[geeks] gps on plane

[Francisco Javier Mesa-Martinez]

> Well, from the article, only 40 incidents were reported.  Out of how many hours
> of flight time?  None of the effects were able to be duplicated.  In actual
> scientific circles, their case has not been proved.

The problem is that airplanes are a bit different when it comes to
security, you can not come and say 40 times out of 10E3 flights something
which we have no idea and which we can not duplicate happens. Since you do
not know exactly what went on and how to deal with it, it is better to
take that element out of the equation.


 I can understand being
> cautious.  With the guy and the headset......either the headset was faulty
> or the electronics associated with the autopilot was pretty crappy...my guess
> would be shielding since the seat change eliminated the effect.

I assume you could tell the engineers at boeing or airbus how to do it
better, right? J/K I know plenty of people at Airbus and a few at boeing,
and I am pretty impressed by the design and check driven flow. The problem
is that no matter how much you try, there is always going to be someone
that is going to figure out how to make an extra buck by pumping an
even shittier electronic component.... and then it hits the market :).

 They are right
> about the EM soup that planes fly through.  My experience running mobile ham
> radio equipment in my car is that car electronics is NOT shielded in any way,
> more sensitive to interference and the "local" noises (line noise, ignition
> noise from other cars, computer and fluoresent light noise) has increased
> tremendously (S5 background to S9 now) over the last few years.  Imagine what
> a plane hears from overhead!
> I didn't mean to offend by asking for a citation.  Being in the educational
> field, I've heard so much crap ("studies have shown....") that I almost
> instinctively do that at times.  It's amazing what that does to the "experts"
> when they realize want to double check their sources ;->

Do not worry, I was just kidding...I am a PhD student, I am used to
cite and give references, I do not pull stuff out of my arse :). I usually
trust the honor code when I deal with academics, the only time I turn it off
is when I see an "expert" in TV (FOXhole, CNN, etc. etc..) since I am supposed
to take their opinions (and when I watch a news channel I just want news
and the facts, not opinions... I can make my own mind thank you very
much... but I guess that is for another whole thread :) ).