Re: FBI investigates laser/aircraft incidents-Slas
Come on guys , its all mature male cow droppings, though it is doin the rounds. Even the U.K. Independent newspaer ran a story about this yesterday.
F.B.I. states risk is low, accoring to ABC news report saw rerun on UK BBC News24 yesterday , one of the , ahem, incidents was an airliner at 10,000 feet. 532 Green has appaling divergence, it spreads wide, at 10K feet through atmospheric disturbance, a high end Surefire would have a tighter beam.
Then of course plane windows dont actually look down, and the plane is travelling at several 00s mph.
The risk is tiny, even with an other laser technology , CO2, Argon Ion, Pulsed Yag, death ray from mars.... power density just dosent cut it, this is the problem for all laser anti missile stuff etc, the ferking thing diverges like a flashlight through air, thermal currents, clouds, plain old distance etc.
Know nothing about guns but sure that there are some high velocity rifles that can manage 10K feet with some accuracy, just need to track a moving aircraft next....
Its just another media deathray story, possibly to make Star Wars programmes look more belivable, but have the net result that lasers for entertainment becomes an even harder game :-(
Adam
