Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
The reason for the rule is because of the way that mobile (cell) phones work; when they lose contact with a base station they increase their transmitter power in an attempt to reconnect - you've probably notice that if, for example, you're on a ship and out of contact with the network, your phone's battery will run flat very quickly. Imagine a plane with 400 phones on board, all transmitting a maximum power to attempt to contact a base station - that's a considerable amount of electrical interference to deal with.
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Are planes really that sensitive??? I've seen designs for EM pulse weapons to be used against the electronics on planes - they're not small weapons and usually involve super magnets, liquid nitrogen and large lumps of metal fired by explosives. The idea of 400 phones bringing a plane down seems odd to me. Do passenger planes send signals via wires or fibre optics? I'm guessing that fibre optics aren't affected at all. Also aren't planes built to withstand lightening strikes and surely these are a smidgen more powerful than a few phones.
I'm pretty sure the numbers for those forgetting to turn their phones off are much higher than 1:1000 as I've done it myself a few times
Perhaps I should thank my lucky stars that the plane stayed in the air.