This happened last week and is "being investigated", according to Gertz.
Hmm, "en route to SLC .. ", implies at cruising altitude; many commercial planes have pretty poor views from cockpit, wonder what made pilot look down ? Or did it come from another plane ?
When someone besides Greta "Trial of the Century of the Week!!!" Van Blustern mentions this, I will give it the consideration that it deserves.
A high intensity laser could burn a hole in eyeball....
First hand the beer over to your friend...
Next take any of the first crop of laser sighting devices and point it at your eye in a mirror...
You will be in pain...and probably fall into the bathtub if you arent carefull and did this in the bathroom mirror
Your friend will probably say something like "Whoa!...that was AWESOME"
Now imagine a really big laser hitting you in the eye....and you are a pilot...
The military uses goggles designed for protection against such lasers as well as rifle scopes that will protect the user from being 'lased' will sighting...
God knows how they hit the plane with one, though.
Sorry... I had to get that out of my system.. It's an optical engineer thing.
Any visible laser can pose a hazard to a pilot; especially at night. The beam can light up the entire canopy and temporarily blind the pilot. Thus it is illegal under Federal law to illuminate any vehicle with a visible laser (Or a non-eye-safe IR laser.) without the permission of the driver or pilot.
Here is another one:
Report: N. Korea Fired Laser at U.S. Warplanes
Tuesday, May 13, 2003
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/5/13/74427.shtml
On the eve of a meeting between President Bush and South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, it has been revealed to the Washington Times that North Korea's military fired a laser in March at two U.S. Army helicopters patrolling the demilitarized zone.
According to the report, the laser attack occurred at about the same time that four North Korean jets intercepted a U.S. spy plane and attempted to force it to land in North Korea.
Reminds me of the warning label found on more-powerful lasers produced for less-intelligent users:
CAUTION! Do not stare into beam with remaining eye!
OK - I have to weigh in here, and please understand, I mean no offense to ANYONE here (and yes, I know people say that right before they offend, but I'm really going to make an effort here). I work with lasers, I've read the literature, I've written some of the literature - I don't know if I am an expert, but I have been hired as one, and my clients (including several military customers) have been happy with my performance. That's as close as you get to my credentials in this public forum. That said, here are my thoughts, and although some of this repeats information already here, I'll try to be complete:
IF such a device as a laser was going to be used to blind pilots in an aircraft, either permanently or temporarily, it would have to be:
A) Visible (not because the pilots have to see it, but because it has to get through the glass of the cockpit, which filters out both UV and IR)
B) "High power" - not high continuous power, but high pulsed power, and not high compared to those used for boost phase intercept, but high compared to that used for eye surgery or laser pointers. The power would be "high" because the natural reflex of the target would be to close their eyes immediately, so damage would have to be inflicted as rapidly as possible. At sufficiently high levels of power the atmosphere will ionize (this is the kind of power required to perform boost phase intercept on ballistic missiles, for example), but MUCH lower power levels are required to blind humans, and the losses through the atmosphere are much lower at these "lower" power levels. (Was all of that confusing enough??) These lasers are available commercially, and are not cheap, but are certainly within reach of a terrorist organization, or an upper-middle class whacko.
3) Low diffraction, or "spreading" - luckily for the designer of pilot-blinding lasers, this goes with making the beam just a little bit bigger than your standard eye-surgery/laser pointer beam - that is to say, spreading the beam out larger at the point of transmission (together with other appropriate optics choices) helps to reduce the spread of the beam over distance - there's no point in making the beam narrower than you can point it, or than you can hold it on the target during the time of the "attack".
4) Pointed accurately during the "attack" - this can now be accomplished with available optical processors and optics with a minimum amount of programming, together with a beam director appropriate to the laser being used - these are now available for a variety of applications, especially for such a slow-moving and high-stability target as a commercial aircraft - these kind of targets used to be hard to hit, and are still nearly impossible to hit with a "hand-held" device like a laser pointer, no matter what kind of aids might be provided, but current technology provides easily purchased solutions for our pilot-hating whackos.
OK - I've probably missed 40 posts by now, so I'll go ahead and submit this, and stand by for flames. Please also understand that if this is being done in the US, this is a serious and credible threat, and it needs to be taken seriously. These components are available, and can be integrated by an average engineer - many of whom are available for the right price. Scary.
a bird of prey that can fire while cloaked?
Yes, Russia has the sophisticated equipment and it's been used against us in the past during the Clinton Administration when a Russian ship coming into Seattle was being tracked by a joint US/Canadian Navy Team in a Helicopter. The US officer was photographing the ship and the Canadains were flying the helicopter. Anyway, the pilot and the American were both badly injured and Clinton Admin covered it up and the people injured were never able to get proper medical care -- some medical care, but not what they deserved. It was also the end of joint projects between USA and Canadian teams. Bill Gertz has a whole chapter on this in Betrayal.
Within the air traffic control system laser activity ranging from test with NASA to laser light shows are routinely conducted and notices are released to the pilots and to air traffic controllers as to the time and place of these occurrences. Altitudes can range from 1000 to FL390 (39,000 feet) or higher. Lateral avoidance distance is usually 5 nautical miles. It would be my guess that either the notice was not properly distributed or that the pilot failed to be familiarized with the notice.
Did you see this one?
The cockpit probably just flew through the reflection off Kerry's new bright orange bottled tan.
Soviets did this some years ago during the Cold war, too.
When lasers are outlawed.....There will be no more Pink Floyd laser shows.
Let's ask our knowledgeable pilot if he has any word on this. This laser incident supposedly happened to a Delta pilot flying into Salt Lake City. Got any info or insight you can add, Pukin Dog?