I still don’t know how the police found my compound where I ran an illegal searchlight depot/covert blimp airfield/fireworks testing range.
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…And that the thing they’re shining a laser at famously knows exactly where it is located, and has two guys sitting in the front seats who are extensively skilled and identifying the range and bearing of things around them.
It’s not like that. At that distance, the beam is wide enough to cover a large part of the cockpit, not to mention the glare. It’s literally blinding light.
Have you ever had a truck flash its lights at you at night? It’s like that, but much, much stronger, and you’re in the most sensitive part of the flight, when if you fuck up, you crash.
What pilots are trained to do is switch off all the lights, so the idiot can’t see you and can no longer easily hit you with the laser. You can imagine that’s not safe either.
In case any one else has the same thought. Using it as a beacon for rescue will not work.
You say that, but once someone on the ground was shining a bright ass flashlight, not a laser but just as bright, at us and they were flashing …—… (SOS in Morse). Apparently we were the 4th plane to report it to air traffic control. I’ve never seen that before or since, but at least that time it worked.
They should make it legal to shine lasers at aircraft. Rich people who fly low over residential areas for a hobby ought to fear for their eyesight.
Those residential areas with houses full of people that planes can crash into and kill everyone on the ground as well as in the air?
That’ll sure show the billionaires… somehow…
Pilots are in general not “rich people”. Many go into debt to get into the profession. Taylor Swift isn’t flying her own jet.
On the other hand, if the eyesight of a pilot gets damaged, it can fuck up their career that they put insane money into - again, likely from debt. Not speaking about having to switch professions and losing a life’s dream.
Drag isn’t talking about passenger and freight aircraft. Drag is talking about hobby aircraft. Rich people don’t fly planes for fun where you live?
That’s what I mean, that’s not rich people. Most of those are going to be training flights, statistically with both the instructor and the instructee being in various stages of “let’s get into horrific debt so I can fly an airliner at some point” pipeline.
The minority of people who fly for fun are going to be doctors, engineers, and people like that who are working their asses off like everyone else, just lucky enough to afford doing this for a few hours every month, that costs a significant portion of their money.
Those people will also be less trained than airliner pilots, thus more in danger of fucking up and dying if you fuck with them.
Let people be.
I worked at a local TV station and we occasionally did coverage at the local airport that had a lot of small planes and no commercial flights. Like you said, we’re not talking about one percenters here. We’re talking plumbers that are way into flying. Not even necessarily someone who makes decent money like a plumber. It could be, just like a person in a menial job who spends all their money fixing up a muscle car, a similar situation.
People who fly small planes, as far as I can tell, do it because they’re super into flying planes. It really has nothing to do with their economic status beyond “has enough money to buy a small plane.” If you get an ultralight that you can just tow to the airport and don’t need a hangar for it, you’re talking maybe a $20,000 investment. I’ve seen ultralights for sale for a lot less.
They usually don’t even have that kind of money here. It’s either a group lease or mostly rentals. But yeah, GA pilots are a very dedicated bunch. And they are usually good people too.
Rich people don’t fly planes for fun where you live?
not really. Can’t remember the last time I saw a plane that wasn’t a 747 or similar
So you don’t have little Cessnas that fly in circles over people’s houses for shits and giggles?
No, that’s usually a rural thing. And those are usually cropdusters manned by farmers who, while I may not agree with politically speaking (based on the 8500 flags per section of irrigation), are doing a very expensive component of their job. And even then it’s usually farmers with massive acrages that necessitated a plane over a Sprayer Tractor. They might do tricks and stuff when turning around but excessive trick flying about is how you wreck your plane.
Sure some wealthy people do have these private little planes/helicopters for recreational use. But they’re far from cheap and still must answer to the FAA during flight. They pay insurance by the hour when in flight, and lying/fudging numbers can cost your pilot licence. (Google says it can take about 6 months for your 20 hours of practice flight time you pay for, totalling approximately $10-20k)
If you have an issue with a pilot flying too low, call the local airport, Tower Control might just find out a new plane owner has not reported their flights.
If the pilots don’t want to be blinded, they can negotiate with the people on the ground. Lasers are the only weapon most people have to fight back against aircraft violence and seek an equitable resolution. Pilots shouldn’t be above the rest of the world, detached from all the consequences of their actions.
