Wondering what to do over the holiday season? How about aiming a laser at commercial aircraft and then spending years of your life in prison?

One day after an idiot was put behind bars for four years for shining a laser at a police helicopter, the Feds announced they've indicted a man accused of risking the safety of three passenger planes. “Pointing a laser at an aircraft is not a prank; it’s incredibly dangerous and stupid,” said southern Georgia's US Attorney …

[The Man Who Fell To Earth]

I'd say blind him too

But the lazy jerk would then be on the taxpayer's dole for life.

[Anonymous Coward]

Polarizing filter

Have they tried polarizing the window glass? Lasers will be coherent, but sun light and man made light isn't. Surely a polarizing filter would negate the laser without blocking much real-world light?

Or you could do something more complex, track the pilots gaze, put a liquid crystal filter layer over the glass and an outside camera, then track and block bright lights by darking the correct part of the window relative to the pilots gaze. A bit faffy and complex, but that would also block the sun, letting the pilot still see when looking directly into the sun.

Or take away the glass and replace them with sight enhancing 'camera' views that brighten up the night sky and pick out objects using AI. Giving the pilot "super vision". You don't have to fully take away the glass, just darken it, so they have a backup in case of camera problems.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Polarizing filter

Physics was not your strong suit at school I presume.

(Downvoted only the technical content, not to inflame!)

[werdsmith]

Re: Polarizing filter

In my experience it is the millions of little microscratches on the surface of the glass / plexiglass that causes the light to spread over the screen and interior making vision difficult. Having experienced this in a Robinson R22 a couple of years ago, the idiot cannot keep you fixed in a handheld beam, so it appears as brief flashes from the source.

[Trigonoceps occipitalis]

Re: Polarizing filter

Copy of something I posted on 11 November.

During the Falklands Conflict the UK used lasers to dazzle Argentinian pilots. Not by shining directly in the eyes but by relying on dispersal and diffraction by the cockpit canopy.

[Known Hero]

Re: Polarizing filter

Or you could do something more complex, track the pilots gaze, put a liquid crystal filter layer over the glass and an outside camera, then track and block bright lights by darking the correct part of the window relative to the pilots gaze. A bit faffy and complex, but that would also block the sun, letting the pilot still see when looking directly into the sun.

Please may I have this for my car? I am getting fed up of oncoming lights from what I assume to be mobile stars on our roads.

[Kevin Johnston]

Re: Polarizing filter

To be fair to the OP there was serious thought about having polarised headlights and windscreens for cars which did have some logic behind it. Your own headlights would continue to be effective as you are looking at scattered returns while oncoming lights would appear appreciably dimmed. It was one of those 'if we were starting from scratch' plans as it would require brighter headlights to match current visibility which then blinds people who do not have the polarised screen (along with pedestrians/cyclists etc etc...but still a good school science project)

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Polarizing filter

It'd make more sense just to build a time machine, travel into the future and buy some Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses.

[DS999]

Re: Polarizing filter

So let's get this straight. Your solution is to let idiots keep idioting, and spend billions retrofitting every aircraft with an LCD display (since your limited grasp of physics makes your polarized filter idea worthless) which if it fails leaves pilots flying blind?

Is your solution to school shootings to allow any yahoo with a gun to enter a school, but make bulletproof vests and helmets the required school uniform?

[Nifty]

Re: Polarizing filter

Military minds will be looking for a solid solution no matter how fiddly. External cameras that notch out the laser's frequency? With a heads-up display in the cockpit, that can take over from the windscreen (which has welding-helmet visor style blackout available), maybe?

[DS999]

Re: Polarizing filter

The military has a totally different outlook since lasers blinding pilots could be used as an offensive strategy. They'd undoubtedly be much higher power too so I doubt any solution aside from a windowless cockpit would work.

Though the days of manned fighters are quickly coming to a close so they might never get the chance to worry about defending against that.

[Loyal Commenter]

Re: Polarizing filter

I think maybe the military solution would be an air-to-ground missile. Ironically, probably laser guided. Nice of the target to point itself, eh?

I think there's a probably a Darwin Award waiting for the first person to try lasing a military aircraft.

[MachDiamond]

Re: Polarizing filter

"which if it fails leaves pilots flying blind?"

It would be hoped that the default opacity is transparent rather than blacked out. For commercial aircraft, it's possible to land without being able to see out of the windows. Some aircraft have video cameras so pilots can see around the plane and at the control surfaces. Mike Patey is putting several cameras in his latest build to see his buddies while flying in formation as well as an IR camera to see in IMC conditions.

[Cuddles]

Re: Polarizing filter

"Have they tried polarizing the window glass? Lasers will be coherent, but sun light and man made light isn't. Surely a polarizing filter would negate the laser without blocking much real-world light?"

Since no-one else is really explaining why you have all the downvotes, the problem is that polarisation and coherency are not the same thing. Polarisation describes how the oscillations in a wave are aligned - with light, if the electric field has peaks oscillating between left and right (the magnetic field is at 90 degrees to this), it is horizontally polarised. Coherency describes how well aligned those peaks are longitundinally. Importantly, the two are entirely uncorrelated. Light can be 100% horizontally polarised, but even though the peaks are all nicely flat in the horizontal plane, they can be randomly all over the place along the direction of travel. With a perfect laser with 100& coherency, the peaks can still be all over the place transversely and have 0% polarisation. You can sort of think of coherency as the longitudinal equivalent of polarisation, but there are enough important differences that it's not usually particularly useful to do so (as is the case with all too many physics analogies).

So no, polarised filters will do absolutely nothing to block laser light. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as anti-coherent filters, so there is simply no way to block only lasers.

"Or you could do something more complex, track the pilots gaze, put a liquid crystal filter layer over the glass and an outside camera, then track and block bright lights by darking the correct part of the window relative to the pilots gaze."

The problem there is that it's not the pilot looking directly into the laser that is the only problem. As noted in the article and by other comments, the issue is that the light scatters off imperfections in the window, as well as reflecting off all kinds of surfaces in the cockpit. Even if the pilot doesn't look straight at the source, the whole cockpit can be filled with extremely bright reflections that are just as bad.

In any case, it's not just "a bit" faffy and complex, you're requiring sophisticated materials combined with numerous sensors and extra computing power. Even assuming such a system could work, this is not the sort of thing that could reasonably be expected to be retrofitted even to large planes that can be decades old, let alone things like privately owned light aircraft (which are also affected, it's not just large passenger jets, as noted in the article).

[Wincerind]

Re: Polarizing filter

Thanks for the explanation. I was wondering why the op was getting serious downvotes for what was, on the face of it, a suggested solution.

[Loyal Commenter]

Re: Polarizing filter

I'll just add that the idea with the cameras and windowless cockpit has the obvious disadvantage of not being able to "fail-safe". In other words, if it breaks, you're flying blind (well, on instruments, anyway). I believe it's a fundamental principle in aviation that things should fail-safe if at all possible, which is why you have lots of instruments in the cockpit to give multiple different bits of information to a pilot. Very few aircraft are flown on sight alone; even gliders have cockpit instruments. No-one in their right mind would fly blind out of choice.

[chivo243]

small minds, easily amused

I'm all for a "hold my beer" moment, but this kind of crap crosses the line, I think this law needs to be written in a bigger book for throwing.

[BebopWeBop]

Re: small minds, easily amused

With a lead-lined cover and spine.

[Loyal Commenter]

Re: small minds, easily amused

Lead lined, and steel-plate coated. With spikes.

On a serious note, shouldn't using these things outside be regulated in the same way as discharging a firearm?

Worth noting here that their use as a dazzling weapon is actually banned under the Geneva Convention. I'm all for prosecuting their use to dazzle people as a war crime. If any military used them for this, there would be serious repercussions, doubly so if used on civilian non-combatants.

[Trigonoceps occipitalis]

Re: small minds, easily amused

Source Wikipedia so make your own mind up>

Weapons designed to cause permanent blindness are banned by the 1995 United Nations Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons. The dazzler is a non-lethal weapon intended to cause temporary blindness or disorientation and therefore falls outside this protocol.

[Loyal Commenter]

Re: small minds, easily amused

I'd posit that if it is bright enough to illuminate a cockpit, it is bright enough to blind, or at least permanently damage vision. Coherent light is notably more dangerous to vision than spread-spectrum light, because physics (I can't be bothered to go and look up the long technical reasons, but it has to do with the fact that the energy of all the photons is the same so damages things it hits more than white light). Maybe it should be tested in court?

[Zarno]

I still have no flocking clue WHY people do this.

It's much more fun to shine a laser across a field of fog, or into a river at night, than into the sky.

From experience, high power flashlights with a tight beam pointed into the sky at night are more spectacular than a little thin line from a properly collimated low divergence laser.

[Paul Kinsler]

I still have no flocking clue WHY people do this.

This would indeed be handy to know, because knowing why would presumably help any attempts to alter behaviour. That said, I suspect quite a lot of this is a just a result of a vague, impulsive, and poorly articulated out "what can I shine my laser thingy at" thought flickering across the person's mind.

E.g. "Oooh, I wonder if I'll be able to light up that distant thing in the sky with my magic science torch..."

[Hubert Cumberdale]

Erm, "unauthorized laser illumination"? Is there such a thing as authorized laser illumination? Maybe the FAA reserves that for pilots they simply don't like.

^{Also, *fewer. (Sorry.)}

[Dave 126]

I dunno, maybe lasers of a safe class being used with permission during a nearby surveying job. Perhaps lasers used for illumination during a trade event below the flight path. I don't know the laws are written, but sensible surveyors or event organisers would talk with the air authorities in advance, or at least check the regulations / best practice.

[Hubert Cumberdale]

Yeah people point lasers around all the time, but, is there ever a legit reason to directly illuminate a plane with a laser? The wording just seems to imply that there might be.

[Flywheel]

Please say hello to Mr Fingers when you next see him!

[Hubert Cumberdale]

I'm afraid I made the red water come out of him.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, there are reasons. I'm sorry that I don't feel comfortable in being more specific.

[Loyal Commenter]

Yes, there are reasons, reasons that also involve the word "guided" and are of a military persuasion.

For several reasons (such as not being seen, and avoiding violations of the Geneva Convention rules on dazzling weapons), such lasers are, AFAIK, not visible ones, but are presumably infrared, or longer wavelength

[Lord Elpuss]

One legit reason for shining a laser at a plane is if you're planning to shoot it down.

[KBeee]

I can see a semi ligitimate reason. If you're protesting in a repressive country, protesters using lasers against surveillance helicopters and their video cameras could keep you from being "disappeared" as an Enemy of the State. I think this tactic was used in Egypt during their Arab Spring revolution.

[Trigonoceps occipitalis]

" ... is there ever a legit reason to directly illuminate a plane ... "

Are there any laser following antiaircraft missiles?

(Serious question.)

[Lord Elpuss]

Beamriding MANPADS (man-portable surface to air missiles) such as the British Starstreak ‘ride’ a laser beam generated by the launcher to the target

[nematoad]

I would have thought that attempted murder might be more appropriate here.

There is stupidity, gross stupidity and then this. I'm surprised that his middle name wasn't Bubba.

[John Brown (no body)]

"I would have thought that attempted murder might be more appropriate here."

Now try proving intent.

[Known Hero]

I really never understood why they just didn't shine it at the back of the aircraft as it takes off, no harm no foul?

Unless they are actively trying to get it to crash, which is really really unlikely anyway from just using a laser!

[Dave 126]

I hope green lasers don't drop in price, since the idea of them being in possession of school kids scares me.

[Hubert Cumberdale]

Too late. Also, this.

[KBeee]

Looking at those adverts, it seems some of the lasers for sale could take down the plane itself, not just dazzle the pilots. 1 MW lasers... must have a pretty chunky battery. Wonder why many of them are spelled "lazers". Lazy?

[Hubert Cumberdale]

Of course, people seem unable to tell the difference between SI prefixes based on capitalisation. Nonetheless, the legal limit (as I understand it) is 1mW. However, even though they are pretty much all listed at that level of power, if you were to buy one of the more expensive ones, you'd quickly find that it way exceed that in reality (in green output alone – never mind the unfiltered infrared). Not quite sure how they get away with it, to be honest. Maybe it's because lasers are awesome.

[Loyal Commenter]

1MW (as opposed to 1mW) wouldn't just need a chunky battery. Even if that's pulse output fed by a bank of supercapacitors, it would need a generator the size of a truck (plus the second truck for the caps).

[sanmigueelbeer]

UK police set up a speed trap at one end of an RAF airbase runway nearly all of the offenders were base occupants.

One of them, a fighter pilot, got fed up and decided enough is enough.

He scheduled himself for a flight and as soon as his back tyres off the ground he declared an "in flight emergency" and proceeded to dump aviation fuel -- onto the cops and their speed trap.

They never returned.

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really believe that story? Give place, date and aircraft type.

[John Brown (no body)]

Fighter pilots, especially RAF fighter pilots are usually calm and level headed people. They are not Hollywood-style US "hot shots" with a constant and desperate "neeeeeed for speeeeeed".

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps not, but the rozzers do like to catch people going slightly over the limit on an open stretch, when there's no danger to anyone. Their other favoured tactic is to pick a spot where the speed limit signs are obscured and nab everyone who comes through at the prior limit.

[Loyal Commenter]

Their other favoured tactic is to pick a spot where the speed limit signs are obscured and nab everyone who comes through at the prior limit.

I think they'd get a bit of a telling-off if they did that, due to the number of successful appeals in court, and the amount of their time taken up by having to appear to give evidence.

IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that there have been plenty of cases where people have had speeding fines annulled because the speed limit signs had trees / hedges etc obscuring them, or the signs were missing. It's basically one of the very few excuses you stand a chance of getting away with.

Obviously this won't help if you're caught exceeding the limit before the "missing" sign (e.g. doing 50 where it goes form a 40 limit down to a 30).

[Anonymous Coward]

> calm and level headed people

We can agree on calm. I'd even up that to utterly boring in one particular case.

As for level headed… What level exactly are we talking about?

(Not RAF myself. Trained and worked with a whole bunch of them in my day, each a remarkable character in their own particular ways, have lots of respect for those I've met.)

[KarMann]

Despite these efforts, the FAA reported 6,136 laser incidents in 2019, nearly 17 a day, compared to 5,663 in 2018, 6,754 in 2017, and 7,398 in 2016.

Uhh, that shows a pretty clear, generally downward trend. How is that described as 'despite these efforts'??

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that it's a crap sentence that mixes fact with opinion, but making a trend out of three data points is a bit optimistic too.

[DS999]

Even if it accept that three data points makes a downtrend, it is a pretty weak downtrend for something that should be ZERO. Are we supposed to be comforted by the thought that the problem will go away around the year 2100?

[Danny 2]

Magpie scarecrow

Slightly off topic but slightly interesting. I've been feeding a squirrel nuts, mostly to annoy and entertain my cats. The squirrel runs off with a nut to eat or bury it. Then two magpies swoop down and swallow two or three nuts, they have learned to monitor the squirrel. The cats run into the double glazing trying to get to the nut eaters, but the nut eaters understand glass. I wanted to scare the magpies away but not the squirrel, and I found a way.

I have a tiny blue LED on the end of my cigarette lighter. I flash it at the magpies and they instantly flee. The squirrel is not interested, it knows I have it's best interests at heart and always runs towards me.

I posted a comment here about a year ago on a study showing spiders would furiously chase green laser dots but ignore other colours of laser dots. The study didn't explain why, it was just saying it is a fun way to spend an evening. Thanks to lockdown I will test the magpies with other colours of LEDs, and try to scare other birds with LEDs.

[Tempest]

Magpie scarecrow

Way back in the '60s I was a laser technician for the Canadian importer/distributor of Spectra Physics lasers.

We conducted tests at Hamilton Airport, Ontario, trying to drive birds from the runways. Wasn't too successful, all the test chickens đid was to stand around looking at the lasers. The lasers ranged from tame units sold to the Cops for gun targeting up to higher powered units whose outputs were measured in Watts.

Eventually all our test birds became blind but they still tasted great on dining room tables!

[Tempest]

Laser Glare Protection is Available as a Cockpit Window Film or . . .

for sometime as eyeglasses. Read: > https://www.laserpointersafety.com/laserglasses/laserglasses.html <

Seems that the military and the US police are OK blinding vehicle drivers, although their 'dazzlers' use modulated green lasers. I guess it's just as well 'out of sight' Ultra-Violet lasers cost so much although Infra-Red devices are more moderately priced. Infra-Red is great for blinding traffic cameras.

Ordinary $10 laser pointers have quite sufficient power to reach Plod helicopters after an internal potentiometer ís adjusted to increase the power.