What it's like to be lasered at night

[mickjoebill]

A Sydney Police helicopter was recently lasered by 39 year old.

He pled guilty to the charge of "threatening the saftey of an aircraft" and will be sentenced at a later date.

Police helicopter laser attack | Video (http://media.theage.com.au/selections/laser-pointed-at-police-pilot-3843239.html)


Mickjoebill

[Anthony Supplebottom]

really shouldn't be a problem for the younger pilots who probably grew up used to this,

Laser Light Show At Night Club in Pittsburgh - YouTube

[helihub]

A NZ 18-year old got off a lasering charge this week with having to pay a fine of $1000 to the local air ambulance

see Joseph Mark James Corban: Helicopter Laser Accused... | Stuff.co.nz (http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/8008834/Helicopter-laser-accused-pleads-guilty)

[[email protected]]

A laser will do more than just 'affect your night vision', it can cause permanent damage to the retina, which is why such attacks are taken seriously.

If you are wearing NVG then you have some measure of protection as long as the laser doesn't shine directly into your eye underneath the goggles.

[jayteeto]

Apparently the research (no idea by who) shows that the pen type lasers that the majority of the oxygen thieves use is of little to no risk to eyes. Some chinese military spec ones are a danger, but are rare. As a veteran of hundreds of attacks over merseyside, I believe that the main risk is dazzle and distraction. As this is potentially lethal as well, courts should treat attacks more seriously. Often a fixed penalty public order fine is given. In court you have to prove that there was an actual danger. This is more difficult than you think :mad:

[Sir Korsky]

No worse than a photo shoot behind you:*

[SASless]

When I hit you with a Laser....you did not see it....but you would see the Tracers coming at you.

[Rotorbike]

A red laser is the lowest risk and were the first developed.

The green laser is mostly used in attacks. A green laser is about 60 times brighter than red. It can cause flash blindness at lower levels but is mostly a distraction particularly at critical phases of flight.

A blue laser is not legally available and should be avoided at all costs. At close range it can cause irreversible retina damage. It can burn through clothes and skin!

Well that's what a brief I received told me!

[fatmanmedia]

A red laser is the lowest risk and were the first developed.

The green laser is mostly used in attacks. A green laser is about 60 times brighter than red. It can cause flash blindness at lower levels but is mostly a distraction particularly at critical phases of flight.

A blue laser is not legally available and should be avoided at all costs. At close range it can cause irreversible retina damage. It can burn through clothes and skin!

Well that's what a brief I received told me!

what you where briefed on is spot on, unfortunity there are a great number of utube videos telling and showing you how to build blue lasers from parts of old computer and console parts, some of the lasers are quite powerful.

with a little bit of work you could replace the leds in a large touch with bluray diodes and create a nasty bit of kit.

fats

[Flying Bull]

Apparently the research (no idea by who) shows that the pen type lasers that the majority of the oxygen thieves use is of little to no risk to eyes. Some chinese military spec ones are a danger, but are rare. As a veteran of hundreds of attacks over merseyside, I believe that the main risk is dazzle and distraction. As this is potentially lethal as well, courts should treat attacks more seriously. Often a fixed penalty public order fine is given. In court you have to prove that there was an actual danger. This is more difficult than you think :mad:

Hi,
You better check on Your research,
bought my own cheap China Laser and did some tests regarding openingangle. After that I gave the laser away to a University, where measurements were made. Result was, more Watt than advertized, big part of infraredspecteum, which you cant see but will harm the retina and you better fly at least 3000 feet agl or higher, to prevent injury on unknown lasers.
Greetings Flying Bull

[Phoinix]

Couple of days ago our helicopter was helping officers on riots. We were shined by at least 5 green lasers at any one time, two of which were high power (you felt like you can grab the light). The use of nvg's saved the day, but it was one hell of a disco party...

[Anthony Supplebottom]

As weapons grade lasers (http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20052949-1.html) are soon to be a reality I think it would be interesting if devices were fitted to helicopters which could track the source of a laser attack and then return fire with an airborne weapons grade device.

For research purposes you understand.

.

[SilsoeSid]

UK CAA pov,

Exposure to Lasers - Safety Notice & Self Assessment Tool for Pilots (http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=14&pageid=14003)

[ShyTorque]

This happened to me quite a few times whilst flying a police helicopter. I used to respond with the nightsun, on tight focus. As in "call that a torch?.....THAT'S a torch!" They usually got the message, but seeing as we could easily identify the address, a couple of them were prosecuted as well.

A more recent one near an international airport was reported to ATC as it was a prevalent problem and we had been specifically requested to do so. I was subsequently required to make a statement to the police, who told me they were treating the local incidents very seriously, as potential terrorists attacks.

[SilsoeSid]

Normal result, arrest.

Laser fired at police helicopter


If Harry was a police pilot ;

Now in all this excitement I just cant remember if we took off in a 135, 902 or something with a little extra, something,....Feeling lucky ;-)

[212_Nightdipper]

When I flew over south Lebanon last year for the United Nations, being illuminated by green lasers was routine, unfortunately...not so nice when you are trying to make that confined LZ and your good'ol 212 feels way too heavy....maybe a way to say that our flying around was not so appreciated by the locals?....oh well...:}

[BlenderPilot]

I get lasered almost everyday, it's more fun than anything else, unless somebody could point a laser at short range, for a considerable amount of time, I see nothing dangerous with it.

By the time those comercial lasers reach the aircraft, their DOT is like 2 meters wide, thus it will hardly be dangeourous.

[Phoinix]

Than it's not a laser. Its a laser designator: ND3 Green Laser Designator for Military, Law Enforcement and EMT | Laser Genetics (http://www.lasergenetics.com/nd3-laser-designator.aspx)

Maybe slightly more disturbing, its used to mark/illuminate animals to enable aiming with weapons.

[hueyracer]

unless somebody could point a l@ser at short range

Maybe you should go back to school for a while.....
Laser don´t lose energy on their travel....it doesn´t matter whether it hits you from 100 or 1000 meters-if it hits your eyeball, you risk losing your eyesight forever, as easy as this...

[Aucky]

Laser don´t lose energy on their travel....it doesn´t matter whether it hits you from 100 or 1000 meters

That depends on the atmospheric conditions and quality of the lens. There will be some attenuation as the beam hits particles and diffracts. The more visible the path of the beam itself in the atmosphere (smoke, fog, mist) the more it is attenuating, but it is vastly different from the inverse square law that we can apply to normal light sources.

[cattletruck]

I took a laser zap straight in the right eye once, boy did it hurt for 30 seconds, but as far as I can tell there was no permanent damage.

Fortunately I was not flying but rather riding a push bike in the middle of the day on a newly built freeway that hadn't opened. I pulled up to a gantry and started looking at the overhead sensors that were installed, then I got zapped. I was wearing sunglasses but I don't know if they helped. With the sharp pain that ensued I immediately dropped the bike and walked to the kerbside taking off my glasses and rubbing my right eye with my hand. If I were flying a helicopter I probably would have lost control from the shock and pain rather than being down one good eye. Vision in the affected eye was cloudy but recovered in 30 seconds to about 95%. There was only minor annoying pain in that eye for the rest of the day and all symptoms had disappeared the next day.

This incident was my own fault as I was probably trespassing in the eyes of the law :} (sorry).

Thought I'd share this.

[[email protected]]

Why does lasered come up with an a yet lasers and laser get the @ symbol?

[jonnyloove]

May I ask a quick question in regards to the protection that is offered to aircrews.
Is there not some sort of safety type glases or a visor that can be fitted to your helmets to prevent or reduce the effects of lazer attacks..?

[Savoia]

CRAB: To do with PPruNe's (or Internet Brands) vBulletin forum software options (and which is common among other types of forum software).

For example if you write pprune all in small caps the software will automatically change it to what you have just read. Other 'household' names such as social networking sites beginning with the word 'Face' will be automatically overwritten and somewhere along the line someone somewhere felt that the word laser required a permanent '@' symbol .. but not the word 'lasered'!

All to do with the 'commercial considerations' of the site I suspect and was also the reason why until last year you couldn't post email address although now, thankfully, that has changed.

[Senior Pilot]

Why does lasered come up with an a yet lasers and laser get the @ symbol?

To prevent Google Ads picking up the word and entertaining you with adverts for the things. I can only suspect that 'lasered' is not in the Google search list. It rightly upset many aviators to have a thread complaining about being zapped surrounded by inappropriate adverts (unless,of course, you install Adblocker) ;)

Other word changes were a victim of Danny's quirky humour: an everlasting irrit is a dig at PPRuNe Towers' love of Land-Rovers which turns the name into Trabant. It has caused pages of posts in most forums debating why a Trabant was used........:p

[[email protected]]

Excellent:)

[P6 Driver]

Not an aviation thing, but I was lit up by some idiot with one of these devices about three years back from a range of 30 feet while at work. After around 20 minutes, I had a gritty type feeling in one eye and shortly after that, went to the local A&E as the pain increased markedly.

No serious damage done as if turned out and the eye was back to normal the morning after, when the drops had worn off, but it gives me an appreciation of what it can be like to get illuminated. I wouldn't want to be crewing an aircraft and have it happen.

[Peter-RB]

So if I post Trabant, I really mean Landrover

PeterR-B

[Stallion85]

If you want something that protects you against all type of lasers you would have to wear some kind of welding glass! :cool:

[PVFC]

I can't be the only one who'd feel justified in returning a laser beam of my own

Like an AGM114 Hellfire...

[Sir Niall Dementia]

I got hit on right base to Battersea recently. Got me in the right eye first go. I just thought I'd been dazzled until just after leaving Battersea I developed something akin to conjunctivitis or "arc eye". It wore off over a period of days.

The Met police took it very seriously as it was just after Jan 16th and I had a full load of pax on board. Forget the courts, just chuck them into a crew room full of angry pilots armed with base ball bats. T***ers.

[Peter-RB]

Burnley in Lancashire seems to be a good place for the Laser boys, always reading about our Eye in the Sky being Zapped, The Bro,s in those parts I am led to believe test them on each other,:E before turning skywards.

Good eh!:D

Peter R-B
sadly too near to that part of Lancashire, perhaps we could offer it to the Yorkists......?

Land Roover, Land Roaver, Land Rover, Landy lasered laser:bored:

[aa777888]

Consider the typical 50mW green (532nm) laser pointer with 1.5 mrad beam divergence:

1.5 mrad at 1 statute mile gives 1609756 mm x tan (.0015/2) x 2 = 2414 mm beam diameter [make certain your calculator is in radians mode]

Power density = (250/2414^2) x .050 W = .000002 W/sq. cm

Maximum Permissible Exposure (MPE) for long term exposure to a 543nm (green) laser beam = .001 W/sq. cm (reference File:IEC60825 MPE W s.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IEC60825_MPE_W_s.png))

It may be quite annoying and distracting, but your eyes are safe from damage.

Using the above equations you can figure out where you stand for whatever your favorite worst case laser scenario is.

[Flying Bull]

Well aa777888

First - helicopter pilots are often closer
Second - my eyes might be safe from laserdamage, pitty if they burn with me and the crashed aircraft cause I couldn't countinue flying due to so called flashblindnes
Third - power of a Laser is easily modified, lots of videos how to on youtube and more powerful lasers are available too …

[SilsoeSid]

Fourth, you can easily buy 500mW+ pens on t'internet.


aa777888, why stick at a mile distance to prove your point?

Laser Range Finding:
At the Moon's surface, the beam is only about 6.5 kilometers (four miles) wide and scientists liken the task of aiming the beam to using a rifle to hit a moving dime 3 kilometers (approximately two miles) away. The reflected light is too weak to be seen with the human eye: out of 100,000,000,000,000,000 photons aimed at the reflector, only one will be received back on Earth every few seconds, even under good conditions.

:rolleyes:

[BlenderPilot]

Flying for the Police in one of the most densely populated areas in the world has me being Lasered (mostly green lasers) almost EVERYDAY!!!!

Nothing happens except that it looks cool! Sure a Laser could be dangerous at close range, where the dot of the laser is still small and concentrated, but a the distance a helicopter flies at that DOT is huge and thus it is "diluted", I think those that say that such "attacks" by kids could bring a helicopter down is just plain nonsense.

I know this must make us look like savages, but check out this video of MEXICAN PRESIDENT during the Independence Ceremony . . . . and this was at a much closer range than a flying helicopter. SEE AFTER MINUTE 03+00. You don't see him permanently blinded do you?

76pdHgJG9jI

[Coconutty]

No the best comparison really ...

We have no idea of knowing how the green light(s) shown in the video,
compare, in terms of power output, with those that are regularly targetted at aircraft.

It's a floodlit stage so "El Presidente", or whoever's Night Vison won't have kicked in,
and even if temporarily dazzled, there's not much risk of him falling from the balcony and killing himself, those accompanying him, or those directly below !

Oh, and the video is more interesting after 03'00" - from 02'00" to 03'00" is quite boring.

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d129/coconut11/Coconutty.jpg

[SilsoeSid]

What you fail to mention Blender, is that among the student protesters shining the lasers into President Felipe Calderón's eyes, some were from Amnesty International protesting that he is turning a 'blind eye' to torture!

In history quite a few presidents have been 'shot at' and hit, but not all fatally :ok:

As coconutty says, you do not know the strength of the pens, those used in our 'densely populated area' are labelled in the hundreds of mW category, goodness knows what they actually are! May I suggest the next time you catch someone, ask the court to have the pen released to the unit and have it tested.

Pens in the lower powered category are combatted by the blink reflex, however more powerful pens at the upper end of the spectrum between the visible and IR wavelengths, can't be! How can you so easily tell which is which?

[SilsoeSid]

... but a the distance a helicopter flies at that DOT is huge and thus it is "diluted", I think those that say that such "attacks" by kids could bring a helicopter down is just plain nonsense.

Unless I'm mistaken Blender, you are saying that the chance of getting injured by having a laser fired at the ac is non existent because of the range. Just for info, at 500m (1500'), the dot from a laser pen just fills the 'O' in the word 'Police' on the side of a police helicopter. That 'O' just so happens to be the same size of a human face!

http://www.globalaviationresource.com/reports/2010/metpoliceasu/images/5.jpg


I guess by your judgement, the range of the weapon used should have seen this part of the case thrown out :ugh:


The force's helicopter was also shot at.
Footage showed a man appear to drop to one knee by a car in Clifton Close, Aston, and point a gun at the helicopter,

BBC News - Birmingham riots: Four guilty of shooting at police (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-18253255)


In past times;
Sometimes I used to miss a fig 12 target at 30m with a pistol;
However, I could usually hit a fig 11 at 600m with an SLR.

Feelin' lucky?

[aa777888]

Running the numbers at 0.1 statute miles (528 ft or 176 yards), this works out to 250mW being the maximum eye safe laser power at that range. Conversely it'll be about twice that distance for a 500mW laser. Again this assumes a nominal beam divergence of 1.5mrad, quite a typical number for the average, run of the mill, high power laser pointer.

Yes, if you crash and burn it won't matter that the laser didn't burn your retina to start with. However that was not my point. I do realize it is your point! I did, however, want to clear up some of the bad physics assumptions being put forth in the thread.

[mickjoebill]

World Record Submission - 100 Laser Balloon Popping Dominoes - Wicked Lasers S3 Krypton 750mW+ IMG * - YouTube

This one is the size of a compact torch. They aren't getting any less powerful and may be a threat to eye sight in the future.
In the meantime I agree that direct dazzling to the eye and creating distracting reflections is more serious an issue.

[Flying Bull]

Hi aa777888,

if you would go deeper into the problem you would recognize, that you miss a couple of facts. Starting from wider eyes, focusing effects of an eye onto the retina, not visual infra red parts of the cheap china lasers and so on....
And as long as you don´t know, which laser is pointed at you.....
I was directly hit, at night looking down to an offenders area and was not only flash blinded I also was disorientated for about 30 sec.
Luckily I was only the Co-Pilot - but if otherwise ....
So go along, look in a laser - if it is safe for you - and get your own experience!

Greetings Flying Bull

[SilsoeSid]

aa777888Running the numbers at 0.1 statute miles (528 ft or 176 yards), this works out to 250mW being the maximum eye safe l@ser power at that range. Conversely it'll be about twice that distance for a 500mW l@ser. Again this assumes a nominal beam divergence of 1.5mrad, quite a typical number for the average, run of the mill, high power l@ser pointer.

So you will agree then, that in a police helicopter or indeed any ac operating at 1,056' AGL or below, eye damage is possible with the commonly available & used 500mW+ pen!

Methinks with all your attempts at being clever; Foot, self, shot rings a bell :D

[aa777888]

So you will agree then, that in a police helicopter or indeed any ac operating at 1,056' AGL or below, eye damage is possible with the commonly available & used 500mW+ pen!

Absolutely. No argument.


Methinks with all your attempts at being clever; Foot, self, shot rings a bell

Not at all. You are ascribing cleverness where none was attempted. As I wrote in my original reply "Using the above equations you can figure out where you stand for whatever your favorite worst case laser scenario is." You all are doing exactly that.

I will say that perhaps familiarity breeds contempt. I have spent several years of my career working in laboratory settings with truly high power lasers of various wavelengths. My last yearly retinal photograph (required by the company's insurance reg's) was still clean, which I would like to subscribe to training and skill rather than luck. No burns or clothing damage, either (some of the wavelengths used rapidly destabilize dyes--a lot of the guys who don't set up their stuff right wind up with funny spots on their pants right at the height of optical bench.)

[mickjoebill]

a lot of the guys who don't set up their stuff right wind up with funny spots on their pants right at the height of optical bench.

The mind boggles...

[BigMike]

... the trick is to have the right equipment in the cockpit to deter them from doing it again.... or ever.... ;)

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a3/Micksphotos/aaasized.jpg

[sky2000]

Laserattacken: Angriff auf die Flugsicherheit | Kontrovers | Bayerisches Fernsehen | Fernsehen | BR.de (http://www.br.de/fernsehen/bayerisches-fernsehen/sendungen/kontrovers/130522-kontrovers-laser100.html)

:ok:

[Airhawk9]

I can honestly say it sucks. Being a Police pilot in a navy town we've been hit with lasers many times. Usually a young and drunk junior member of the navy using the military grade green targeting laser, or a drunk street thug with a cheaper red laser.
We fly between 1000 AGL down to 200 AGL if working a call aggressively. At that range it's blinding. God forbid if i've got the NVG's down. We've been lucky and avoided a direct hit on the NVG's but I'm told a laser will destroy the NVG tube on a direct hit.
If we can identify where they come from, we get ground units to scoop them up and arrest them.

[Peter-RB]

Seems the bad/idiot boys are world wide, Simple solution would be a recip laser target designator paint them and let the locals boys in Blue pick em up,....or simply splash em! could be messy, but after a few they would soon stop others copying,:E

Possibly I am a little too hard on things( read idiots) that annoy!!:=

Peter R-B,
Lancashire