xkcd #3030: Lasering Incidents
xkcd #3030: Lasering Incidents
I still don't know how the police found my compound where I ran an illegal searchlight depot/covert blimp airfield/fireworks testing range.
...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.
"That UFO just entered stealth mode!"
plenty of aviation-related comics lately, I wonder what Randall has been doing
Maybe Mentour pilot plunged him into a deep rabbit hole
Mentour Pilot and What’s Going On With Shipping are my two favorite rabbit holes
I wonder if it’s in reaction to people shining lasers at suspected ‘UAPs’ that are almost all planes.
this one wasn't really easy to read on my phone, so I'm downloading and sending it here
When will they equip planes with auto targetting lasers to instantly blind dumbasses who do this?
when the legal system stops prosecuting extremely negligent companies for hurting innocent bystanders in pursuit of prof... shit.
Allegedly negligent companies. The whistleblowers keep suiciding themselves for some inexplicable reason...
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.
The title text sounds like styropyro. Wonder if he's working on a blimp...
So are they actually catching a meaningful portion?
https://www.laserpointersafety.com/latest-stats/latest-stats.html
l'd assume not, given that the rate of incidents appears to be generally increasing. Unless there are just a lot of new people who really badly want to shine a laser for the first time at an airplane each year.
We want Green Marios
Not Green Lasers
A covert blimp airfield? I have so many questions…
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.
You know what else sometimes flies low over residential areas?
737s coming in to land that are full of everyday slobs relying on two now-blinded pilots up front to get them on the ground during a critical phase of flight.
And terrain mapping flights. Thousands of scientific, geologic, and geographic flights take place around the world on a weekly basis.
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.
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...