anotherglassofwine

Folks,
whats it the general consensus on switching ones phone to flight mode whilst aboard an aircraft? Reason for asking - I was returning to my native sligo in the northwest of ireland on a pleasant flight and noticed a rather nice sunset illuminating the clouds as we started our initial decent. I had my phone in my hand luggage and decided to test out my new fangled 3.2 megapixel camera. I had switched the phone to flightmode as I boarded, however when I took the snap a pleasant member of CC told me that I shouldn't have the phone on. I complied immediatley and just mentioned that I thought it was ok as I had the phone in flightmode. The Lady looked at me blankly and said it had to be off full stop (in a nice way!). I didn't argue, but just wanted to know what the overall opinion on this is?
Thanks in advance.

Don Coyote

Flight mode is not a problem with the airline I work for and many others.

The problem is that there are so many different types of phone all having different ways of displaying flight mode that it is difficult for cabin crew to be sure what mode a phone is working in.

The only way round this is that if the cabin crew are in any doubt as to the status of the phone then the phone should be turned off.

eightyknots

Our rules are: Phones off, when doors are closed, even if they have flight only mode.

woolyalan

But what if the phone only has flight mode such as mine (O2 XDA mini S) as it is a PDA also, turning the thing off as in a hard reset will wipe all data. Flight mode disables the phone element of the device, which, as discussed on another thread prevents interference with aircraft systems, radio, etc

Capt Pit Bull

Exactly. Most PDAs and the like aren't really OFF apart from when the battery is flat or disconnected. My Compaq certainly isn't.

PAXboy

Last Friday LHR~TXL and back on Sunday with BA. On both sectors, the boarding announcement included, "Mobile phones must be turned off or placed in Flight Mode now until ..."

I might have wanted to keep mine (combined mobile and PDA) in F.M. but had already turned it off and turning it on would mean that it would seek a base station before I could access the control to shut it off. I read the newspaper.

Slopey

Nope - it's a rebadged Qtek 9100 - hold the power button down, and it'll ask you if you want to shut down and that you "might" loose some data. If you haven't saved something in Word/Excel, you would loose that, but you won't loose any saved data.

You should be shutting down apps once you've used them anyway to conserve memory - it gets a little slow if you have loads of stuff open.

Just power it off - it'll start up quite happily with all your contacts/phone history etc intact.

woolyalan

I promise you, it doesnt do that, at least mine doesnt, even so, i shall be using flight mode, and it will stay in my pocket, i wouldnt use it during a flight anyways, so nobody would even know please forgive me if it sounds reckless though, i just dont see the point in a flight mode function if it is not to be used

Slopey

I'd take it back then and get a new one - that's definately not right.

woolyalan

Slopey I apologise, I stand corrected, It does keep contacts etc if turned off, its when it runs out of battery it goes tits up. I just checked my user manual

10secondsurvey

The phone I have, asks if I want to enter flight mode right at startup, but when on flights, I can't be bothered using it.

I do have some sympathy with flight crew, as has been pointed out above, it is hard to know every phone model, so maybe easier to adopt a switch off rule, rather than try to assess each one.

Just as an aside, as the original poster was taking pics, I was recently on an AA flight to La Guardia, which swooped low over Manahtten on final approach. Cabin crew asked a kid who was taking a pic with a digital camera to switch it off, as it was an 'electronic item'! I guess all airlines approach this kind of thing differently.

goshdarnit

Regarding 10secondsurvey's aside - in my experience most airlines seem to indicate all electronic equipment needs to be switched off on take off and final approach irrespective of whether it is a camera, mp3, CD/DVD player or a 'phone; the 'phone generally getting the announcement that they must be switched completely off, including 'flight safe mode' when the doors are closed till inside the terminal at t'other end.
Personally I love turning my 'phone off (as in "sorry boss, I was flying...")

shortm

The airline I work for says that all mobile phones must be switched off, including phones fitted with a flight mode. The reason we as cabin crew have been given is that the CAA have not been able to test the flight mode of all phones and therefore cannot advise as to whether they are safe to be used.

Also, the use of electronic items on take-off / landing is not to do with interference. It is more based on the premis that using a video camera / walkman etc may distract a passenger from any safety related announcements.

HTH

The Hustler

Another comment about the camera issue - how often do you see people taking photos with the flash when it's not needed? Enough people don't know how to disable the flash on their cameras, to the extent where I'm OK with not allowing them to be used on a plane. The high-tension discharge that makes the flash can affect other electrical items (try talking on your normal landline and trigger a flashgun).

Admittedly, life would be easier if all carriers and all cabin crew had the same set of rules - they could be published, handed out by travel agents, and eventually the pax would learn . . .

derekl

All 'Flight Mode' means is that the radio in the device is switched off. All the PDA functions, including digital camera if fitted, remain on.

It's not a low-power radio mode or anything like that -- it means radio OFF so the cellphone functionality is completely off. There's nothing for the CAA to test, so I don't believe that reason for a moment.

Devices like BlackBerry actually call it Radio off/on -- which assumes a degree of intellect on the part of the user, of course.

PAXboy

dereklTrue and the device's micro processor is ON. All processors emit radio frequencies. Now, it is true that a PDA's RF output is low but it is easily measurable. It is not known where you are sitting in the cabin or what aircraft equipment/cabling may be on the other side of the decorative cabin wall.

Overall, 99.999% of these devices harmless but I am happy to have mine switched off for the duration and not use flight mode, just in case mine is the remaining percentage point.

ExSimGuy

I have a 2-year-old Qtek 2020 (PDA/Phone) which is the same as an similar-vintage model I-Mate or O2 PDA.



Not thought before about the fact that it has a computer that is running all the time, and that computers have to be switched off below 10,000 feet.

I am very careful to keep the main battery charged, as I had a "memory loss" one day when I let it run down. Yes, I save everything to the MMC card regularly, but it would be a real pain if I had to restore from MMC every time I flew (and took the battery out!)

Ideas?

Hampshire Hog

Have to say, flying regularly as PAX on the fly-by-wire A320 series, I would prefer a straight rule that all these things be turned off completely. The scope for interference is small but significant. I remember reading of an incident where a video camera - turned on in the cabin with the Captain's permission was followed by with/loss of the nav display on the flight deck. Don't know if cause and effect was ever actually proven, but ...

In my experience, passengers, especially business passengers, have little concept of why transmitting devices are required to be turned off in flight. It's not just about interference with aircraft systems (of which there is a real risk) but about locking out large swathes of the mobile telephone network on the ground. Even in my PA28, it is illegal to have a mobile turned on. Such passengers view the requirement to use flight safe mode as an interference to their busy work schedules and just cannot resist sending that 'one email'. The cabin crew cannot check all these devices. If they were required to be off - completely, everyone would be safer.

Rant over,

HH

ExSimGuy

I totally agree with Mr. Hog of Hampshire, about the advisability of keeping mobiles off - I religeously switch mine off when I get to the boarding ramp, and don't switch it on until I'm inside the airport (or, usually when flying in USA, when the crew tell us we can switch on). I have posted several times before on this subject (having an aircraft background, as well as being reasonably knowledgable about radio, especially UHF/VHF)

However,the problem is with these PDA-phones; I have switched mine into "flight mode" when flying (i.e. - mobile radio OFF) but not previously considered that, as a computing device, with a clock oscillator running at 400 MHz, and several divided-down frequencies, all square-waves giving all odd-multiples of every frequency in there!

But should I do a complete back-up of all non-volatile data and programs in RAM before I fly??? This is what I'd have to do if I removed the battery!

Did I make a mistake in buying the Qtek 9020 ("Functionally identical to i-mate Pocket PC, O2 XDA II, T-Mobile MDA II and Orange SPV M1000") ?

I'd be very interested in any thoughts on this, maybe from other owners of these models, - especially as I'm shortly flying into UK for the GatBash, and then out to USA (with asociated baggage rules, that might mean it being consigned to the checked suitase!) the next morning.

derekl

Yes, of course, I know all that stuff. The point is, there's no reason for the rules to be any different for a PDA/mobile in flight mode than for a laptop or other mobile electronic device.

And have we all forgotten Ryanairs and BMI's picocells already?

I'm still waiting for a documented case of a safety problem, as opposed to all the apochryphal stories . . .