents in which laser beams were aimed at aircraft flying over northern New Jersey have questioned several people but made no arrests, the FBI said Saturday.

The pilot of a corporate jet first reported seeing the green lasers on Wednesday as he came in to Teterboro Airport for landing. A police helicopter for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey flew over the area Friday to investigate, and also spotted the lasers.

<snip>

Laser beams can temporarily blind or disorient pilots and possibly cause a plane to crash.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-laser-beam-aircraft,0,3536007.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

"Laser beams can temporarily blind or disorient pilots and possibly cause a plane to crash." IMHO, this statement is such a crook. Tell me anyone on the ground could aim a beam into someones eyes when they are flying overhead in a plane going 100's of mph? Physically it is just not possible.

[Brundle_Fly]

1. I dunno I used to bullseye....

I used to bullseye womprats in my T-16 back home and there not much bigger than two meters......use the force.

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. But you were above them

not below them and it didn't matter where you hit them. Now put the womprat incased in a plane flying overhead and try to hit him the eye. I don't think the force can help you.

[Brundle_Fly]

3. so I guess we are talking about a remote

controlled flying vehicle, as womprats cannot fly.

& since womprats, don't have eyes...duh, the whole thing is a little irrelevant hmm?

:toast:

[DoYouEverWonder]

4. I didn't say he was flying the plane

besides the ones I've seen have eyes.

[Brundle_Fly]

7. well yeah eyes...but

they are pretty much useless as they rely on a form of "Ra-Dar" very similar to your earthly bats.

[Thor_MN]

29. Do you understand that you are claiming the pilots can't see the ground?

The required converse to your argument is that the pilots are incapable of seeing the ground. If it's not possible to shine a laser on their eyes from the ground, it must follow that the pilots are not able to see the ground.

I think a lot of people are so used to seeing little laser pointers that they think a laser beam can only be a pinpoint. At the ranges necessary for this the beam could be bigger than the plane and that is not inconsistent with being able to see the laser or do eye damage.

[DoYouEverWonder]

34. What kind of equipment

would you need to generate a powerful laser beam like that? I doubt it's something the average Joe is going to be hiding in their bedroom closet.

[Thor_MN]

36. Umm, maybe a powerful laser?

It's not some kid with a laser pointer, but it is not impossible to hit the cockpit of a plane, including the pliots eyes, for a few seconds and it doesn't require some type of military grade guidance system. It would require a powerful laser, but they are commercially available.

[DoYouEverWonder]

37. Show me?

please

I'd like to see, what it would take to be able to do what you claim can be done. Obviously, we're not talking about one of those little pocket pointers, but is it bigger than a shoebox? Or is it more like those huge, expensive lasers that they use in a planetarium? Your talking about a light that envelopes the whole cockpit? I always thought the big deal about laser was that they were a very pinpointed type of light. I would think a laser beam that was big enough to cover the cockpit would have to come from a very, very large and powerful machine.

[Thor_MN]

49. Gee, I have flashlights that will light up the whole cockpit.

The size of the beam has nothing to do with the power of the laser. Depending on how the optics are set up, you can either have a pinpoint or a wide beam. It can be visible in either case.

The limits of physical possibilities are NOT limited to any one person's imagination. Just because it's beyond a person's comprehension does not mean it's impossible.

Consider that there are any number of FLASHLIGHTS that are visible from over a mile. They will not light up a darkened room at that distance but they ARE visible. And that is what we are talking about, a pilot looking out the window and seeing a flash of light from a laser. Did it light the cockpit up with green light? No, but the pilot was able to see it by looking directly at it.

The fact that no passengers have reported laser lights would tend to support the idea that the beam was coming from directly ahead of the aircraft. There are a lot more passengers looking out the windows than pilots. And that would be the directions that it would be easiest to aim, since you would only have to adjust in elevation.


A distant friend of mine owns a shop that does custom laser wood burning. I doubt that he has any sort of special clearance to buy his equipment - he just went out and bought it.

You could too

http://www.beamdynamics.com/
http://www.eurolaser.com/
http://www.prima-lasers.co.uk/

Take the guts of any of the machines that these companies offer, or find out where they buy their supplies. Better yet, if you are intent on commiting crimes, find a company that does laser cutting and steal the laser out one of the machines.



The things that I am arguing against here are:

1: you need some sort of special equipment to track a plane.

2: That you couldn't possibly hit the eyes of the pilots from the ground.

Both concepts have been proposed on a "Gee, that would be impossible" basis, as convincingly as arguements for intelligent design. "I can't picture how that could happen" is more a statement about a person ability to think than any sort of evidence supporting their arguement.

Note what I haven't said - that is would be possible to do this with a cheap discount store laser pointer or level. I'm not saying that this would be a trivial thing to do, but it IS possible.

[DoYouEverWonder]

56. Bathing something in light

is not the same as hitting someones eyeball with a laser beam and blinding them while they are flying inside of a cockpit of an airplane. Seeing the beam and having it directed into your retina are two different things.

Yes I can get a high powered search light, like the one I have for my boat but I'm not going to blind anybody flying overhead with that, not unless I'm in very close range, like standing next to the friggin window. No I don't want to look directly at the light because even looking directly at the lightbulb on my desk lamp will temporarily blind me. But I doubt that it would cause me to crash a my jet. Kind of like driving into the west when the sun is going down. Sometimes you can't see shit but you still manage to drive your car.

In the meantime, you still haven't shown me any a device that could blind someone from a mile away or even half a mile, while they are flying inside the cockpit of a jet, that is something your average nutcase is going to be walking around with.

[Thor_MN]

68. Where did I say that someone COULD be blinded?

To my knowledge no one has been blinded and I never made any statement that it would be possible to blind someone. So I believe that satisfies your misconstrued request.

What has been reported is that the pilot saw a laser beam. My guess is that he wasn't lying and actally did see a laser. If it were not probable for him to see a laser directed at the plane, it would be neigh on impossible for him to see the runway lights.

I have merely argued against the inane concepts that it is impossible to put a laser beam into the cockpit of a plane, such that the pilots could see it for several seconds without a sophistcated tracking system.

I'm not sure why you have your pants in a twist about this, but I will now ask you to prove that a laser beam COULDN'T be directed at an aircraft for a few seconds such that the pilot couldn't see it.

Another question for you, this one rhetorical, how are you going to see a beam of light if it is not directed to your retina? And actually "Bathing something in light" (your phrase, not mine) IS the same thing as hitting someone's eyeball, if that eyeball is looking out of "something."

[DoYouEverWonder]

71. Where did I say anyone needed a sophistcated tracking system?

n/t

[localroger]

54. Here

http://64.252.62.40.nyud.net:8090/lasershoppe/index.htm

He's no longer selling this little gizmo thanks to the current flap, but it's all you would need to create, oh, about this much havoc.

[DoYouEverWonder]

59. According to the vendor's statement

Right on their home page, this laser does not pose a threat to pilots:

Unfortunately, we have decided to STOP selling these lasers. Too many people have been doing stupid things with lasers recently, and this product is misunderstood. The laser I was selling COULD NOT pose a threat to airplanes or pilots, but due to the media hype and hysteria, I can't risk being blamed for such a thing.


Try again.

[localroger]

61. The lasershoppe guy is CYAing

Look, I have been using lasers for various purposes since long before there even were cheap laser pointers. The guy's laser is in fact the exact tool you'd want to do this kind of mischief, and it's entirely capable. The guy is charging seven hundred bucks a pop for them, you think he went out of business without a good reason? (And my first reaction on seeing the page, while he was still selling them incidentally, was Christ on a Crutch what ELSE would you use it for?)

As I've said elsewhere, if I was seriously intent on causing a crash I'd bolt a collimator onto the front of this thing and adjust it to spread the beam out to about a foot at 1 mile (it's probably only a few inches right out of the box). It would still be handheld. The fact that no planes have in fact encountered difficulties tells me that either (1) the perps are not using a laser this powerful or (2) they don't know their asses from a hole in the ground -- like most of the people here going "oooh it's impossible."

These things fortunately are still not nearly as common as 5 mW laser pointers. However, for someone seriously intent on doing harm there are more powerful lasers available; they aren't powered by flashlight batteries but you could power them from an inverter off a car battery for a few minutes, and they aren't hand-held but you could probably rig up a bazooka-like aiming rig pretty simply.

A tripod, as some people have suggested, is exactly the last thing you'd want to do this. Because the target is moving (not THAT quickly, but it is moving) you'd want it body mounted. For less than a thousand dollars you could take this guy's laser or the one you pulled out of a laser woodcutting machine, put it on a length of PVC pipe with a collimator, line it up with a small gunsight viewfinder, and make like optical Rambo. I am assuming nobody has gone to that much trouble because no pilots have actually been blinded yet.

[DoYouEverWonder]

66. "You could probably rig up a bazooka-like aiming rig"

If I was going to go through all this trouble, then why wouldn't I just shot the darn thing with a bazooka?

If I was going to do something this stupid enough to end up in jail or get disappeared, I might as well make sure it was worth it.

[localroger]

67. Because you cannot get the parts...

...for a real bazooka for under a hundred bucks at Ace Hardware. Whereas you can get the parts to rig up a shoulder-mounted aiming rig there. In fact, you can out and out BUY one from your local camera shop, now that I think about it, for under a C-note.

But then most people probably wouldn't bother if they had the flashlight-sized 100mW laser; it's enough to do what we've heard about right out of the box.

[oneold1-4u]

47. Lasers- newest,best,silent,unseen,weapon

The simplicity of the laser is quite astounding. The power of "light" is greater than the atom. We can see light every day and like the atom, harnessed into one compact unit the laser can accomplish many things. It is used for cutting the hardest man made materials with precision. Because it is light it can be refracted and diffracted. Used for eye surgery it is painful but instantaneous. Prolonged would likely cause unconsciousness or certainly incapacity.
A quite powerful green laser pen can be purchased for under $200 and could be useful for an individual protection.

[DoYouEverWonder]

64. All of this is for close range usage

For $200 you are not going to blind anyone 1000's of feet overhead.

[Gman]

65. T-16 "SKYHOPPER"

The famous Incom T-16 was what many teenagers across the galaxy wanted to have in their garage. The T-16 was a big success for the Incom corporation, since many young adults own them as pleasure craft. Luke Skywalker owned a T-16, and used it for racing his friends through Beggar's Canyon and for "bullseyeing" womprat burrows with the Skyhopper's stun cannon. Although almost got himself killed more than once while flying the T-16 through Beggar's Canyon, the skills he learned from racing through the narrow canyon were very useful when he later maneuvered his X-Wing through the trench on the first Death Star. The Skyhopper was designed to be fast, but also easy to handle. It is powered by a single E-16/x ion engine for propulsion, and two DCJ-45 repulsorlift engines for lift. The ship can travel almost 1,200 kilometers per hour, and is capable of flying 300 kilometers in the air. The triwing design, along with a gyro-stabilizer, provides stability during complex maneuvers. The ship is very maneuverable, capable of various twists and turns and vertical climbs. Obviously, civilians do not mount weapons on their T-16s, but upgrades are available that offer four forward-firing stun cannons, a cheaper package which uses the top two stun cannons as targeting lasers. Some T-16s have heavier armor plating and military-grade weapons for use in police force units. They are also used in some military training facilities. The cockpit is simple, with room for two; a pilot and a passenger. The pilot's view is split by the vertical stabilizer, but the holographic heads-up display can be used for flight if the pilot finds the view unsatisfactory.

http://totl.net/WompRat/t16.html

[Condor]

5. Possible IMO

Don't forget that most laser beams are slightly diverging, if the beam is 2 cm (1 inch) wide at the ground, at 2km (6000ft) in the air it may be 10m (30ft) wide if that is required. Aiming a 10m wide beam at the cockpit of a plane 2 km up in the sky is quite doable with current technology.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. Aiming at the cockpit is one thing

Targeting someones eyeball while they are inside of the cockpit is another matter entirely.

I can think of much easier ways to bring down a plane and if I really wanted to do that I don't think I would waste my time with trying to hit someone in the eyeball with a laser.

[Thor_MN]

31. It's not a laser pointer pinpoint in the the cockpit.

The beam could easily be bigger than the plane, in which case targeting the pilots eyeball is irrelevant. Picture a fly walking around on the bullseye of a target that is 2 feet in diameter. Then drive a 18 wheeler through the target. Was it necessary to target the eye of the fly in order to hit it?

That said, this isn't a case of some kid taking his three hearing aid battery laser pointer and slicing a 747 in half. But it is quite possible to maintain a laser on the cockpit of plane for a few seconds without some type of rader guided, gyroscopically balanced, precision diamond bearing "tracking system."

[R Hickey]

8. The reason the laser beams are green is because on the planet Kriptonite..

...everything is green.

The way the aliens can hit eye-balls in the cockpit, is that their flying-saucers are equipted with a belly-mounted laser, simular to our old WWII bomber belly turets, which the deminutive green men bought for a song at an army surplus auction, years ago.

Its all comming out in my new book, "Roswell's Green Laser Gang."

[DoYouEverWonder]

9. The sad part, is that this story is not a joke

they are searching peoples home and bringing in people for 'questioning' over a totally bogus claim.

[Speed8098]

10. Ding Ding Ding Give that man a Kewpie doll

they are searching peoples home and bringing in people for 'questioning' over a totally bogus claim.

That's the outcome they desire.

The gestapo will use these bogus claims to search homes within a 1-2 mile radius around airports without warrants.

Next up will be the claim that all U.S. Airports will be seizing property circling their runways for security reasons.

Fascism at it's best. :puke:

[shadowknows69]

13. I had said that on a different thread

There's nothing that isn't "tin foil" about this story and that's the most likely scenario to me. They could literally say they tracked one of these laser attacks to any neighborhood they have someone on one of *'s disappear lists living in, and do their thing. Plant a laser ponter in the house and it's instant enemy combatant status for you. You have the right to remain silent until we torture you into screaming and you'd better already be an attorney yourself cause that's they only way you'll ever be talking to one.

[Prodemsouth]

14. I was thinking the opposite because no people have been arrested yet

could they be connected to a powerful interest.:tinfoilhat:

[Swamp Rat]

17. Here's a pic for your book:

[FULL_METAL_HAT]

11. I think the PTB ran out of "spooky stories" and started to raid Tom Clancy

Seriously, this is right out of Clancy's Debt of Honor where two CIA agents in Japan, use a shoulder-mounted laser to shoot-the-eyes-out of Electronic Surveillance planes as they took off and landed... (they would've used a red-rider beebee gun but with it you can only shoot your own eyes out!!)

But they were in a hotel about 10 floors up RIGHT IN THE PATH OF THE RUNWAY!!!

This fizzfazz about lasers targetting airliners is soooooo rediculous.

I mean when you think of the shape of the nose of a typical airliner, you realize to hit the eys of a pilot, the angle the beam would have to come in at is like 15 degrees ... Considering they typically fly at 10k+ feet, a little work with sin(A) = opp/hyp*, gives us a beam length of 38.6 thousand feet. Now with the beam's fall-off going at the inverse-square** law, "An object twice as far away (of the same size), receives only 1/4 the energy (in the same time period)", a 10 watt beam (10,000 milliwatts) which can punch a hole through a cinderblock 1 foot away, after travelling over 32,000 feet only has a beam strength of 0.000931323 millwatts!

How bright is that?

For example, a one milliwatt (1 mW) or one thousandth of a watt laser is about 1,000,000 times more brilliant than a 100-watt light bulb. All lasers that are manufactured are NOT to exceed the power output of 5mW (mW: milliwatts) by law.
From: http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:iF2uJkxprAEJ:www.911jobforums.com/vB/showthread.php3%3Ft%3D38393+laser+watt+blind+pilot&hl=en

So a laser pointer can't be more than 5mW and this is 0.001mW ...

And then there is beam-spread.
And then there is atmospheric dissipation.

Seriously... Back to Tom Clancy, the PTB have run out of boogey-men and now are trolling spy-thrillers (albeit pretty technically-intriguing ones) for their "oh no Al Q is gonna use X to getcha!".

Don't get fooled again!

I've been meaning to get to this subject for a bit so I'm glad you brought it up again!!

All the best in the New Year!
{B^)
FMH

Also I found this great page that pisses on the theory even more!
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:MDF018JEu-IJ:www.sarahphrase.com/+laser+watt+blind+pilot&hl=en

---

A little Sunday School from wikipedia:

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigonometric%20function

**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse_square

The energy or intensity of light radiating from a point source is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source. An object twice as far away (of the same size), receives only 1/4 the energy (in the same time period). More generally, the irradiance, i.e., the intensity (or power per unit area in the direction of propagation), of a spherical wavefront varies inversely with the square of the distance from the source (assuming there are no losses caused by absorption or scattering). For example, the intensity of radiation from the Sun is 9140 watts per square meter at the distance of Mercury (0.387AU); but only 1370 watts per square meter at the distance of Earth (1AU)—a three-fold increase in distance results in a nine-fold decrease in intensity of radiation.
For another example, let the total power radiated from a point source, e.g., an omnidirectional isotropic antenna, be . At large distances from the source (compared to the size of the source), this power is distributed over larger and larger spherical surfaces as the distance from the source increases. Since the surface area of a sphere of radius is , then intensity of radiation at distance is
.
The energy or intensity, decreases by a factor of 1/4 as the distance is doubled, or measured in dB it would decrease by 6.02 dB. This is the fundamental reason why intensity of radiation, whether it is electromagnetic or acoustic radiation, follows the inverse-square behavior, at least in the ideal 3 dimensional context (propagation in 2 dimensions would follow a just an inverse-proportional distance behavior and propagation in 1 dimension, the plane wave, remains constant in amplitude even as distance from the source changes).

[DoYouEverWonder]

12. Right out of Tom Clancy

Bush's whole presidency is right out of Tom Clancy. My husband swears Bush thinks he's Dirk Pitt.

Thanks for all the info. I couldn't explain the science or math behind this laser stuff, I just knew it was ridiculous.

[FULL_METAL_HAT]

32. It's weird huh?

I went through a Clancy junky phase reading everything up to the point of Rainbow Six. After that it seemed his next 300 books were a little lame.

A friend actually suggested that Clancy has been hinting at "the coming horrors" of the neo-con cabal's plans, but even though I've heard he is no fan of * and that he decried the "Attack on Iraq"(tm), it seems like a long shot. But read this and tell me what you think:

He declined repeatedly to comment on the war, before saying that it lacked a "casus belli," or suitable provocation.

"It troubles me greatly to say that, because I’ve met President Bush," Clancy said. "He’s a good guy.... I think he’s well-grounded, both morally and philosophically. But good men make mistakes."

<...>

In discussing the Iraq war, both Clancy and Zinni singled out the Department of Defense for criticism. Clancy recalled a prewar encounter in Washington during which he "almost came to blows" with Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser at the time and a longtime advocate of the invasion.

"He was saying how (Secretary of State) Colin Powell was being a wuss because he was overly concerned with the lives of the troops," Clancy said. "And I said, 'Look..., he's supposed to think that way!' And Perle didn’t agree with me on that. People like that worry me."

Both Clancy and Zinni praised President Bush but would not commit to voting for him. Clancy said that voting for Sen. John Kerry, the Democrats' presumptive nominee, would be "a stretch for me," but wouldn’t say that he was supporting Bush.

Zinni, a registered Republican who voted for Bush in 2000, said he could not support the president’s re-election "if the current strategists in the defense department are going to be carried over."
From: http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:Y2hHtLeyb2AJ:www.tagorda.com/archives/003353.php+%22tom+clancy%22+bush&hl=en

Rainbow Six's storyline almost seems like he had the Neo-con's Boogeyman du jour nailed before they unveiled it.

You have to see "Power of Nightmares" the 3 hour BBC documentary on how the Neocons did EXACTLY the same thing in the 70s with "The Cold War"(tm) making a cia-denied "supreme threat" out of the collapsing Soviet Union.

This documentary along with the video on the Dominionists absolutely grounded me to the depth and breath of the coup. It also showed me that there _is_ a way to take them down, despite them seemingly having all the bases covered...

All the best in the new year DoYouEverWonder!
{B^)
FMH

p.s. I _do_ wonder - all the time!

[GAspnes]

16. good trig, bad physics

Lasers are, by definition, collimated and do *not* disperse across a spherical wavefront.

[FULL_METAL_HAT]

30. Hey it's sunday morning after the night before :) But here's a quote:

But you would have to have a sufficient power density at that large a distance. A good laser will give you a divergence angle of about a milliradian (probably can do better, but that's typical).
Some basic calculations:
tan(theta) = y / x -> y = x tan(theta)
So the distance multiplied by the tangent of the angle will give us an indication (ballpark) of the beam's size at 5 miles' distance: (5 miles)(5280 ft/mi)(12 in/ft)(tan 0.001) = 316 inches
The power density of a 10-Watt laser at that distance would be (10 W) / (pi * (316 inches) ^ 2 / 4) = 127 microwatts / square inch.
Pretty darn small. Not going to hurt you. The sun dumps about a kilowatt per square meter on earth, so that works out to 657 milliwatts / square inch (4000 times higher), if I'm doing the math correctly. I'm not figuring numerical aperture and all those fun things that you have to take into account for careful calculations, but it should be a decent estimate. And of course, that's a $100,000 laser.
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:MDF018JEu-IJ:www.sarahphrase.com/+laser+watt+blind+pilot&hl=en

If the inverse-square law does not apply to lasers, I would love to stand corrected! :)

All the best GAspnes in the new year!
{B^)
FMH

[GAspnes]

58. Good wishes to you in the New Year as well

Your argument is similar to one I was making last week. However, the original author has taken an incorrect approach.

We need to know the original beam cross-sectional area (call it A1, assume it's 1 square millimeter), the divergence factor (assume 1 milliradian is correct), then the math says A2 is 316*A1 at 5 miles. Not correcting for atmospheric losses, the delivered power over the 316mm² area is the same 10 watts. There's no inverse-square relationship for a collimated beam.

Our hypothetical beam will be delivering .031 watts/mm² at 5 miles, not .000000127 watts. That's still not much, but the lens of the eye will re-focus the beam onto the retina. The closest reference I can find (http://repairfaq.ece.drexel.edu/sam/lasersaf.htm) says mid-day Sun at the Earth's equator on a clear day has a power density of about 1 kW/m² or about 1 mW/mm². Our laser beam is delivering 30.1mW/mm², 30 times more photons. That's bound to have an effect, I would think.

[KareBear]

40. beam divergence

There is, however, sufficient ammounts of beam dispersion to aproximate the same signal degredation. Having worked with lasers for a time making holograms commercially, most of them are only good for very short distances (such as up to 1/4 mile). The beam spread is fairly dramatic with distance based on the spec of the laser emitting device itself. Sure there are some made that you COULD use that are much tighter, but they are very expensive and not your general laser pen variety :)

We used to take laser pens and shoot them from an upstairs room onto a stop sign half a block a way and the beam would already be nearly the size of the stop sign. A full block or so away and you could barely see it, certainly not enough to blind someone. Ahh the joys of engineering schools lol.

[Thor_MN]

52. Do you think someone standing three blocks away would be able to see the

laser if you shined at them?? We are not talking about making someone's eyes light up, we are talking about them being able to see the beam. From where I grew up, I could see lights in Wisconsin, across Lake Superior, about three miles away. And those were not laser, they were simple incandescent bulbs , not coherent light, with no directional optics whatsoever.

Remember this is not about melting the plane or illuminating the pilot's landing checklist - it's about being able to SEE a light from a long distance by looking directly at it.

[localroger]

15. How easy it is to do something really, really stupid

First of all, here is a place (courtesy of Metafilter) where you *cough* used to be able to get the perfect device for such shenanegans:

http://64.252.62.40.nyud.net:8090/lasershoppe/index.htm

Second, about targeting: You have to remember that these lasers are continuous. It's not like firing a gun. When you hit the plane, you see a nice bright green dot even if the plane is a couple of miles away. Even though the plane is moving several hundred miles an hour at that distance it's a modest angular velocity and you have the advantage of being able to see the beam and a "hit."

All you have to do is play the beam around the front of the plane; at that distance it's several inches in diameter, and it only has to hit the pilot's eye for a fraction of a second to at least temporarily blind him. Score four hits and you have two pilots who can't see the runway or their instruments in the critical moments of final approach.

You don't need anything more sophisticated than that. A tripod would actually be a hindrance because the plane is moving. You might even want to use a deliberately miscalibrated collimator to make the beam diverge a bit more than it would naturally, but it doesn't sound like the doofuses doing this have thought of that (after all, they haven't succeeded in blinding any pilots).

It's really crazy-stupid that we have to worry so much about the way something this cheap and readily available can be used. Looks like backyard nukes are going to be the least of our worries.

[DoYouEverWonder]

18. You're going to have to be an expert marksman

to be able to shot a laser beam from the ground thru the window into the cockpit and land it on the pilots eyeball. You have a better chance of hitting a hole in one from a mile away.




Keep in mind that this plane is close to landing and slowing down. I still don't know anyone whose a good enough shot to get a laser beam through the window and hit someone right in the eye. Give me a break.

[w4rma]

20. It's not as hard as you think. It's just like aiming a telescope at a star

In fact a very good telescope would have the minute of movment available on it that would allow someone point a lazer at a cockpit.

Btw, this would be a fantastic way to bring down a small plane and blame it on the weather. Especially if that small plane has no black box or if the black box is kept secret somehow.

[DoYouEverWonder]

21. Despite all the high powered telescopes

in the world, we still can't see the dark side of the moon. We can only see and aim at something that is facing us. Yes, you can target a jet with a laser, it is targeting someone's eyeball that is the hard part, especially when the plane is overhead.

[w4rma]

22. Plug the telescope up to a computer program. Control the movement with

a mouse. Obviously you aren't going to hit the pilots from directly below. You need to be off at an angle. Preferably up on some elevation.

[oneold1-4u]

53. Around most airports

There are buildings within 1/2 mile that are high enough to use for aiming a laser into a landing or taking off plane. The idea that is the most frightening, is that the pilot is, by necessity, engaged in the most important function of flight. The distraction of something unexpected or unexplainable for a few seconds, could cause a distortion of reason long enough to cause a major accident.
When I first saw the application of laser, there were hundreds of applications came to mind for good peaceful purposes, but knowing this world for not loving peace enough to give up hate, it will be used for "death for peace".

[ozone_man]

62. Excellent points.

It is highly unlikely that anyone outside of the military could make a laser strong enough to cause eye damage, but the distraction is the issue. I think that the cockpit may be visible from the ground also, just not diectly below. A mile in front of the runway might do it.

The military is however making laser weaponry for the next generation fighters that can cause eye damage or worse.

[Thor_MN]

33. Damn, that's scarey!!! The pilots can't see the runway???

If the pilots can see the runway, they can see the ground a half mile (and to their horizon) beyond the runway, so there has to be a line of sight from the ground to the pilots eyes that is not blocked by the plane itself.

[AstronautGirl7]

42. Maybe the autopilot can land it ?

[localroger]

51. Wrong on both counts

First of all we can see the dark side of the moon. We can see it with our naked eyes by the reflected light of the Earth, and I have personally imaged it with a CCD when the lighted part of the moon is a thin crescent. Surely you have also seen all those photos taken of the moon during full lunar eclipse?

And "hitting the pilot's eyeball" just isn't that hard. It is not like aiming a bullet, it is like waving a very long sword, because the laser is ON CONTINUOUSLY. No you can't "target" the pilot's eye, and you don't have to; you just wave it around the cockpit area of the plane long enough and you'll get lucky. At that distance the dispersion makes the beam several inches to a foot across. (As I said up top, it's to your advantage to poorly collimate the beam to increase this a bit, but the perps don't seem to be doing that.)

You can blind someone for minutes at a hundred feet or more with a lucky hit from an ordinary laser pointer. Use one of these 100mW+ handheld jobs and you can do the same thing out to a mile or two easily. The only bad thing is that since you can see the beam (helpful in pointing, since green is dispersed a bit by the water vapor in the atmosphere) so can everyone else, making it relatively simple to find you if you keep the beam on long enough.

[teryang]

27. The angular rate of change in star movement is much slower

The angular rate of change in low altitude movement is much greater than high altitude even though speeds are lower. The tracking solution is quite complex. This is one reason why terminal ingress routes in the attack phase are carried out at low altitude.

This type of targeting is not effective from a tactical standpoint. As one officer recently said to me, "Why would I aim at the head, when I can aim at center mass?" One could simplify the tracking solution by predicting the route of flight in advance and changing the targeting solution to one of elevation only and eliminate the azimuth problem, say by waiting at the departure end of a runway. Again the angular rate of change would still present a great problem but it could be reduced by targeting the aircraft on takeoff. Of course your position would be readily ascertainable. Trying to target aircraft enroute at cruise altitude with this type of system requires a bulky and sophisticated support suite costing millions to develope. A system suitable for astronomy is much too slow and inadequate.

Meaconing (and other forms of electronic warfare) especially near the end of the route and on final approach is really a much more effective way to jeopardize aircraft travel by using the radio spectrum. These techniques are well known and relatively inexpensive. I suppose one could harrass pilots during approach with a laser device. It is about as effective as trying to assassinate a political leader with dioxin. The goal would be to create the story for political purposes rather than achieve the ostensible tactical goal.

[Solon]

46. Another thing that is also not mentioned...

are the windows themselves, look at the photo you have there, at that angle, for all we know, the windows act like mirrors for ANY light, laser or otherwise, that shines on it at that angle. Look at any piece of glass at a great enough angle and it will resemble a mirror. Not to mention the refraction that occurs, however slight, that would render a laser useless.

[localroger]

50. If the pilot can see the ground, a laser can see the pilot /nt

[Solon]

69. If that is you only answer...

then you have no understanding of the properties of light, or the effects glass can have on light through refraction and reflection.

[sweetheart]

24. Targeting would be a bit touchy

Given that you'd have to constantly shift the beam with the target,
holding it by hand is dang tough. This is like hitting a flying
bird with a sniper rifle at 2 miles... even with a solid footing, the
vibration of one's hands would make targeting really hard.

Probably, you'd need an inclined table-tripod with a timed motor to
shift at a constant speed relative to the flying object, so once you
get it crosshaired, it can track... and then you can do the adjustment
to get it on to the cockpit window.

I imagine anyone who's seriously attempting this, would have a rather
fancy looking rig below their skylight... something that would likely
be pretty simple to apprehend.

[dbt]

19. In bu$h's Amerika, one always has to wonder:

1. Is this disinformation--that is, the Regime letting out just enough details about some unpleasant development to get the people chattering among themselves and thus discredit the developments?

2. What are we not supposed to be noticing while our attention is occupied by laser beams in cockpits?

:freak:
dbt

[DoYouEverWonder]

23. It's just another way to scare the sheeple

and convince people that they should submit to random searches without a warrant.

[shadowknows69]

25. here's another thought.

we're all sitting here coming up with different theories about how this could happen and how it could be implemented. Some of these posts could be considered "terrorist chatter" in the right circles and in the right, cleverly spun, context.

[Medium Baby Jesus]

26. I hope they find them and charge them. Idiots. n/t

[shadowknows69]

28. who? n/t

[Medium Baby Jesus]

44. You're not serious. n/t

[DoYouEverWonder]

35. Then I assume you don't mind

when they come and tear your house apart to look for them?

[shadowknows69]

38. no, that would bother me a tad

[DoYouEverWonder]

41. I know it would bother you

I was directing the question to our new friend, Medium Baby Jesus.

[Medium Baby Jesus]

43. I would not say I'm new (check my profile)

Anybody who shines lights in car or airplane windows is an idiot and should be prosecuted. If they come to my house, they better have reasonable cause and a search warrant.

[DoYouEverWonder]

45. Ha, ha, ha

reasonable cause and a search warrant? Don't you know you gave up that right with the Patriot Act? Our government don't need no stinking search warrants any more.

Oh and all the guns in the world won't help you when they come.

[Trillo]

39. Pilots or cockpit windows will need technology similar

to auto-darkening welding helmets. End of problem.

[jukes]

48. no color-codes any more

rget have to come up w/something; and the fundies will line right up for this sci-fi bullshit.

after all, they still believe the TX dino trax...

[goforit]

55. Somehow this story is looking like a scam by the FBI to camophlage

the gov't tampering with laser weaponry.

Yes lasers are accessable to the public, but it is hard for me to
accept the lasers on land targeting planes above to be able to go
through the cocpit of the aircraft.
Now if the laser were coming from a position level with the airborn
plane or above the airborn plane, I could see the possibility.

The question is can a laser go right through the metal part of the plane?

[oneold1-4u]

57. just a story from the past

One day some young boys were hunting in a field within a mile of an airport with 22s. Two bullets entered the planes fuselage and one passenger caught one of them in a foot. It wasn't difficult to find the boys who were amazed that they had even hit the plane. It had just been a dare and a lark. They were not punished, of course, but certainly found out how serious their lark was. (Medford OR)
Many children have caused accidents and death by tossing rocks from highway overpasses. Now it is lasers meant for toys. Hope we can use a hula hoop one day for a weapon with "less" destruction!

[DoYouEverWonder]

60. That's why if I was going

to try to hurt someone in a flying plane I wouldn't bother with a laser beam. It's much easier to get the desired effect in much easier ways.

[molly]

63. Doing something like that is EXTREMELY childish

and stupid. What possible explanation could there be for such an idiotic-moronic prank - sounds like something * would do.

[DoYouEverWonder]

70. Turns out this was extremely childish

Turns out the caught the 'terrorist'. It was some guy in his backyard showing his little girl how to work a laser pointer. He didn't realize he was pointing at anything except the sky.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1113433

[genieroze]

72. Check this out "Morris man was 'playing' with laser"

http://www.dailyrecord.com/news/articles/news2-laser.htm

[Name removed]

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