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Passengers on US flights will be allowed to use electronic devices during take-off and landing following a ruling by the Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday.
The announcement means people will be able to use ebooks, tablets and portable video games "during all phases of flight", the FAA said. Passengers will be able to keep mobile phones switched on, although they must be set to "airplane mode" or otherwise have cellular service disabled.
Minutes after the announcement, Delta Air Lines announced that it would allow its passengers to use portable electronic devices from 1 November, subject to FAA approval...
Tsuru wrote:I was talking about the communications protocols between the various bits and pieces of electrickery that make the plane work, that are defined by ARINC standards.
Indeed they were... although it was more a question of being forced to by ICAO after Korean were banned from further expanding their global network until they got their shit sorted out. By far and away the biggest challenge commercial aviation faces these days is the degradation of piloting skills, as evidenced by THY1951, AFR447 and now AAR214. Or to put it in other words: pilots have become so reliant on their very sophisticated autopilot/-throttle/-land systems they are literally forgetting how to properly fly their aircraft. Even if they and their company comply with every rule in the book, pilots on long-haul fleets don't get enough time in manual control of their aircraft. So when that day comes that the computers can't figure it out anymore, they cannot be trusted to safely continue and conclude the flight.Mock Cockpit wrote:Tangentially to the conversation, Tsuru I'm sure you know about this. After the Guam and Stansted crashes Korean Air bought in Delta to completely overhaul its operations. They compiled a huge list of where Korean Air had deviated from best practice. You can download the internal audit here http://www.flight.org/blog/2009/10/01/k ... to-happen/
Very interesting reading. From all reports Korean Air is now top drawer in all of its operations. Believe a similar thing is happening at Garuda after the EU banned them. Seems like Asiana could do with some remedial work after San Francisco though.
Anyway, a sensible decision by the FAA. A number of times when I've flown I've forgotten to put my phone into airplane mode. I'm not particularly forgetful so I guess on every single flight there are people with their phones on so if there was an issue I'd imagine we'd know about it by now. Keeping them in airplane mode is I imagine more of a courtesy issue than anything else.
Japan will ease restrictions on the use of electronic devices such as smartphones on aircraft next month, the transport ministry said Thursday.
From Sept. 1, passengers will be allowed to use smartphones and personal computers at all times during flights, if they kill those devices' communications functions except data transmission, for which Wi-Fi wireless connection will be available.
Currently, Japan bans the devices' use during takeoff and landing for fears of radio waves emitted by them disrupting pilot communications and causing meter gauge malfunctions.
But given that aviation authorities in Europe and the United States relaxed rules on the use of electronic devices last year thanks to improvements in aircraft performance, the ministry has decided to follow suit.
The ministry also said passengers will be allowed to make calls with their mobile phones sooner than now after landing.
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...thanks to improvements in aircraft performance...
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