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all this Laser news stories!

This is sooooo stupid! How on earth could these miniscule lasers hamper air travel?! 😕😕😕😕😕😕
 
I'm hoping it's just kids screwing around... but in all the cities all over I am finding that hard to believe.
 
Not so sure it's a non-event. The last one I read said there was a GREEN laser pointed at them. How many kids you see with green lasers? Most pointers are red.
 
Can a regular laser pointer pen sold in stores go high enough in the sky and actually hit a plane? or do you need something more powerfull with like a scope?
 
Originally posted by: Jnetty99
Can a regular laser pointer pen sold in stores go high enough in the sky and actually hit a plane? or do you need something more powerfull with like a scope?
Click to expand...

<-- Quoted for something no news site has really covered.

Also, wouldn't tracking and accuracy be an issue with a hand-held pointer?
 
Originally posted by: Jnetty99
Can a regular laser pointer pen sold in stores go high enough in the sky and actually hit a plane? or do you need something more powerfull with like a scope?
Click to expand...

i'll go try it and let you know
 
Originally posted by: AtlantaBob
Originally posted by: Jnetty99
Can a regular laser pointer pen sold in stores go high enough in the sky and actually hit a plane? or do you need something more powerfull with like a scope?
Click to expand...

<-- Quoted for something no news site has really covered.

Also, wouldn't tracking and accuracy be an issue with a hand-held pointer?
Click to expand...

No way a pointer could do that.
 
Up until last week, this place sold a green laser that could be seen for miles, and could burn holes in stuff. For instance, they had a vid of it burning a hole though a plastic cup.
 
Originally posted by: Jnetty99
Can a regular laser pointer pen sold in stores go high enough in the sky and actually hit a plane? or do you need something more powerfull with like a scope?
Click to expand...
Heck no! Take your pointer, go out at night and point it down the road. See how far it will go before the "dot" is either totally faded out or a circle 3 feet in diameter. And even if it was still a small dot at distance, to accurately point it into a cockpit and keep it there at 8500 feet would either take a freakishly steady hand or some precision tracking mechanism...somebody other than Johnny down the street is F'ing with the planes...
 
Originally posted by: Jnetty99
Can a regular laser pointer pen sold in stores go high enough in the sky and actually hit a plane? or do you need something more powerfull with like a scope?
Click to expand...
No...the range of these planes is at least 10x farther than the store-bought pen lasers. Some morning news show was interviewing some "expert" on this. Also, these lasers are tracking the cockpits of planes for several seconds while these planes are travelling greater than 300mph.
 
So it seems to be something planned happening in several states.

I know in NJ they had someone that they wanted to question because a helicopter looking for the point of origin got a laser beam while searching at him.

 
The guy in NJ was supposedly some kind of scientist playing with his kids on the back porch.

Now, not to sound cynical or anything, but calculating the odds of focusing a laser beam on the particular point in space that is an airplane at several thousand feet of altitude, and then TRACKING the thing, all the while maintaining the focus of the beam in the cockpit (an even smaller place) seems to put the odds against him. (We've got enginnering types here, anyone care to do the math?)

Granted, in a world with infinate monkeys, and infinate time, someone's going to produce the King James Bible... but how many people do you know playing with fairly powerful lasers on a regular basis?
 
Due to the way that cockpits are situated on a plane and the fact that they are moving and something is tracking them while they go 350 MPH+....

I honestly think that this is along the same lines as the whole UFO reporting craze that swept the airlines in the 50's and 60's.

To target a cockpit window at over a mile while it moves is damn near impossible. They have used "burst" lazers on helicopter pilots but that is alot different. Slower moving, Larger window for targets and they are most always within 100yds when they were hit with teh lazer burst.
 
So do you think the FBI will never find out who or what it really is going on.


Edit: i mean the FBI still has not found out who did the anthrax scare in 2001.
 
Personally, I *don't* think it would be that hard to track a jet with a laser....
keeping it steady within 1 square foot of a jet - that would be hard... but not to keep the laser on the jet.

Go outside and point a pencil at a jet in the sky, keeping your eye lined up with the jet and pencil tip...
Not difficult to keep the pencil tip on the jet, now is it?

The weird thing about the green lasers - you can see their beam in the air, I'm assuming because some of the light is absorbed and re-emitted by nitrogen or some other component of air. Someone posted pics they took of a green laser being shot at a cloud - you could see the beam in the sky for a long distance, unlike a red laser where typically you only see the dot on the object the beam strikes.

edit: which explains why the pilots are seeing the green beams... it doesn't necessarily mean the beams are hitting the cockpit - it doesn't indicate that anywhere in the article. So, all someone would need to do is come close to the jet for the pilots to seem the beam.
 
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