Folks, you can't make this stuff up...
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Military Tests Lasers To Warn Off Aircraft
By Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 14, 2005; Page A06
A day after the Department of Transportation urged pilots to report hazardous laser beams aimed at aircraft, the U.S. military said it is testing a system to beam red and green lasers at aircraft in the Washington area as a warning when they enter restricted airspace.
The plan has prompted confusion among some area pilots who said they were unsure whether they would be able to tell the difference between a commercial laser used by someone playing at home and one operated by the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta on Wednesday urged pilots to report laser sightings to the Federal Aviation Administration and local law enforcement. A commercially available laser beamed into a cockpit can distract a pilot and in rare cases cause permanent eye damage.
NORAD said yesterday that its lasers are less intense than a typical laser pointer and that they will not harm or distract pilots. "During the tests, citizens in the [Washington] area may occasionally see beams of red and green lights in the sky during the hours of darkness," NORAD said in a statement. "The lights are so designed that illumination levels are eye-safe and non-hazardous at all ranges."
NORAD spokesman Michael D. Kucharek said a document posted on the Federal Aviation Administration's Web site for the presidential inauguration mistakenly suggested that any unauthorized aircraft flying into the restricted areaknown as the Air Defense Identification Zone around the nation's capital would be signaled with a laser beam. He said the posting was premature because the FAA has not granted its approval.
NORAD would like to use its Visual Warning System soon for all aircraft deviating into restricted airspace because it is a safer way tosignal pilots than the current method of dropping flares near unauthorized planes. Until it gets approval, NORAD will test lasers only on military aircraft in the Washington area. The test period began Dec. 28 and ends next Thursday.
Commercial airliners and private aircraft pilots "won't experience our laser" for now, Kucharek said. "We're only using the Visual Warning System against pre-designated aircraft and pilots."
Unlike the thin, focused beams of lasers that have reportedly been pointed at 31 planes since the Christmas holiday, Kucharek said the military's beams are in a red, red, green sequence and appear as wide beams that pose no harm and won't distract pilots from flight duties. "We want to have another way of letting [pilots] know, 'Hey, you need to vacate the area,' " he said.
Even so, local pilot Scott Faught said NORAD's announcement about its limited testing left the impression his plane might be beamed. The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, which represents many private pilots, said it didn't know enough about the program to comment. It advised pilots to continue to report all laser incidents.
"If they plan on hitting me with lasers, it still raises the issue: Are you trying to distract me? How in the world do we know the good ones from the bad ones?" Faught said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Jan13.html