Lasers
 

Hi everyone

Has anyone experienced any distasteful laser activity recently? I recall someone being caught in Sydney a little while ago for pointing a laser at an aircraft - do we know the outcome of that case yet?

I have personally, touch wood, never experienced myself at night - however I was pax on a Syd-Mel 767 a couple of weeks back and on about (at a guess) 3 mile final on 27 gee whiz did something catch me in the corner of the eye; looked out the window to see what appeared to be an incredibly powerful green laser aimed squarely at the aircraft. Good old northern suburbs... assholes. := :uhoh:

Haven't heard much on the topic lately - is it a frequent issue these days still? It was certainly in the news for a while, going back a few months.

All the best.

Charlie

i'm still trying to understand the thought process these f*ckwits are having and how they come to the conclusion that its a good idea to point a laser at an aircraft.

i think its either 'compensation for something' or showing their friends how powerful their laser is, by pointing it at an aircraft.
Or they could think its just a prank, and not actually a serious safety hazard...

I mean seriously, no matter what kinda power laser they can show their friends, i'll always ALWAYS have a more powerful laser (I do light shows)
I think the prime reason is to play a prank/see how powerful their laser is.

my kind of laser example:
http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/2562/spec07124ul8.jpg

Just been discussing this at home here, and we just decided that even as adults who would never do such a thing, if you pick one up your natural curiosity is to turn the thing on and "shoot" a few objects in the room. You are careful not to point it at anyone of course. But you have a play with the laser and put it down again.

Kids, say 10-15 are just as playful however they are looking for greater challenges, so they go outside at night and every dog cat car, the mirror in the bedroom of the girl next door gets tagged. Now pointing it skyward yields very little reward as the man in the moon is on stress leave, so the next best thing is this nice white traget flying overhead. Its big enough, its white and yes you can tag it. Great game!

Probably I guess most a/c get tagged on the sides, as the 767 pax above posted, but occassionally the crew get it, or its the work of a more stupid being.

I wonder if Virgin get as many tags as Qantas, because it would be hard to spot a red dot on a VB fuselage at a great distance.

I really feel its a matter of the police, airlines and PARENTS drilling into their kids about the stupidity and dangers of doing it.

J

I think that virgin would get tagged by green lasers, it'd show well, as would a red one, because those lasers are BRIGHT.
You are right, about the wanting to 'play' with the laser, its a natural tendency to be adventurous with things that you don't really know how they work.

we got lasered in a lighty overflying Gosford during a NVFR flight test.

It was a white laser, saw some flashes in my peripheral vision and freaked, thought it was strobes coming from another a/c. Testing officer looked over his shoulder and got it in the eye.

We flew back over the same spot on the way back down and wanted to try getting GPS coordinates but the pricks didn't try again.

Problem solved.

I have just given the Cops Pyro's address and they are on their way around to round up him and his collection!:}

Beats me why he travels to Gosford Melbourne etc......:ooh:

J

Listening to Perth on LiveATC last week, a VB driver on final reported two lasers pointed at them simultaneously several miles apart. Lasers were Green and Blue, but the pilot was not 100% sure on that. Controller then went on to report it to Police and even he believed not much would come out of it :*

D.C

PyroTek... would we be able to borrow one of those lasers to put on the bottom of an aircraft and point back? *grin*

Now if we got really good, given our current position, altitude and angle of the laser relative to the vertical axis, it'd be relatively easy to calculate the GPS coordinates of the offender. How much fun would that be as an automated system... get a laser in the eye, point back and once locked on give the GPS coordinates to ATC, or go for a little drive after landing :)

how about a system that senses lasers against the plane, and when it finds the coordinates of the place, it dials into the Pentagon and sends a command to send an ICBM to that very house!

-slightly over the top-

Only by a small margin! :ok:

If ya catch one i reckon laser the b@stard!

J

Yeah, we can deal with that in-house, thanks!

Flew a Helo. single pilot for 10 years over the city, got lasered or spotlighted at least a dozen times a night.

Easy solution... DON'T LOOK AT IT....:ok:

I can understand the distraction but I haven't heard of someone losing their sight etc. from it, unless you are flying over "Iraq" ... toughen up

In WA the police have just changed the law to call lasers an offensive weapon or some such legal jargonese. This now puts them in the same category as knives, crossbows, knuckledusters and other dangerous items. The reason is because our polair keeps getting painted by these clowns and they are well fed up. Hopefully once they start getting pinged and put on bonds this will fade away and they'll find something else to do that annoys us.

It would be nice if we could evolve a low explosive laser targeting missile that activates when it gets the paint then homes in on the source. Better than a good behaviour bond or gladiator school and no need for follow up.:rolleyes:

I disagree that it is entirely "lets play with the new laser"

I think a lot of it is due to people getting sick of aircraft flying over their house getting the f***tarded idea that if they laser enough planes the flightpaths will be changed. Refer the case in Williamtown, where some tool spotlighted a Hornet, then when he got arrested tried to claim that he wanted to read the tail number or some such rubbish.

Even GPS won't help in a city, because it isn't accurate enough to pinpoint one house, although you would get a better idea of where it is coming from.

I think the first thing that needs to be done is to ban those lasers, with the exception of people licenced to use them for work, like Pyro. The little red lecture pointers probably don't do as much damage, I don't know if the beam would even reach an aircraft, but why would anyone have one of these big green ones for fun?:rolleyes:

Wasn't there a story recently where a polair got lasered, then proceeded to change course and tracked down the guy who did it?

Pardon my ignorance....what is the significance of green lasers?

J

Green lasers are much more visible than red lasers and available in very high wattages.

http://www.megalaser.com/120mw.htm

Claimed range of over 30km (and there's 250 and 400mw versions available). Even the $50 ones can apparently get over 5km.

we got lasered the other night near Bristol,UK. Was some sort of laser show rather than single person though. At first seemed like strobes were brighter all of a sudden then the bottom of the engines were illuminated red and greens. Very bright, was suprising how bright it was. Should have gone back and turned the tables - shown them what a LiDAR laser looks like! (less impressive):}

'Brightsparks?'......
 

Perth 6PR News this am,

Polair, having been 'zapped' a few times in the Northern 'burbs, called in the 'ground troops' after ident'ing the house / address, and guess wot?

A couple of guys arrested after the cops found the laser in the house. :ooh:ooh:

More publicity to follow no doubt.:=
(tonight's news etc ...)

Cheers to the Cops:ok:

Griffo, they got 3 of them using "new technology" to ident the offenders. Well done to the catchers.:D

They are being charged with the Fed law relating to endangering an aircraft or some such worded charge. It carries nice BIG penalties and we'll hopefully teach a lesson to these clowns. The interesting thing is the ages of the offenders, don't quote me but none were under 34 and one was over 50. Can't wait to hear the excuses. Ahh, I was walking out of the shower and the carrot was sitting on a chair and I fell over and, well, you can see from the xray.