Rent an iPad For Inflight Entertainment 198
OzPeter writes "Jetstar will start renting out of pre-loaded iPads as a form of inflight entertainment instead of the more typical seat back video system. No word in the article on how or if they will handle Wi-Fi connections, but interestingly it does mention that they will be usable during takeoff and landings — something that will be sure to spark lots of discussion regarding planes and modern electronics."
Re:Aircraft electronics (Score:3, Interesting)
Takeoff and landing are the times in flight most likely to result in an accident. If things do suddenly head sideways, people distracted by laptops and iPods are much less likely to react accordingly and survive.
Most people in the aviation business know this is the real reason.
Re:Aircraft electronics (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not like there's any useful information there after the 7th time you've heard it and read the info card out of boredom. Video/speech is a very slow, ineffecient way of transferring information compared to vanilla text. I find it ver yfrustartaing to be presented with a video to teach/explain something when simple text would do. Maybe hte reason those damn young ones on your lawn don't pay attention is because there's nothing useful being expressed.
Cell phones can mess with ground towers due to the speeds at which the planes are moving which is a reason to turn them off[line] (not like you're going to get good reception in a plane anyway)
Re:Aircraft electronics (Score:3, Interesting)
On commercial aircraft, yes. Light aircraft,however, especially older craft, are not shielded. Rather than test every aircraft with a battery of EM tests for every device imaginable, and then subclassify them by what devices you can use on what craft, it's a damn sight easier to go the 'Better Safe Than Sorry' approach and blanket-ban.
If anything, the older aircraft would be less subject to EM interference, since they'd have fewer electronics, and those electronics would probably be much hardier than modern IC-based gear. There's a reason they were never tested; it was inconceivable that anything short of a nuclear blast could possibly interfere with them.
As for "a battery of EM tests for every device imaginable"...are pilots really so superstitious that they think an iPad emits a different sort of aircraft-confounding rays than a ThinkPad or a Palmcorder?
Re:daily tampon story? (Score:5, Interesting)
seriously enough with the tampon stories.
The funny thing is that I submitted this partly on the basis of seeing how fast an iStory would be accepted. My previous submissions have always seemed to languish around for a significant amount of time before being accepted or rejected (especially rejected), yet this one was accepted within 12 hours of submission.
Re:Aircraft electronics (Score:5, Interesting)
On commercial aircraft, yes. Light aircraft,however, especially older craft, are not shielded.
Humorously, no. You inspect HV power lines with a Cessna or a helicopter, not a fully loaded 747.
No one takes low altitude sight seeing flights in a 747.
Its not like the high power radio transmitter towers to the east of timmerman and north of mitchell airport in Milwaukee somehow magically know they are supposed to interfere with the light planes but not the big planes. Theres no little eyeball on the top of the tower.
Light planes are pretty simple. You screw up the fuel management system on a major jetliner, you get big problems transferring fuel from tank 7 to tank 18 and weight and balance get all screwed up, now is engine 3 feeding out of tank 2 or is that cross connected to tank 9 again? In comparison, on the old 172 I flew in the 80s (eek) the fuel management system was an emergency shut off valve from the overhead tanks, a left/right/both tank selector switch, and an electric backup fuel pump with a circuit breaker and a switch. And a fuel gauge meter than was about 1/2 inch square and could not be read more accurately than "full, empty, or somewhere in between". It was so old it had a mechanical carb instead of a fuel injection system.
Re:Aircraft electronics (Score:4, Interesting)
On commercial aircraft, yes. Light aircraft,however, especially older craft, are not shielded. Rather than test every aircraft with a battery of EM tests for every device imaginable, and then subclassify them by what devices you can use on what craft, it's a damn sight easier to go the 'Better Safe Than Sorry' approach and blanket-ban.
If anything, the older aircraft would be less subject to EM interference, since they'd have fewer electronics, and those electronics would probably be much hardier than modern IC-based gear.
I guess the GP meant "too old to be properly shielded, modern enough to have lots of electronics", not a DC-3 ;). The problem with electronic gizmos hit when planes already had a lot of electronic instruments. Indeed, Wikipedia tells me the Boeing 737-400 [wikipedia.org] started flying in 1985 and had a full glass cockpit.
those electronics would probably be much hardier than modern IC-based gear.
If anything, a PCB with discrete components has longer exposed copper (a requisite for EM induction) than an IC measuring 4x4 mm doing the same function. "They don't make them like they used to" is wholly untrue in this field.
There's a reason they were never tested; it was inconceivable that anything short of a nuclear blast could possibly interfere with them.
They're hard to mess with from outside the cigar tube; they weren't designed to deal with random EMF inside it, other than their own.
As for "a battery of EM tests for every device imaginable"...are pilots really so superstitious that they think an iPad emits a different sort of aircraft-confounding rays than a ThinkPad or a Palmcorder?
Of course they're revising their safety standards, and they start with a popular device. Just to nitpick, the switching DC-DC converter in a laptop and the little inverter for the CCFL backlight can be some noisy buggers.
Re:Aircraft electronics (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny you should mention that card. I'm glad I already know the (not complicated) instructions since the completely wordless cards are actually harder to understand....