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Fox: Commercial Pilots 'attacked' with laser
Fox News | Greta Van Susteren

Posted on 09/28/2004 8:12:49 PM PDT by ableChair

Greta Van Susteren reported that a Delta pilot enroute to Salt Lake City was lazed in the cockpit this last Wednesday. Only country I know that has that hardware (for lazing bomber pilots) was the Soviet Union. Pilot reportedly required medical treatment and this was not a minor injury (weak laser) wound. More will come out to tomorrow as this story hits the print press.


TOPICS: Breaking News; US: Utah
KEYWORDS: airlinesecurity; dal; kapitanman; laser
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To: Grampa Dave
Who in the Department of Defense is responsible for faking a photograph and causing the Pentagon public-affairs office to mislead the American people about the lasing of a U.S. Navy officer, and why?

The list of "why's" from the Clinton Administration keeps growing... Oklahoma City, TWA 800, Kapitan Man, and more and more....

What makes me angry (in addition to these cover-ups) is that fully 1/2 of our voting population are happily unaware of these things and could well elect another President who will continue the same failed policies of that horrible era; and that is EXACTLY part of the plan the Clinton(s) hatched when they were running things in Arkansas... arrange education (or lack of) to suit their Socialist purposes.

301 posted on 09/28/2004 11:23:33 PM PDT by Arizona Carolyn
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To: spyone
Of course you're right. They (Clinton admin) limited the search time on the ship and when they encountered a "locked room" the search team didn't insist on a key to open the room saying later the "agreed-upon" time frame for the search was such that they didnt have time to wait...

IMO the fact the Clintons actually "asked for permission from the Russian embassy to perform the search was reprehensible.

302 posted on 09/28/2004 11:27:09 PM PDT by Arizona Carolyn
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Comment #303 Removed by Moderator

To: Kirkwood
the light is attenuated by the square of the distance from the source,

The inverse square law does not apply to a collimated beam. Diffraction would affect it, but not very much for a wide beam (10 cm or so).

blinding lasers are going to be either UV or IR and therefore invisible to the pilot.

Why would anyone use a UV or IR beam to blind someone behind UV and IR absorbing glass. Wouldn't they choose a visible wavelength?

304 posted on 09/28/2004 11:29:29 PM PDT by Dan Evans
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To: Arizona Carolyn

"What makes me angry (in addition to these cover-ups) is that fully 1/2 of our voting population are happily unaware of these things and could well elect another President who will continue the same failed policies of that horrible era; and that is EXACTLY part of the plan the Clinton(s) hatched when they were running things in Arkansas... arrange education (or lack of) to suit their Socialist purposes."

You are too kind as probably 60% of our voting population is not aware of this and would laugh at any of us who bring up this "old" data.

This is the big danger if Kerry becomes president. More rampant and even more dangerous attacks by those not friendly to America would happen. The MSM would bury any event not to embarrass Kerry.

Also, I reposted this FR old laser coverage to show that FR has been exposing the lies and spiked news way before the forgeries used by c BS were exposed here on FR.


305 posted on 09/28/2004 11:30:43 PM PDT by Grampa Dave (When will the ABCNNBC BS lunatic libs stop Rathering to Americans? Answer: NEVER!)
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To: ableChair
Would this be ChiCom doing?

Red

306 posted on 09/28/2004 11:34:19 PM PDT by Conservative4Ever (With Rather doing all this backpedaling...he should be wearing pedal pushers.)
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To: blackdog


307 posted on 09/28/2004 11:35:25 PM PDT by bunkerhill7 (bounceoff)
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To: Arizona Carolyn

Add to that the N.Korean bribery, the Los Alamos spying, the giveaway of the Panama Canal, the Riad illegal contributions issues, the non response to terrorist acts against the country from 93 onwards, Clinton meeting with the CIA director once, what other conclusion can a reasonable person come to other than there have been and are traitors at the highest levels in this country? Depressing. Shocking. Scary. Not discussed or noticed.


308 posted on 09/28/2004 11:35:31 PM PDT by spyone
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To: Conservative4Ever

dont' know.


309 posted on 09/28/2004 11:41:04 PM PDT by ableChair
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To: Chemist_Geek
The laser was fired from a ship, not a plane.

Good thing I put in my little IIRC disclaimer...

My memory is worse than I thought.

310 posted on 09/28/2004 11:43:00 PM PDT by abner (http://www.swiftvets.com or http://www.wintersoldier.com)
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To: Grampa Dave; spyone
Reference to Gertz at 223

Daly's site at http://www.ltjackdaly.com/

311 posted on 09/28/2004 11:46:32 PM PDT by PhilDragoo (Hitlery: das Butch von Buchenvald)
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To: ableChair

"The heat energy dissipated by a laser traveling through 5 miles of atmosphere is almost certainly greater than the heat energy generated by a space heater."

How does one respond to this? It doesn't make much sense.

A 50 watt laser with a 0.08" diameter beam has a power density of 50 watts over a 0.005 square inch area.

For your space heater with a 24" by 12" face to have the same power density it would have to emit 2.86 million watts of heat...

The laser produces mostly coherent light meaning the beam does not spread much over distance. Therefore the energy density remains high over long distances.

Your space heater generates random wave length infrared light and it spreads out over distance. As it spreads the power density drops with the square of the distance as it fills more and more area. In other words the space heater's power density drops by a factor of 4 for every doubling of distance.

Most of the energy loss (to the intended target) through the atmosphere is by it being scattered, not absorbed for the laser. Even this is pretty low under clear sky conditions. These loses are constant as percentage of loss until you get to very high energy levels. Far, far beyond a 50 watt laser.

The atmoshpere reflects/aborbs only about 50% of the sun's energy passing through it. That is more than 20 miles of atmosphere. Absortion accounts for 19% of that loss. The power density of solar radiation from the sun at sea level is about 440 mW per square inch. Or about 2.2 mW over the same area as the laser. Therefore the 50 watt laser light is about 22,727 times more intense than the sun at sea level over the area of the laser beam dot. Severe eye damage occurs very quickly.


312 posted on 09/28/2004 11:48:02 PM PDT by DB (©)
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To: PhilDragoo

Thanks!

I'm out of here. This ole Grampa needs about 6 hours of sleep time.


313 posted on 09/28/2004 11:51:41 PM PDT by Grampa Dave (When will the ABCNNBC BS lunatic libs stop Rathering to Americans? Answer: NEVER!)
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To: spyone

And that Clinton and his "advisors" could never pass a security clearance. Now if that doesn't scare the hell out of people I don't know what would???


314 posted on 09/28/2004 11:52:28 PM PDT by Arizona Carolyn
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To: AdamSelene235
My point was if you have a laser that is operating continuously at energy levels anywhere near ionizing the air the pilot, airplane and whatever else would have a nice vaporized void where it hit. Being continuous the energy and power levels would be VERY high.
315 posted on 09/28/2004 11:53:31 PM PDT by DB (©)
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To: DB

Wow, how to reply to that? Do you understand what conservation of energy is? That's not a rhetorical question. I'm serious. Do you know what I'm talking about? I'm not making the comparison you're trying to make. I'm not stating it as fact, I'm merely pointing out that it's hard to imagine a laser fired over that distance not losing energy, in the form of heat, equivalent to the heat generated by a space heater, regardless of the time intervals over which it is evaluated. Let me try it this way...think of the energy of a space heater stored in a 'bank' (bank 1) over some time t1. Now, think of the heat energy dissipated by a laser, despite it's coherency, propagated over 5 miles of atmosphere over some time t2, and imagine that energy stored in a 'bank' (say, bank2). It's hard to imagine bank 2 having less energy than bank 1. Do you see my point now? Trust me, I fully understand the difference between energy and power (I've given you the canonical equations for them) and I understand the energy densities and other interesting geometric facts about lasers. Do you understand what I'm saying? No laser is perfectly efficient; it must lose energy over it's traversal through the atmosphere. Yes, it is just my physical intuition, but it suggests that despite the coherency of laser light bank2 MUST be more energetic than bank1. Pretty simple observation, really.


316 posted on 09/28/2004 11:58:01 PM PDT by ableChair
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To: ableChair

Hey, here's my "credentials"...

I graduated high school a year and a half early by taking the GED and never went back ever again... ;-)


317 posted on 09/28/2004 11:59:44 PM PDT by DB (©)
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To: ableChair
metal should take NO WHERE NEAR 10 exp 16 watts to burn.

Depends on the pulse width and the beam width. If the pulse is a microsecond and the beam disperses enough and if they expect the target to be a polished surface over ceramic then it might require that.

318 posted on 09/29/2004 12:00:25 AM PDT by Dan Evans
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To: finnman69

Seems like a dream weapon for the Terror enemy. Maybe this was a test if it indeed happened. Certainly isn't what we have been looking for.


319 posted on 09/29/2004 12:00:48 AM PDT by AmericanVictory (Should we be more like them, or they like us?)
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To: DB
Oh, btw, notice that:

t1=t2

need not be true. You can pulse the laser, you can draw it out over time, you can choose whatever energy density you like. The objection I have is to your assumptions about how efficiently a laser can transfer energy through media (like air).
320 posted on 09/29/2004 12:04:50 AM PDT by ableChair
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