Remember how right after 9/11, we could not use cell phones in airplanes at all once the door was closed? Even after landing, you had to wait until the plane was at the gate before you could use a phone. According to the FAA, cell phones were dangerous because they could interfere with aircraft electronics. I always wondered how, after the plane had landed, my cell phone could magically make the plane take off again so my phone could interfere and subsequently crash the plane. That rule was so ludicrous that it was stopped a few years later.
We also can’t use ebook readers to this day, and nobody can figure out why. Did you know that pilots can use iPads in the cockpit? I am sure there are useful pilot apps and electronic check lists now. But let’s not allow passengers in the back play games. No.
Here is a good article about electronic emissions of the Kindle and other devices.
The FAA is running out of good reasons, so it is going to have to tell us: “Because I said so!”
Are they worried about terrorists who would communicate among themselves via cell-phones and kindles? As the article says, sounds like “inertia and paranoia.”
If that were the problem, the terrorists could do that after takeoff and landing too. Also, many airlines now provide full Internet access in flight at $15.95 a pop, so terrorists could juse use those and text messages. I don’t think so.
The whole thing makes no sense.