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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from half

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com say they're welcome to text stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Bultium, And today we

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Speaker 1: wanted to look at a topic that has a lot

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Speaker 1: of our listeners interested. I mean they We received requests

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Speaker 1: on this multiple times. Yes, I think that I requested

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Speaker 1: this for myself because it's a topic of interest, certainly

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Speaker 1: with the amount of flying that I do on occasion. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So we're talking about electronics and the F A, A

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Speaker 1: and E, M, I and other uh initialisms occasionally acronyms.

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Speaker 1: Uh yeah. So we're talking about why is it that

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Speaker 1: you can use certain electronics on a plane at certain times,

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Speaker 1: other times you're not allowed to use them unless you

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Speaker 1: reach a certain altitude, and some you're not allowed to

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Speaker 1: use at all. And is playing the Jeweled on your phone?

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Speaker 1: Um really going to make the plane crash? Yeah? Uh.

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Speaker 1: And so we're going to cover all that now. Long

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Speaker 1: time listeners of tech stuff are going to say, hey,

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Speaker 1: didn't didn't you Jonathan and and Chris do something about

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Speaker 1: this long time ago? And the truth is, yes, we

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Speaker 1: did do an episode where we talked a little bit

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Speaker 1: about electronics and planes. But the stories has developed over

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Speaker 1: the years since we recorded that episode. In fact, there

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Speaker 1: was a report in June two thousand and thirteen. That's

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Speaker 1: the year in which we are recording this podcast, right,

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Speaker 1: just a couple months back where we are recording this

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Speaker 1: at the beginning of September, by the way, yep and

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Speaker 1: uh and so back in June, there was this report

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Speaker 1: that initially had everyone all excited because it sounded like

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Speaker 1: the f a A it was going to lift restrictions

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Speaker 1: on certain electronics during takeoff and landing, meaning that you

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Speaker 1: would not have to switch your kindle or your tablet

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Speaker 1: off before the plane was leading the gate right right

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Speaker 1: up until you know, right now, they usually have you

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Speaker 1: turned everything off before you reach ten thousand feet, right,

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Speaker 1: and at that point then you can turn the cruising

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Speaker 1: altitude at which you can turn on approved electronic electronics. Right.

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Speaker 1: There's a little airplane mode and there's a list of

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Speaker 1: approved electronic devices that you can find in whatever, in

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Speaker 1: the back of your whatever brand magazine, yeah, whatever whatever

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Speaker 1: airline you happen to be on. So there was there

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Speaker 1: was talk that they were going to lift those restrictions

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Speaker 1: and not necessarily lift them on all electronics. So in

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Speaker 1: other words, things like cell phones may still not be

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Speaker 1: allowed to be used outside of airplane mode, but other

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Speaker 1: electronic devices would be allowable even when you were below

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Speaker 1: ten thousand feet. However, shortly after that, I think in July,

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Speaker 1: at some point um that A sort of said, hey,

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Speaker 1: we were we need more time to look at this. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they were saying like like it is long overdue for

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Speaker 1: us to look at the effects. However, that being said

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Speaker 1: that we want to do extensive testing before we just

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Speaker 1: say yes, it's it's perfectly fine. Right, So the official

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Speaker 1: report is due out sometime this month supposedly. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: maybe by the time you hear this podcast, it may

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Speaker 1: be that we have an official word from the f

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Speaker 1: a A. But in case that would be really terrific

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Speaker 1: news gathering on on our party. Well it's just from

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Speaker 1: the incredible past. Yes, yes, and in which case you

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Speaker 1: you might say, like, wow, this this episode is a

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Speaker 1: quaint that they're talking about this thing. Um, but we

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Speaker 1: still need to talk about why is there a concern

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Speaker 1: in the first place. And it all boils down to

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Speaker 1: electromagnetic interference or e M I. What is em I? Jonathan, So, Lauren,

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Speaker 1: you may have heard about this relationship between electricity and magnetism.

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Speaker 1: We've talked about it once or twice per episode. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's one of those things that kind of makes electronics work. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: In fact, electric motors and dynamos are all based off

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Speaker 1: this relationship between electricity and magnetism. And of course the

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Speaker 1: basic way of demonstrating this is using an electromagnet, which

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Speaker 1: we have all played with at some point or another.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure even if you don't know it, but if

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Speaker 1: you've ever built one, you know it's simple. You take

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Speaker 1: like an iron nail and you wrap some copper wire

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Speaker 1: around it in several coils, and then you run a

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Speaker 1: current through that copper wire. It will magnetize the nail

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Speaker 1: so that you can use it like a magnet. You

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Speaker 1: can pick up iron filings, anything that's you know that

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Speaker 1: ferro magnetic uh feature to it. You can manipulate until

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Speaker 1: you disconnect the battery, right, in which case the flow

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Speaker 1: of electrons ends through that that copper wire and eventually

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Speaker 1: the magnetic properties fade away. Now, also you can end

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Speaker 1: up moving a copper wire through a magnetic field, especially

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Speaker 1: a fluctuating magnetic field, and that will induce electricity to

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Speaker 1: flow through the wire. So any sort of conductor actually,

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Speaker 1: this will happen if a conductor moves through a fluctuating

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Speaker 1: magnetic field, that will induce an electric current to flow

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Speaker 1: through that conductor. So this is just that basic relationship

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Speaker 1: between magnetism and electricity. Again, so many our electronics really

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Speaker 1: depend upon this. And you need the voltage and current.

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Speaker 1: So current is the actual flow voltage. Voltage is the

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Speaker 1: difference in potential. Right, It's like you know, you get

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Speaker 1: voltage if you plug a lamp into a wall socket,

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Speaker 1: but you don't get current until you switch the lamp

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Speaker 1: on exactly. And then once you switch that lamp on,

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Speaker 1: if you were to have some sort of detector, an

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Speaker 1: e m I detector near that that wire, it would

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Speaker 1: detect the magnetic field. It would actually be or buzz

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Speaker 1: or whatever. And in fact, I've seen kits where or

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Speaker 1: or instructions online where you can build your own e

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Speaker 1: m I detector out of like an ur Duino controller

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Speaker 1: and something like under an hour. Yeah yeah, yeah. So

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Speaker 1: if you ever want a fun and I know that

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Speaker 1: that's fun and quotation marks for some of you, but

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Speaker 1: a fun programming projects something that's very simple, Uh, there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of guides online to building a em

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Speaker 1: I detector using in our dwino as the brains of it,

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Speaker 1: a few other pieces. It's a really clear one and um,

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Speaker 1: I believe popular mechanics while I was researching for this episode.

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Speaker 1: So I'll see if I can remember to link that

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Speaker 1: on Twitter, right, right, and so anyway, the key here

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Speaker 1: and the reason why you would want an eam I

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Speaker 1: detected a couple of reasons. One is that maybe you

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Speaker 1: want to see if any of your devices are using

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Speaker 1: what we call vampire power. That's when the device is

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Speaker 1: continuing to consume electricity even when it's turned off. Right,

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Speaker 1: it's plugged in but still running. Yeah, so there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of TVs, for example, that have vampire power issues.

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Speaker 1: They don't when you turn them off. They're not really

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Speaker 1: all the way off. And the reason for that is

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Speaker 1: so that when you turn your television on, the screen

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Speaker 1: comes on quickly, and it's because there was already a

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Speaker 1: low level amount of power being supplied to the set.

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Speaker 1: If you were to turn that power completely off, the

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Speaker 1: warm up time would be a little longer, and as

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Speaker 1: we know, customers get a little antsy if they have

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Speaker 1: to wait for the t vs right that, or I

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Speaker 1: think some fluorescent bulbs work on similar principles, right. So,

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Speaker 1: so in other words, if you want to be greener

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Speaker 1: or you want to save money on your electric bill,

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Speaker 1: and e m I detector will tell you which devices

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Speaker 1: are still consuming power and if you like, you could

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Speaker 1: set those up on a power strip that is that

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Speaker 1: will truly turn off, because there are plenty of those

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Speaker 1: on the market to where you can buy a power strip,

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Speaker 1: plug your devices that use vampire power into that, and

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Speaker 1: then you just use the power strip to turn shut

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Speaker 1: it off, you know, shut off the real z. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So that way you don't have to worry about any

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Speaker 1: more power consumption. Another reason you might worry about e

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Speaker 1: m I is if you have a medical device that

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Speaker 1: is sensitive to such things like a pacemaker. So people

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Speaker 1: with pacemakers can experience problems that pacemakers can can experience

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Speaker 1: conflicting information when you encounter something like electromagnetic radiation. Right.

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Speaker 1: The way that pacemakers work is it detects your heartbeat,

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Speaker 1: and so if it runs into some a some e

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Speaker 1: m I, it could misinterpret that as either a faulty

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Speaker 1: heartbeat and and if it's connected to a defilibrator give

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Speaker 1: you an unwanted electric shock or even possibly misinterpreted as

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Speaker 1: a healthy heartbeat, and miss giving you a shock that

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Speaker 1: you need right exactly. So this is why you hear

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Speaker 1: about people with pacemakers having to be very careful about

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Speaker 1: the kind of electronics they come into contact with. Usually

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Speaker 1: there are very uh simple rules that they follow, things

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Speaker 1: like if you if you've got a cell phone, you

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Speaker 1: don't let the cell phone get within say six inches

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Speaker 1: of where the device is. That kind of thing. For

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Speaker 1: the most part, it's not a very big deal. It's

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Speaker 1: the kind of thing that you know, the guidelines are like, well,

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Speaker 1: keep your arc welders a good twelve inches away from

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Speaker 1: your chest and don't use a jackhammer. But but but

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Speaker 1: these are things that obviously, you know, you're talking about

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Speaker 1: matters of life and death. So clearly that's why you

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Speaker 1: get these these precautions there. Some of them are perhaps

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Speaker 1: overly cautious, but it's in the sense of the just

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Speaker 1: to make sure a person maintains, uh, you know, a

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Speaker 1: healthy life. This device and you know, anything like a

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Speaker 1: like a cell phone. If you've ever put your cell

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Speaker 1: phone too close to your computer speakers, especially if you

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Speaker 1: have external computer speakers and they're plugged in. If you've

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Speaker 1: bought a pair of speakers that you plug in through

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Speaker 1: say a headphone jack, and you have ever had your

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Speaker 1: phone near them, and you hear this weird kind of

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Speaker 1: electronic stuttering noise goes like dad date Like that sounds

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Speaker 1: like someone's trying to uh. That actually is due to

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Speaker 1: electromagnetic interference. It's when your phone is either sending out

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Speaker 1: or receiving data. So for example, if you're getting text

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Speaker 1: messages or that sort of thing, Um, it's those radio

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Speaker 1: waves that and the signals coming from the phone are

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Speaker 1: interfering with the actual uh fields that are being generated

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Speaker 1: by those wires. Now, you can create really well shielded

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Speaker 1: wires that that block a lot of this interference. Fair

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Speaker 1: day cage technology has come a very very very long

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Speaker 1: way since Mr Faraday. Yeah, so we are able to

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Speaker 1: insulate wires really well so that one we prevent leakage,

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Speaker 1: because that is a thing where where electronics can leak

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Speaker 1: electrons and thus either have errors or they're less efficient

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Speaker 1: as far as power goes. And you can also block interference.

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Speaker 1: So if you've got a really nice pair of speakers

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Speaker 1: or headphones or whatever, it is then that's going to

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Speaker 1: block a lot more of that E m I and

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Speaker 1: you're not going to get those weird little stuttering noises.

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Speaker 1: Uh So the reason why we're even mentioning this is

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Speaker 1: that on your typical aircraft, there are a few different

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Speaker 1: systems that use wires, all of them. As as it

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Speaker 1: turns out, an aircraft is made of electronics, and you know,

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Speaker 1: the the radio when it's talking to ground control and

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Speaker 1: air traffic, the radar, which you know gets the plane places,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of import sure. Yeah, there's uh there's

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Speaker 1: a specific kind of radio, a c n S radio

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Speaker 1: also known as communication navigation surveillance radio that's getting navigation

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Speaker 1: information as the aircraft is traveling. That's a very important

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Speaker 1: piece of equipment. And there are other things as well

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Speaker 1: that could in theory be affected by electronics and specifically

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Speaker 1: electromagnetic interference. So if you have a device that gives

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Speaker 1: off a great deal of E m I and you

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Speaker 1: happen to be in an area where you are near

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Speaker 1: the circuit, yeah, then you could introduce some interference. So

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Speaker 1: that's the biggest fear, right. Well, here's the thing is

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Speaker 1: that most aircraft are shielded pretty well against this sort

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Speaker 1: of stuff. But it's the the concern is still there

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Speaker 1: because again you're talking about a maybe it's a low risk,

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Speaker 1: but it's a high impact problem obviously, so it may

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Speaker 1: not happen frequently, but if it does happen, that could

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Speaker 1: be catastrophic, which again is why we have these these

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Speaker 1: really tie restrictions on electronics. It's not so much that, uh,

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Speaker 1: they are that the government is unaware. The f a

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Speaker 1: A is unaware that most electronic devices put out a

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Speaker 1: very very tiny footprint when it comes to this sort

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Speaker 1: of stuff. They're aware of that, but they're also aware

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Speaker 1: that the the potential outcome of a worst case scenario

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Speaker 1: is absolutely catastrophic. So with that in mind, that's when

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Speaker 1: you you know, you have to try and prevent the

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Speaker 1: worst case scenario from happening. Now, all of this dates

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Speaker 1: back to the nineteen sixties really, and that's when it

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Speaker 1: became pretty clear that handheld electronic devices could be an issue.

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Speaker 1: You see, there are different sources of em my interference

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Speaker 1: or about the same thing, is the same thing as

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Speaker 1: a t M machine or interfere my interference. Okay, there's

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Speaker 1: several sources of em I, not just your you know,

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Speaker 1: cell phone or your e reader or tablet or whatever.

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Speaker 1: There's stuff like lightning. Yeah, and and records about that

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Speaker 1: go back to about the nineteen thirties, I think is

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Speaker 1: when we started having in the United States anyway f

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Speaker 1: A regulations about how to protect planes from lightning strikes.

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Speaker 1: Right now, you know, lightning is a very powerful, powerful thing.

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Speaker 1: Obviously you're talking about incredible amounts of energy when with

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Speaker 1: the typical lightning strike, but even today, like if you

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Speaker 1: were to talk about a direct lightning strike, because planes

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Speaker 1: do get hit by lightning. If you were if you

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Speaker 1: were in a plane and you got hit by lightning,

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Speaker 1: that lightning is going to have a minimal impact on

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Speaker 1: the aircraft because aircraft have been designed since the thirties

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Speaker 1: to resist lightning strikes, to to be able to continue

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Speaker 1: operation with minimal if any interruption in any kind of service,

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Speaker 1: to make sure that you know, we can get there

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Speaker 1: safely from point A to point B. And so I've

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Speaker 1: actually been in a plane that's been struck by lightning.

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Speaker 1: I sitting at a window seat right there by the wing.

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Speaker 1: It was spectacular. Spectacular sounds like one word for it.

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Speaker 1: But and I was a kid at the time. I

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Speaker 1: just thought it was cool, but the kid that would

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Speaker 1: be great, and nothing nothing happened, Like there's not a

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Speaker 1: flicker of lights, nothing, nothing scary happened other than the

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Speaker 1: fact that I saw lightning hit the plane, um, which

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Speaker 1: certain some of our listeners would argue is terrifying, but

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Speaker 1: I thought it was kind of cool at the time.

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Speaker 1: But other things too, Right, well, as we started developing

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Speaker 1: more portable electronics and I'm not talking about your your iPhone,

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about radio and electronic devices that helped to

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Speaker 1: um autonomize flight. Oh yes, which which is what started

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Speaker 1: happening in the sixties, which is why these regulations started

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Speaker 1: popping up. Sure, yeah, that was the rise of two

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Speaker 1: different things, just like you were pointing out the fact

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Speaker 1: that we were getting things like like the automatic pilot

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Speaker 1: type of technology, as well as the fact that the

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Speaker 1: transistor had suddenly made electronics portable. Right, that whole thing,

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Speaker 1: that that thing where computers no longer had to be

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Speaker 1: the size of say, an airplane, they could be a

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Speaker 1: little bit smaller. Or a radio radio is the size

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Speaker 1: of your television console, which is also the size of

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Speaker 1: your Cadillac. Yeah. Right. Also, did I just say autonomate

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Speaker 1: because that's amazing. Well, hey, all I can tell you

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Speaker 1: is that I come from a suburban area. Longtime listeners

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Speaker 1: of tech stuff will appreciate that reference. I still haven't

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Speaker 1: lived that one down, but yeah, we're talking about the

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Speaker 1: fact that that you suddenly had people capable of bringing

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Speaker 1: electronic devices aboard a plane on their person because now

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Speaker 1: they were small enough to do that, and we had

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Speaker 1: these more sensitive devices that were part of plane systems,

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Speaker 1: and it became clear that a something as simple as

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Speaker 1: a compact radio receiver could interfere with VHF omni ranging

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Speaker 1: navigation systems aboard and aircraft. These were studies being done

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Speaker 1: by NASA at the time. Yeah, NASA did this, and

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Speaker 1: so did the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics did one,

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Speaker 1: which at the time was still a actual part of

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Speaker 1: the government. I think at this point in time it's

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Speaker 1: a independent, not for profit company that is tasked with

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Speaker 1: all of their research that the FAA wants done. So

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Speaker 1: the the big paper that came out in the sixties

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Speaker 1: that kind of set the rules for what we think

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Speaker 1: of today, as you know, follow these instructions and you

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Speaker 1: can use electronic devices. The paper is called Interference to

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Speaker 1: Aircraft Electronic equipment from devices carried aboard. So that's where

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Speaker 1: we got this idea that personal electronic devices or peds

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Speaker 1: p e d s are a potential source of malfunction

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Speaker 1: or dysfunction aboard and aircraft. So it's a complicated issue

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies and got more complicated because that's

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Speaker 1: when the aircraft industry really began to look at other

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Speaker 1: sources of e m I, not just lightning strikes, but

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Speaker 1: things like broadcast hours. We have all these different radio towers,

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Speaker 1: television towers, communication towers that are sending out vast amounts

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Speaker 1: of information via radio. Right. The nineteen seventies was also,

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Speaker 1: if you remember from our recent Cutting the Cord Cable podcast,

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Speaker 1: that was when many cable companies started um started transmitting

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Speaker 1: to larger areas. Yeah, so we've got all these different

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Speaker 1: potential sources of e m I, and again the aircraft

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Speaker 1: needed to be shielded against that sort of stuff. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Then then again around two thousand three and two thousand four,

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Speaker 1: when we started seeing more, uh more cellular phones being

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Speaker 1: carried onto planes, that was when we started getting a

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Speaker 1: few studies about these um they call them a transmitting

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Speaker 1: pads or tea pads. Right, which which are transmitting signals

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Speaker 1: on purpose. Right, So you've got two different kinds of pads. Then, right,

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Speaker 1: you've personal electron devices. You've got your kind that will

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Speaker 1: transmit information or or at least rather transmit electromagnetic and

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Speaker 1: interference simply through the operation. But they're not it's that's

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Speaker 1: not their main purpose. It's just a byproduct by the

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Speaker 1: fact that they are electronics. And then you have the

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Speaker 1: the transmitting ones that are specifically things like radios or

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Speaker 1: cell phones, that kind of stuff that are emitting and

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Speaker 1: receiving radio waves or other signals. So, uh, if you

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Speaker 1: look at your list of approved electronic devices, you're gonna

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Speaker 1: see a lot of the pads on there, and uh,

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Speaker 1: for the ones that don't make the list, you're gonna

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Speaker 1: see some teap heads on there. Although there's some changes

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Speaker 1: obviously because now we have things like WiFi aboard planes,

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Speaker 1: and WiFi allows us to use things like you can

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Speaker 1: use a cell phone in airplane mode that can connect

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Speaker 1: via WiFi, or you can use a laptop that has WiFi.

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Speaker 1: So there's some confusion here, at least among the consumer level,

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Speaker 1: about well, why can I use these devices that do

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Speaker 1: have wireless communication standards attached to them, but not these

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Speaker 1: other devices that use different anders. And further complicating it,

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Speaker 1: there's some international flights that will allow you to use

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Speaker 1: a cellular phone for cellular purposes on on a flight,

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Speaker 1: but it's a in that specific case, they're connecting to

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Speaker 1: a ground station that is capable of dealing with the

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Speaker 1: fact that that you're in a five mile per hour

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Speaker 1: what's that like, eight hundred kilometer per hour moving airplane,

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Speaker 1: otherwise you're gonna start mucking up the cellular system. Well,

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Speaker 1: the fact that you'd be doing those handshakes every five

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Speaker 1: seconds as you move from one cellular tower to another.

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Speaker 1: In fact, that's that's also the way that if you've

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Speaker 1: ever been on a plane that had a phone in

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Speaker 1: the back of one of the seats in front of you,

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Speaker 1: where you could swipe your credit card and use the phone,

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Speaker 1: same sort of thing, where it was using specific ground uh.

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Speaker 1: I don't think any of them were satellite phones that

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Speaker 1: would have been pretty incredible, but I think all of

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Speaker 1: them used the ground central control thing where you would,

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Speaker 1: depending upon your position among your flight, you would call

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Speaker 1: into a very specific station. They were also really expensive.

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Speaker 1: Um so NASA when it was looking at em I threats.

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Speaker 1: It classifies threats in three ways. It looks at the source,

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Speaker 1: the path, and the victim. So the source is whatever

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Speaker 1: device is actually generating the e m I. The path

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Speaker 1: is how that e m I travels through space, whether

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Speaker 1: it's radiating out from the device itself or whether it

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Speaker 1: is connected to a to a power line, to a

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Speaker 1: ground line. Right, yeah, whether it's transmitting ground line doesn't

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Speaker 1: count in there. Well, if it's if it's connected to

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Speaker 1: the power source of the plane, or if it's connected

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Speaker 1: directly into some other system of the plane. Because we're

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Speaker 1: not just talking about the electronics that we carry on board.

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Speaker 1: There are electronic devices that are that the crew are

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Speaker 1: using that that can connect directly to flight systems, uh,

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Speaker 1: that sort of thing. But how does that e m

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Speaker 1: I travel from the device? And in the case of

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Speaker 1: all p e D s, really we're talking radiating here,

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Speaker 1: it's it's not directly connected to the flight systems. And

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Speaker 1: then the victim is whatever system would be affected by that.

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Speaker 1: And again, when we were talking about the different systems

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Speaker 1: that could be affected on a plane, one of the

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Speaker 1: most um vulnerable really traditionally at any rate, is that communication, navigation,

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Speaker 1: surveillance radio, the CNS radio. So this is one that

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Speaker 1: of course the name kind of gives it away. It

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Speaker 1: gets it's part of the navigation system for the plane.

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Speaker 1: And errors from e m I could mean that the

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Speaker 1: pilot has erroneous information or that some of his instruments

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Speaker 1: or her instruments are not properly displaying the right kinds

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Speaker 1: of data, which could lead to uh to human error,

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Speaker 1: or it could actually lead to another Yeah, and the

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Speaker 1: computer might might suddenly and see that there are changing

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Speaker 1: parameters and try to adjust for that, when in fact

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Speaker 1: that parameters aren't changing. So that's where the concern is,

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Speaker 1: but doesn't really happen. Well, we'll get into the actual

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Speaker 1: results sort of things. Talk about some actual reported assumed incidents.

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Speaker 1: In some case some some studies, there's little quote marks

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Speaker 1: in the air that have been Yeah, but with some

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Speaker 1: some studies that have been done. We'll talk about those

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Speaker 1: in just a minute. But first let's take a quick

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Speaker 1: break to thank our sponsor, and now let's get back

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Speaker 1: to some e m I information. Some let's really talk

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Speaker 1: about what the documented incidents like, actual documented cases of

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Speaker 1: personal electronic devices causing problems with aircraft. Technically, there are none.

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Speaker 1: I've got a whole bunch of documented ones that maybe Okay,

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Speaker 1: it depends on it depends on what we mean by documented,

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Speaker 1: because in all of these cases, we're we're gonna be

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Speaker 1: talking about studies from several different organizations, and um, as

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Speaker 1: far as I have read, none of them were reproducible

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Speaker 1: in a lab setting. Right. See, here's the problem is

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Speaker 1: that a lot of these are What happens is some

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Speaker 1: error happens, right, something goes wrong on the plane, and

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Speaker 1: then they start to look for the cause. So this

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Speaker 1: is where we get the effect, and then we're looking

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Speaker 1: for the cause. And in those cases, someone aboard the

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Speaker 1: plane was identified as being as using a device near

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Speaker 1: wiring that would have mattered, and so the while there's

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Speaker 1: no direct evidence supporting the fact that the device caused

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Speaker 1: the error, that was the conclusion drawn in these incident reports.

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Speaker 1: So it may very well be that the reports and

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Speaker 1: what happened have nothing to do with each other. It

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Speaker 1: may be that the cause of these errors was completely

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Speaker 1: independent of any sort of personal electronic device use. And

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Speaker 1: in fact, like you said, Lauren, when it comes to

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Speaker 1: trying to reproduce season in the lab settings, we're having

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Speaker 1: some trouble getting stuff to go wrong on purpose. In fact,

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Speaker 1: I think MythBusters did a full episode on this too,

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Speaker 1: where they showed that the devices just don't generate signals

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Speaker 1: powerful enough to really interfere with the typical systems you

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Speaker 1: find aboard a plane today. Now, granted, keep in mind,

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Speaker 1: if we go back five decades, it's a different story.

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Speaker 1: But today we've got planes that are shielded against broadcast

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Speaker 1: transmissions and lightning strikes. Most of them can handle it.

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Speaker 1: If you turn the page so you can find out

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00:24:21,400 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 1: if Tyrian lives another day spoiler alert. No, I'm not

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Speaker 1: gonna do it, you guys, You guys just have to wait.

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Speaker 1: Because George R. Arman and I were buddies, you know.

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Speaker 1: I'm just just don't get too attached, That's all I'm saying.

431
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 1: And and and I do want to say that the

432
00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:40,639
Speaker 1: best correlations that I've read about happened around the midnighteteen

433
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:46,640
Speaker 1: nineties um as a more powerful transmitting personal electronic devices

434
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:49,880
Speaker 1: were coming out, but perhaps before planes had started taking

435
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:52,120
Speaker 1: into account the fact that a lot of passengers would

436
00:24:52,119 --> 00:24:54,919
Speaker 1: have had those right right, so so so there in

437
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:59,200
Speaker 1: the past there could have been some truly legitimate incidents

438
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:00,879
Speaker 1: that we're going to be talking about. In fact, one

439
00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:02,840
Speaker 1: of the things I'm going to talk about specifically looked

440
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:07,280
Speaker 1: at UH incidents between n six and nine. Now that's

441
00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:11,639
Speaker 1: before the smartphone explosion in the in the consumer marketplace, right,

442
00:25:11,800 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 1: We've got to go to about two thousand seven when

443
00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:16,480
Speaker 1: the iPhone started coming out to really get to that.

444
00:25:16,720 --> 00:25:21,440
Speaker 1: It's before tablets, not technically, before tablets were more, tablets

445
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:24,720
Speaker 1: were really a thing. Even your laptop in that area

446
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:28,080
Speaker 1: era was not the easiest thing to carry onto a plane.

447
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:33,960
Speaker 1: But between eighty six and nine, according to NASA, there

448
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:37,400
Speaker 1: were one eighteen e m I incidents on planes due

449
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:42,800
Speaker 1: to pe D interference. UM eighteen is not a lot,

450
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:47,240
Speaker 1: but for than for more than a decade, for all flights.

451
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:50,200
Speaker 1: I mean there are thousands of flights a day. Then

452
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 1: you multiply that by how many days they are in

453
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:54,760
Speaker 1: a year, multiply that by how many years in this study,

454
00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:57,800
Speaker 1: and it's a tiny, tiny amount of incidents. And you

455
00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:02,080
Speaker 1: think about this, I'm guessing that electronics use is not

456
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:06,600
Speaker 1: that rare aboard a plane. But anyway, at eighteen, about

457
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:09,160
Speaker 1: twenty five of those actually twenty five of those exactly

458
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 1: where cell phone related twenty five were laptop related, fourteen

459
00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:19,040
Speaker 1: were related to electronic games, thirteen were tape recorder related,

460
00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:22,159
Speaker 1: thirteen were radio related, twelve were not identified at all,

461
00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:26,480
Speaker 1: seven were CD players and other devices included a dictaphone.

462
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:30,959
Speaker 1: How it really was the eighties, I can't can you

463
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 1: imagine saying next to someone on a plane who's using

464
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:41,120
Speaker 1: a dictaphone? I can imagine that calculator, portable TV, and

465
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:44,680
Speaker 1: one Baldwin who refused to turn his electronic device off

466
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:48,359
Speaker 1: despite being told multiple times to do so. Um, that

467
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:51,040
Speaker 1: actually is not true. I'm just making that part up

468
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:55,959
Speaker 1: because that happened later. So by comparison, Uh, there's another

469
00:26:56,840 --> 00:26:59,679
Speaker 1: report that the f A a put out that looked

470
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:04,040
Speaker 1: at flights between ninety one and two thousand thirteen that

471
00:27:04,080 --> 00:27:09,360
Speaker 1: identified one thirty five incidents. And again, now here here

472
00:27:09,440 --> 00:27:12,440
Speaker 1: we have more than two decades of flights and a

473
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:18,440
Speaker 1: hundred thirty five incidents. Um, and it's just like you said, Lauren,

474
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 1: none of these were necessarily connected by evidence. It was

475
00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:26,359
Speaker 1: all anecdotal. Really, it was the idea that something has

476
00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:30,840
Speaker 1: gone wrong with the instrumentation. Uh. The flight attendants and

477
00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:34,440
Speaker 1: the crew in general started looking to see if anyone

478
00:27:34,560 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 1: was using an electried device, asked them to turn it off,

479
00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:39,960
Speaker 1: and then said things were fine afterwards. But this does

480
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:42,720
Speaker 1: not necessarily mean that there's a causation issue. There, there's

481
00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:46,080
Speaker 1: a correlation issue. We see these two things co related

482
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:48,480
Speaker 1: because they're happening at the same time in the same place,

483
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:52,120
Speaker 1: but that does not necessarily mean that one caused the other,

484
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:55,400
Speaker 1: right right, Um. There was an independent study done by

485
00:27:55,760 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 1: Boeing on um. They received were that that a customers

486
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:06,680
Speaker 1: um quote unquote palm top computer palm top I love

487
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:11,720
Speaker 1: that term um anyway had had had caused the airplane

488
00:28:11,760 --> 00:28:15,600
Speaker 1: to initiate a shallow bank turn, and turning the device

489
00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:18,560
Speaker 1: off made it stop, turning it back on made it

490
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:22,359
Speaker 1: start up again. And and so they were like, no,

491
00:28:22,520 --> 00:28:24,639
Speaker 1: this looks like a thing. But again, in in a

492
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 1: in a laboratory situation, they tried they bought versions of

493
00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 1: whatever palm top computer device were in use, and and

494
00:28:32,920 --> 00:28:35,600
Speaker 1: tried to make it happen again and could not. So yeah,

495
00:28:35,640 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 1: and other studies seemed to follow that same anecdotal approach.

496
00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:43,920
Speaker 1: The International Air Transport Association released a paper talking about

497
00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 1: seventy five cases of aircraft dysfunction between two thousand three

498
00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:50,160
Speaker 1: and two thousand nine. Uh, now that's a six year

499
00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:53,160
Speaker 1: span right there, in seventy five cases, and six years,

500
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 1: while still very very tiny, is more. That's more frequently

501
00:28:57,240 --> 00:29:00,120
Speaker 1: than the other two studies had indicated. But even this

502
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 1: report was just based on airline cruise beliefs that specific

503
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:07,400
Speaker 1: malfunctions were due to the use of electrying devices on board. Right. Um,

504
00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 1: the last time that an official study was done by

505
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:13,960
Speaker 1: the f A A by specifically that Radio Technical Commission

506
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 1: for Aeronautics or I think it's just called r t

507
00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 1: c A these days these days since it's a private corporation. Now, Um,

508
00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 1: they did a study also from two thousand three to

509
00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:28,200
Speaker 1: two thousand nine and concluded that there was insufficient information. Yeah,

510
00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 1: which is always my favorite, my favorite kind of conclusion.

511
00:29:31,880 --> 00:29:35,120
Speaker 1: That's my favorite kind whenever I'm searching for something specific

512
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 1: online and it's just that I have either mispelled something

513
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:40,280
Speaker 1: or put things that make sense to Jonathan but not

514
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:43,880
Speaker 1: to the rest of the world. Uh. Yeah, it's uh,

515
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 1: it's interesting that one of the cases that they talked

516
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:49,360
Speaker 1: about in that I a t A report was that

517
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:53,600
Speaker 1: when a laptop was being used, a plane's clock started

518
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 1: to spend backwards. But I think there might also have

519
00:29:56,960 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 1: been a doctor on board that plane, perhaps with the

520
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 1: song Screwdriver um, or maybe they were they were really

521
00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:05,280
Speaker 1: close to this, to this weird island that a whole

522
00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 1: bunch of people got lost on this one time. I

523
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:09,680
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know. I only watched the first

524
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 1: six episodes of that series, so I only kind of

525
00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:17,640
Speaker 1: get that reference. Yeah, these are again the the fact

526
00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 1: that there were things that happened in the field or

527
00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 1: in the air if you prefer, um that that leads

528
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 1: us to have some concern obviously, but when it comes

529
00:30:27,560 --> 00:30:30,480
Speaker 1: down to trying to actually track down the cause, it

530
00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 1: seems like we're going down a rabbit hole now. Uh.

531
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 1: Passenger behavior suggests that maybe we really need to just

532
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:43,240
Speaker 1: concentrate on shielding the heck out of all the airplane

533
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:46,240
Speaker 1: systems and just go ahead and assume that people are

534
00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:49,880
Speaker 1: going to use their electronics whenever they want, no matter

535
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 1: what the rules happened to say, because spoiler alert, that's

536
00:30:53,280 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 1: kind of what's happening already. Um. The f f a

537
00:30:56,800 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 1: A again did a survey of passengers and found that

538
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:03,400
Speaker 1: only six past years report following the instructions to turn

539
00:31:03,440 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 1: off all electronic devices before take off and before landing. UM.

540
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 1: So that means just under half are not doing that.

541
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: Shame on you. I'm granted. If the rules are silly,

542
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:21,240
Speaker 1: let's let's change the rules. The follow the rules. I'm lawful,

543
00:31:21,280 --> 00:31:24,200
Speaker 1: evil it's it's it's difficult sometimes. I mean, for for example,

544
00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 1: I have a kindle and um, it is this specific

545
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 1: kind of kindle does not have an off button. It

546
00:31:30,080 --> 00:31:31,920
Speaker 1: is physically impossible to turn it off. I can turn

547
00:31:31,960 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 1: off the Wi Fi function um, which I usually keep

548
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:39,840
Speaker 1: off to save the battery life. But U but it

549
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:42,040
Speaker 1: drives me crazy that if I'm sitting there and reading

550
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 1: a book and minding my own business, you know, and

551
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:47,120
Speaker 1: and a well meaning flight attendants will say, hey, turn

552
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:51,480
Speaker 1: that off, and I say, I'll shut it right now. Now.

553
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:53,880
Speaker 1: You have stopped me from reading the thing I was reading.

554
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:56,880
Speaker 1: But I was not using any power. I wasn't using

555
00:31:56,880 --> 00:31:59,360
Speaker 1: any power. And it's not going to make a difference

556
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 1: in the power or usage whether whether I close the

557
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:04,400
Speaker 1: cover and put it down or not. It's you're you're

558
00:32:04,440 --> 00:32:06,800
Speaker 1: only preventing me from doing something that I enjoy. Well,

559
00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:09,480
Speaker 1: the only time that you consume any power with an

560
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:11,320
Speaker 1: e reader that doesn't have its wife I turned on

561
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: is when you turn a page, because that has to

562
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:16,320
Speaker 1: regenerate that inc but once the ink is in place,

563
00:32:16,560 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 1: then it's set. It doesn't need to continually, you know,

564
00:32:20,600 --> 00:32:23,720
Speaker 1: exert power to do that. That's why E reader battery

565
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 1: life is so incredible compared to other electronics. As long

566
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:29,280
Speaker 1: as they're using E paper, right, as long as they're

567
00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 1: using the ink or E paper, then that's why. Um So,

568
00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:36,680
Speaker 1: the fact that passenger behavior has shown that people are

569
00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:41,680
Speaker 1: unwilling to turn things off, whether it's on purpose or

570
00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:45,840
Speaker 1: just through lack of attention or whatever, that suggests to

571
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:48,520
Speaker 1: me that we have to really look at you know,

572
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 1: you just have to assume that people are using electronics

573
00:32:50,920 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 1: on board that plane, no matter what the rules are,

574
00:32:53,040 --> 00:32:55,520
Speaker 1: because otherwise, if you don't assume that, you're not going

575
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:57,840
Speaker 1: to take the precautions necessary to make sure that the

576
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:01,160
Speaker 1: flight is as safe as possible. To be fair, these

577
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:04,280
Speaker 1: devices are useful to the staffs of airplanes as well,

578
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:07,000
Speaker 1: and in fact, many people do use them right right

579
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:10,160
Speaker 1: on American airlines. I think they use iPads in the

580
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 1: cockpit in order to not have to tote around those

581
00:33:13,120 --> 00:33:16,640
Speaker 1: giant paper manuals all the time. And uh, and that

582
00:33:16,840 --> 00:33:19,840
Speaker 1: he does have like a six month clearance process for

583
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 1: forgetting that approved UM through rigorous testing. But I feel

584
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:29,200
Speaker 1: like once you've approved cockpit use for a tablet, it

585
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 1: should be you would think that most of the gauges

586
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 1: at least are I certainly have fewer of them on

587
00:33:35,240 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 1: my seat when I fly. It's so irritating when the

588
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 1: pilot comes back into Row thirty eight and leans over

589
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 1: and says, I just need to look at something really

590
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:45,680
Speaker 1: quickly to make sure that we're going the right way

591
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 1: and it goes up. I hate that, you know, especially

592
00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:53,120
Speaker 1: for those short flights. It's just it's ridiculous. UM. Yeah, no, clearly,

593
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:55,400
Speaker 1: I agree, and we do think that we're going to

594
00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:58,680
Speaker 1: see some looser restrictions on what what devices you can

595
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:00,640
Speaker 1: use and when you can use them. I think that

596
00:34:00,760 --> 00:34:03,560
Speaker 1: cell phones are going to probably be the longest hold

597
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 1: out UM, at least in the the United States. Like you said, Lauren,

598
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:10,319
Speaker 1: there are some other airlines international airlines that allow cell

599
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 1: phone use, but the U S it's has resisted at

600
00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:15,960
Speaker 1: quite I think I think it would be a matter

601
00:34:16,000 --> 00:34:18,840
Speaker 1: of putting down the infrastructure, and that at the current

602
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:24,120
Speaker 1: moment there's not enough UM perceived benefit to actually put

603
00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:26,160
Speaker 1: forth the money to do so. I think most I

604
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:29,120
Speaker 1: think most, Um, I don't know that most people. I

605
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:32,000
Speaker 1: think there are plenty of people who share my mindset,

606
00:34:32,040 --> 00:34:34,880
Speaker 1: which is that please don't let people talk on the

607
00:34:34,920 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: phone on the plane. Please. Certainly, unless I had significantly

608
00:34:40,640 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 1: more space around me on an airplane, I would not

609
00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 1: want my neighbors to be able to be on the

610
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:49,279
Speaker 1: phone for the entire flight. WiFi fine, fine, as are

611
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:52,719
Speaker 1: not using Skype, which they probably can't because usually the

612
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:56,400
Speaker 1: WiFi or the plane is pretty awful. Yeah, anyway, that's

613
00:34:56,440 --> 00:34:58,719
Speaker 1: where we are now, and who knows, maybe by the

614
00:34:58,760 --> 00:35:01,480
Speaker 1: time this podcast go is live, the f a A

615
00:35:01,680 --> 00:35:03,920
Speaker 1: will have lifted some of those restrictions, and Lauren, you

616
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:06,440
Speaker 1: might even be allowed to read your book while the

617
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:10,839
Speaker 1: plane is taxiing to take off. That's ridiculous. I look

618
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:13,719
Speaker 1: forward to this ridiculous feature. I also look forward to

619
00:35:13,760 --> 00:35:18,719
Speaker 1: it because I just recently put in my registration information

620
00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:22,560
Speaker 1: for ce S T fourteen, so I've got definitely got

621
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:25,839
Speaker 1: a flight coming up in my future. Yeah all right,

622
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 1: So guys, that wraps up this discussion about the electronics

623
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:32,040
Speaker 1: in the f a A, and we'll see again how

624
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:34,960
Speaker 1: this plays out. Why don't you guys right in tell

625
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:38,239
Speaker 1: us what you think. Let's know, if you know, are

626
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:41,799
Speaker 1: you one of those people who you just quietly keep

627
00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:45,560
Speaker 1: all your electronics running on full blast. Maybe you're like

628
00:35:45,640 --> 00:35:49,000
Speaker 1: me and one day discovered in midflight that you had

629
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:50,960
Speaker 1: forgotten to turn off your cell phone when it suddenly

630
00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:54,360
Speaker 1: started vibrating in your pants. That happened to me once.

631
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:58,440
Speaker 1: I was very embarrassed. Or maybe maybe you're a person

632
00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:00,760
Speaker 1: who you always follow the rule and you find anyone

633
00:36:00,800 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 1: who doesn't follow the rules to be the most irritating

634
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:05,960
Speaker 1: person on the planet ever at that particular moment, I

635
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:08,799
Speaker 1: also can be that guy. I'm the one who gives

636
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:10,399
Speaker 1: the stink eye to the person next to me who

637
00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:13,960
Speaker 1: that job. Yeah, you know, we all have our we'll

638
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:16,719
Speaker 1: have our flaws, So right in and let us know

639
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:19,399
Speaker 1: what you think. Our email address is tech stuff at

640
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:22,200
Speaker 1: Discovery dot com, or drop us a line on Facebook

641
00:36:22,239 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 1: or Twitter handle there's tech stuff hs W. And hey, hey, hey,

642
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:29,440
Speaker 1: what if I wanted to tumble someplace? You can. You

643
00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:32,080
Speaker 1: can tumble on the fine floor of our podcast studio,

644
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:35,759
Speaker 1: Jonathan Um, or you can in a gymnastics way, or

645
00:36:36,400 --> 00:36:39,560
Speaker 1: you can you can find You can find us on

646
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Speaker 1: W I hit my head All right, guys, Well that

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Speaker 1: wraps this up. We'll talk to you again really soon.

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