UKC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35580261

Would it not be possible to find a solution by using the reverse of Laser guided missiles?

Surely if the aircraft knows where it is in 3 D space then if the angle of the laser beam can be measured then a spot on Street map can be determined.
With a few extra sensors and a bit of clever computing on the aircraft then the authorities can start the search on the ground.

In reply to annieman:

I would they suggest they start with any laser light shows going on at the time.... I find it hard to believe that a £10 pen laser can have this impact on a pilot 5-6mins after take-off (just simply the angles involved to get it in the window & in the eye of the pilot) by which point they are several thousand feet up. I understand it's a serious problem for heli pilots and the like, but they fly much lower and slower and the fuselage points down in forward flight.... a jumbo points up (at least for the first minutes of a flight)

In reply to balmybaldwin:

If you'd ever played with a half decent laser you'd have a clearer understanding. I've got a 95mw green which will /easily/ light up a car at the bottom of the road because of the way the laser interacts with the glass when it hits a window. These days you can buy cheap 2000mw (2w) lasers for under 200 bucks that are over 20 times that brightness.. it's not hard to understand at all. 95mw is strong enough for you to see the beam during the daytime. A red laser pointer you annoy your cat with is 1-5mw.

http://www.wickedlasers.com/arctic

In reply to annieman:

It's not a trivial problem but there is enough information freely available to allow a stand-alone device to locate and report ground based high intensity light sources. Certifying and retrofitting it would be eye watering and I doubt it'd actually prove very effective in reality given the report accuracy is likely to be pretty poor.

At fairly low beam angles, corresponding to the most critical flight phases you could get 1000s of meters of error depending on the terrain, for example whether the beam were fired from the 10th floor of a tower block or a back garden across town.

If the solution is to be technical which I doubt I suspect it'll be in the form of altered operating procedure and perhaps some sort of optical filter for one or both of the flight crew but that seems likely to cause more problems than it solves.
jk

In reply to balmybaldwin:


It would cost rather more than a tenner but not a massive amount to buy one which is powerful enough. Has the bonus if you are a cheapskate then it is more likely to be unsafe since it wont have filters to make it slightly less harmful.

In reply to annieman:



Good job nobody has thought of weaponising these things to take down military jets.

In reply to annieman:

Plenty of videos online of similar things. youtube.com/watch?v=-ZKLwGuVp9g&

Having seen footage in the past of helicopter cockpits being completely illuminated by the beam I can imagine it being blinding at night. Lazers aren't a new thing though are they? Not sure why they would suddenly become a weapon of mass destruction.

In reply to The Lemming:

Wouldn't a Military jet have options to follow the Laser? BOOM.

Just a thought.

In reply to Removed User:

Thanks for that, so it's the effect of the laser refracting in the glass windshield - much more plausible to hit that (although still relatively hard and a bit hit an miss I would have thought) and it means the angle isn't really a factor - I was assuming to damage a pilots sight to the extent he couldn't blink it off and continue it had to be a direct hit to the eye.

It does beg the question though why only the one pilot was reported as being affected or has that changed now?

In reply to purplemonkeyelephant:


I think more powerful ones are more easily accessible and a tad cheaper than they were in the past.

In reply to annieman:

I thought you were recommending switching to infrared lasers to avoid detection....

CB

PS: This is clearly a joke, before anyone gets the wrong ideas, and I have no idea why multi Watt lasers are freely available. I would not want to get hit in the eye by a laser beam that can incinerate a piece of paper within fractions of a second, the classic party trick of every laser safety course.

In reply to The Lemming:

They have but, they were withdrawn due to the outcry. Can shoot the plane down with a missile, but blinding the pilot was regarded as a step to far.

I'm sorry but at first I thought you were suggesting a missile which hunted back to the source of the laser. It would probably solve the problem but might be considered unreasonable force.

In reply to csambrook:


Yes. Even the basic guidance part of a typical laser designated weapon would be heavy enough to kill a couple of teenagers. If somebody could design a light and compact item that would dye everything within ten metres then we might have a solution. You've been tangoed!

In reply to annieman:

The UK build of the Typhoon includes a laser warning receiver that can give a baring to the source. No idea how accurate such a pod is, that is could it identify accuracy to a house, or street, or town? Still, it would be sufficient for one fitted to commercial aircraft to briefly dim head mounted visors. A lot of expense and complexity for a problem, but it's hard to see an effective low tech solution.

In reply to wintertree:


Similar penalties for possession of a laser above a certain output to those for posession of CS gas or an unlicenced shotgun? Not beyond the wit of man to draft a law with exemptions for research etc. I'm not a big fan of legislating everything, but I imagine most sales of high powered lasers on e-bay are to utter morons with no actual use for them other than trying to blind people.

In reply to wintertree:

A lot of expense and complexity for a problem, but it's hard to see an effective low tech solution.

A mirror...

In reply to Ridge:


Perhaps - this would hit hobbiests hard however - quite a few people use higher power lasers responsibly at home in various ways (volume displays, DIY laser machining, all sorts of home fun) that don't apply to firearms, and an effective law probably doesn't permit this


On the other hand you are entirely right and its insane what power lasers - with crappy beam quality making them little use to home researchers - morons can buy on eBay.

Perhaps limiting supply to licenses retailers of scientific equipment with some minimum cost to above 5mW to price out morons.

In reply to annieman:


Easily done I imagine. Even a clear bit of video footage from the cockpit would probably be sufficient to identify the house where the laser is.

However, that won't be enough to convict.
"Yes officer, there's a laser in the house but it wasn't ME using it."

Maybe some form of licensing is the answer.

In reply to knthrak1982:


The question is how practicable is it to set up your video camera in the cockpit whilst trying to take off or land and there's all these blinding green lights everywhere?




Regrettably I think that's the only solution.

In reply to Ridge:

A very small part of me thinks there could be a use for them as self defence items for innocent people, but I realise how far it's going to be messing with somebody's vision.

Running from two psycho nutters as a teenager wasn't pleasant though. Perhaps it'd serve them right.............maybe?

Bob Dylan put it right about 'the vacuum of his eyes' - whatever happens with laser legislation.

In reply to Timmd:


The same could be said about CS gas, kubatons or stun guns. The problem is they just get used on innocent people, hence the need for legislation.


Probably would, but you strike me as a nice sort of bloke who'd hesitate to use it, and probably end up getting it used on you.

Anyhow, there are plenty of 1000 lumen 'tactical' torches you can use to temporarily blind assailants with, prior to using it to break their collarbone / nose with if you really feel the need...