What it's like to be lasered at night
 

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


Mickjoebill

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

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

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.

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:

No worse than a photo shoot behind you:*

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

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

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

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...

As weapons grade lasers 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.

.

UK CAA pov,

Exposure to Lasers - Safety Notice & Self Assessment Tool for Pilots

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.

Normal result, arrest.



If Harry was a police pilot ;

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...:}

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.

Than it's not a laser. Its a laser designator: ND3 Green Laser Designator for Military, Law Enforcement and EMT | Laser Genetics

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

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...

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.