LatviaCalling wrote:
What concerns investigators is the apparent ability of the "Laser Dudes" to TRACK the cockpits, over a period of several seconds, and to "wash," or mechanically oscillate the beam into a wide-coverage pattern of the cockpits with the laser beam.
If you have a beam oscillating all over hell and gone, "tracking" is easy. Is much harder to "track" with a powerful beam concentrated in a few mmsq than to shake the beam over the area the size of a barn.
It is clear that these events are NOT some overweight, freckle-faced, red-headed 16-year-old kid with a laser pointer. Whoever it is has sophisticated equipment.
More likely a flabby office worker with money to burn and less respect for aircraft than your average 16-year old.
A laser pointer IS sophisticated equipment.
Minimally, it would have to be a heavy-duty tripod with a fluid head, and probably a computer controlled platform.
Not so.. I can show you 5 different ways to get this general result with things one can buy quite cheaply in a grocery store.
You seem sincere in your concern about this problem, but you are missing the points about spreading laser power over a large area: a) the hard part is holding a beam still on a "target" surface, and b)any sort of scanning reduces the point contact power of even very powerful beams to such a tiny fraction that the direct health hazard goes away... although the annoyance surely persists...and is more likely to be seen.