On 3/27/2013 8:46 PM, Mark Bayern wrote:
I do wonder what US Airways and the FAA think about a pilot engaging in a hobby while flying an A330 full of passengers? Being distracted while flying has been an issue:
There are several well trained pilots on commercial airline flights, and under "normal" conditions, I suspect things are pretty boring in the cockpit. It's when things go wrong that those guys earn their money. Many years ago, I worked as a photographer for a guy who was a pilot for American Airlines, and who shot lots of great photography from the cockpit. His part time gig was running his own A/V production company, where I was his employee.
In today's world with a fixation on security and extensive scrutiny of even the slightest fault, we should remember that it was not always thus. There were, for example, instances of hams taking rigs on board an airliner and receiving permission of the captain to use them. And there have always been pilots with ham tickets who have fired up their ham rigs when things are slow enough to justify doing so.
Yes, the OFFICIAL use of radio equipment on board an aircraft for purposes of operating that aircraft requires type acceptance, but last I looked, the Captain of an aircraft (or ship) could authorize use of other radio gear onboard for other purposes. It's a judgement call, and requires that the captain be technically competent and able to assess that the passenger is also.
Many is the time that I've used a pocket portable FM RX onboard a commercial flight to tune in NPR stations on the bottom 4 MHz of the FM band, understanding that my local oscillator would be below the frequencies used for navigation, and thus incapable of causing interference to inflight communications. I wouldn't have dreamed of tuning higher in the band, both because the local oscillator could interfere, and because I had zero interest in the crap those stations transmit. :)
73, Jim K9YC ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
