[geeks] gps on plane

[Francisco Javier Mesa-Martinez]

On Sat, 26 Jul 2003, Thomas Gallaway wrote:

> That whole thing with electronics on planes does not make any sense at
> all. I did fly a lot last year and I a few times had my gps hooked to
> my laptop with a mapping software. Was rather cool to see where you are
> right now in the air and how fast the car was moving on the map ;-)

It is a case of being safe rather than sorry. You are sitting on a
biiiiiig aluminum block, i.e. the plane itself can behave like a nice
signal repeater for some nasty non well isolated RF. Most of the time
nothing will happen, but when it comes to play with a machine that it is
flying at several hundred miles, over thousands of feet of air and is full
of gas and people, well... I just rather not add anythign to the mix. :)