Reply to post: @Symon

Virgin Atlantic co-pilot dazzled by laser

Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward

@Symon

If it is frequency doubling you really only have to block two specific wavelengths. IR is less of a concern since we can't see IR anyway, so no one will miss it if the entire IR spectrum is filtered.

I agree with the comment that having glasses that detect lasers and darken are no solution, since the pilot is blinded either way! One possible fix (which would take forever to implement due to all the testing required and retrofitting of commercial airlines) would be to get rid of the windows and replace them with displays. If they malfunction during flight (all of them? seems unlikely) then it is an instrument only landing I guess - they do those anyway. This might help since you could "see" in the dark or the fog using IR, radar or whatever.

Obviously the cameras generating the images for the display would need to be protected against lasers, but that could be easily accomplished by using two or three cameras per display (helping with redundancy) with different color filters on each and combining the images via computer. If one gets 'dazzled' by a laser the computer would detect it and not add it to the image processing - so if a laser hit all that would happen would be your image showing messed up color (or maybe just black and white would be easier) during those few seconds.

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