Digital Photography On Aircraft Not Permitted on Take Off or Landing

On Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:41:13 +1300, "Podge" wrote in
:

"wb" wrote in message ...
If I owned a plane, and I told you not to bring on a camera. or I told you
not to take photos during take off and landing, why can't you do what you
are told? You don't own the bloody plane!

Quite right, I have said several times now that I wouldn't take photos
during takeoffs and landings unless I had the prior written permission of
the airline's management.

What you actually need is PERMISSION FROM THE FLIGHT CREW. No matter
what you might have in writing from the airline, the Captain can still
say "no" and put you off the flight and into custody if you refuse to
accept his authority.

--
Best regards,
John Navas http:/navasgroup.com

"A little learning is a dangerous thing." [Alexander Pope]
"It is better to sit in silence and appear ignorant,
than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." [Mark Twain]
"Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn."
[Benjamin Franklin]

"wb" wrote:
"Podge" wrote in message ...
"wb" wrote in message
So there is no risk to use once we are in-flight.

No. There is a lower risk.

We can get out our laptops

Yes.

(which has wireless transmitters) and use them.

No. You have to disable the wireless transmitter. Modern laptops have a
hardware switch particularly for this purpose. If you cannot turn off the
WiFi then you are not allowed to use a laptop at any time during a
commercial flight.
This too has been menitoned before on this thread.

My car is electronic, even to start is pushing a button. I carry a lot of 2
way radio equipment for my work as well as MDT equipment. So why does it not
stop my car from working? Or are is a $50K car electronics far superior than
a $300m aircraft?

I'm impressed that you are driving your car without sight at 200-600 mph
while your life and that of a few hundred passengers depends on a working
ILS, VHF, VOR, ADF, weather radar, AI, ASI, oh well, just the whole works
including accelerator and brakes.

I strongly suggest you get a clue about how complex modern airliners are and
what is required to keep them flying before you make such ridiculous
comparisions.
Or even better: take a few flying lessons. Then you will quickly learn that
during take-off and landing you really don't need any additional problems.
Or just look at accident statistics, which clearly show that landings and to
a lesser degree takeoff are by far the phases of flight, where most
accidents happen. There is really no reason to pile additional problems on
top of an already difficult flight phase.

jue

Jürgen Exner wrote:

Or even better: take a few flying lessons. Then you will quickly learn that
during take-off and landing you really don't need any additional problems.

One last remark on this note: once we reach about 3000 feet I usually
encourage my passengers to take over the yoke and fly a little bit on their
own, even and in particular when it is their first flight. It really
releases tension and makes them more comfortable. Totally save, no danger at
all, far less than teaching your teenager how to drive on a busy highway.

But there is absolutely no way I would let them touch any controls at all
during take-off, approach, or landing. There is just no margin for error at
those times.

jue

On Thu, 17 Jan 2008 03:25:21 GMT, Jürgen Exner
wrote in :

"wb" wrote:

My car is electronic, even to start is pushing a button. I carry a lot of 2
way radio equipment for my work as well as MDT equipment. So why does it not
stop my car from working? Or are is a $50K car electronics far superior than
a $300m aircraft?

I'm impressed that you are driving your car without sight at 200-600 mph
while your life and that of a few hundred passengers depends on a working
ILS, VHF, VOR, ADF, weather radar, AI, ASI, oh well, just the whole works
including accelerator and brakes.

I strongly suggest you get a clue about how complex modern airliners are and
what is required to keep them flying before you make such ridiculous
comparisions.
Or even better: take a few flying lessons. ...

Especially instrument lessons with no outside visuals.

Even on the surface the average person has no clue how tough this kind
of thing can be. I race sailboats at night, and I frequently have to
bail out experienced daytime drivers that get totally disoriented at
night, think the instruments are crazy, and start driving in circles.
That's not an exaggeration, and lots of very bad things can happen when
the wind and seas are up and the driver loses it like that. Think
broken mast and/or boom, torn sails, boat on its side.

Podge and wb are worse than that, like newbies who foolishly insist on
using bright white flashlights at night, making it impossible for anyone
to see dim instruments, sails, seas and sky, thereby greatly
exacerbating the problem. Again, that's not an exaggeration. I even
had one say much the same thing: "My flashlight won't cause any
problem! It makes it easier to see!" (My own flashlight is a
relatively weak red LED unit.)

Deity save us from the idiots!

--
Best regards,
John Navas
Panasonic DMC-FZ8 (and several others)

John Navas wrote:
What you actually need is PERMISSION FROM THE FLIGHT CREW. No matter
what you might have in writing from the airline, the Captain can still
say "no" and put you off the flight and into custody if you refuse to
accept his authority.

Actually both. The "operator" as specified in the regulations is the
airline.
And as you said the captian does have the final word.

jue

Jürgen Exner wrote:
John Navas wrote:
What you actually need is PERMISSION FROM THE FLIGHT CREW. No matter
what you might have in writing from the airline, the Captain can still
say "no" and put you off the flight and into custody if you refuse to
accept his authority.

Actually both. The "operator" as specified in the regulations is the
airline.
And as you said the captian does have the final word.

And a rather lovely small axe, although Air NZ flight crew have demonstrated a
preference for using bottles of duty free whiskey applied across the head to
neutralise persons endangering the safety of their craft.

Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
lid wrote:
I actually tested my Canon 30D with a spectrum analyzer
that goes up to 1.8 gHz.

So you have a relatively cheap spectrum analyzer, designed
to look at L-band down-converters.

No, top of the line in its day, which was the late 70s.


This was with a 1 foot wire as antenna on the analyzer,
3 MHz bandwidth, and most sensitive setting.

But *what* is its most sensitive setting? You aren't giving
the numbers that mean something.

With the camera 6 inches from the antenna, there was
a small amount of wideband noise around 230 MHz

You have to determine the "gain" (which in this case
will be negative) of your antenna at that frequency in
order to provide a "normalized" power value.

Its in the near field. It doesn't HAVE a "gain", which is a
far-field concept.


The "noise floor" is something you don't appear to
understand. It is a function of the quality of your
spectrum analyzer.


You don't know what I know.

If you don't tell what the actual power values were, and
don't tell us what the minimum level you can see with
your particular equipment (i.e., what level it's noise
floor is), then the statement that the level of 10 dB
above something we don't know is meaningless.

The spikes were about -115 dBW. The broadband stuff averaged about
-108 dBW over 150-250 MHZ, which adds up to about
-100 dBW total. That of course is picked up
by the (near field) antenna, which is of course effectively
a 1/4 wave dipole at roughly 200 MHz.



At four feet from the camera, at various orientations to
check for polarization effects, nothing at all was visible
on the analyzer.

Given your test setup, that hardly seems surprising.

At 30 kHz bandpass, at 4 feet, the strongest of the discrete
frequencies were still invisible.

But what is the minimum signal level that you can
detect?


At 30 kHZ bandpass, about -140 dBW. Johnson noise at 300K is
-159 dB, so the NF is about 19 dB, a rather crappy value,
but this thing was not intended for off-air use without a preamp.

I tried it with a proper 1/2 wave dipole at 1.4 gHz,
30 kHZ bandwidth, and it dropped below the noise at about
a foot, camera oriented for largest signal. This was one
of the strongest high frequency signals. I've got
a good preamp (0.5 dB NF, 20 dB gain) at about 550 MHz but its
useless as all it picks up is (mostly digital) TV stations, which is
what it is for. There are no signals from the camera in that area that
are not covered up by the TV signals.



I'm sure you will find these numbers useless and add
a few more ad hominem attacks, but here they are.

Doug McDonald

Doug McDonald wrote:
Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
lid wrote:
I actually tested my Canon 30D with a spectrum analyzer
that goes up to 1.8 gHz.
So you have a relatively cheap spectrum analyzer,
designed
to look at L-band down-converters.

No, top of the line in its day, which was the late 70s.

Look, that's bull****. Try that crap on someone who
doesn't know what a spectrum analyzer is.

And if in fact you *are* using one from the the late
70's, it's a piece of **** anyway. The ones that
actually *were* top of the line then were a POS.

This was with a 1 foot wire as antenna on the analyzer,
3 MHz bandwidth, and most sensitive setting.
But *what* is its most sensitive setting? You aren't
giving
the numbers that mean something.

With the camera 6 inches from the antenna, there was
a small amount of wideband noise around 230 MHz
You have to determine the "gain" (which in this case
will be negative) of your antenna at that frequency in
order to provide a "normalized" power value.

Its in the near field. It doesn't HAVE a "gain", which is a
far-field concept.

The point is still the same, your figures are virtually
useless.



The "noise floor" is something you don't appear to
understand. It is a function of the quality of your
spectrum analyzer.

You don't know what I know.

I know what a noise floor is, and you don't seem to.

If you don't tell what the actual power values were, and
don't tell us what the minimum level you can see with
your particular equipment (i.e., what level it's noise
floor is), then the statement that the level of 10 dB
above something we don't know is meaningless.

The spikes were about -115 dBW. The broadband stuff averaged about
-108 dBW over 150-250 MHZ, which adds up to about
-100 dBW total. That of course is picked up
by the (near field) antenna, which is of course effectively
a 1/4 wave dipole at roughly 200 MHz.

A "1/4 wave dipole" ??? Giggle snort...

At four feet from the camera, at various orientations to
check for polarization effects, nothing at all was visible
on the analyzer.
Given your test setup, that hardly seems surprising.

At 30 kHz bandpass, at 4 feet, the strongest of the discrete
frequencies were still invisible.
But what is the minimum signal level that you can
detect?


At 30 kHZ bandpass, about -140 dBW. Johnson noise at 300K is
-159 dB, so the NF is about 19 dB, a rather crappy value,
but this thing was not intended for off-air use without a preamp.

I tried it with a proper 1/2 wave dipole at 1.4 gHz,
30 kHZ bandwidth, and it dropped below the noise at about
a foot, camera oriented for largest signal. This was one
of the strongest high frequency signals. I've got
a good preamp (0.5 dB NF, 20 dB gain) at about 550 MHz but its
useless as all it picks up is (mostly digital) TV stations, which is
what it is for. There are no signals from the camera in that area that
are not covered up by the TV signals.

I'm sure you will find these numbers useless and add
a few more ad hominem attacks, but here they are.

They are indeed pretty much useless.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

[A complimentary Cc of this posting was sent to
Roger (K8RI)
], who wrote in article :
Where do you live? I think capabilities of most cameras are limited
by the peak power the battery can give...

If that were true the speed would change when using batteries of
higher or lower peak power. None of mine do. The ones with higher peak
power happen to have more capacity and last much longer while the
others don't last long at all.

This clearly confirms what I say. What matters is not the
capacity-with-low-current, but capacity-with-high-current.
Low-current batteries are overloaded, and discharge unproportionally
quickier.

With freshly charged batteries the current should be the same.

Current depends only on what camera does. The camera is designed with
a certain type of battery in mind, and will each as much peak current
as the battery allows (without a serious overload, and related drop in
capacity).

The batteries contain a given charge at their rated voltage.

Nope. The batteries contain a given charge AT A GIVEN DISCHARGE RATE.

See curves at, e.g.,
http://www.duracell.com/oem/recharge.../discharge.asp

sufficient voltage. However given NiMH batteries of 1200 and 2400 MAH
capacity the camera will operate at the same speed with either.

The speed of camera depends on its design (thus on assumed battery)
only. But using a smaller-current battery will overload the battery
very quick.

Flash would take more ENERGY. Compression could easily take more POWER.

In this case power and energy are the same. Typically power and
energy are in watts unless you are an engineer.

Oh, get a clue...

Hope this helps,
Ilya

[A complimentary Cc of this posting was NOT [per weedlist] sent to
Jürgen Exner
], who wrote in article :
One last remark on this note: once we reach about 3000 feet I usually
encourage my passengers to take over the yoke and fly a little bit on their
own, even and in particular when it is their first flight. It really
releases tension and makes them more comfortable. Totally save, no danger at
all

Tell this to families of passangers on Aeroflot Flight 593.

Hope this helps,
Ilya