Reply #49: Gee, I have flashlights that will light up the whole cockpit.

[Thor_MN]

The size of the beam has nothing to do with the power of the laser. Depending on how the optics are set up, you can either have a pinpoint or a wide beam. It can be visible in either case.

The limits of physical possibilities are NOT limited to any one person's imagination. Just because it's beyond a person's comprehension does not mean it's impossible.

Consider that there are any number of FLASHLIGHTS that are visible from over a mile. They will not light up a darkened room at that distance but they ARE visible. And that is what we are talking about, a pilot looking out the window and seeing a flash of light from a laser. Did it light the cockpit up with green light? No, but the pilot was able to see it by looking directly at it.

The fact that no passengers have reported laser lights would tend to support the idea that the beam was coming from directly ahead of the aircraft. There are a lot more passengers looking out the windows than pilots. And that would be the directions that it would be easiest to aim, since you would only have to adjust in elevation.


A distant friend of mine owns a shop that does custom laser wood burning. I doubt that he has any sort of special clearance to buy his equipment - he just went out and bought it.

You could too

http://www.beamdynamics.com/
http://www.eurolaser.com/
http://www.prima-lasers.co.uk/

Take the guts of any of the machines that these companies offer, or find out where they buy their supplies. Better yet, if you are intent on commiting crimes, find a company that does laser cutting and steal the laser out one of the machines.



The things that I am arguing against here are:

1: you need some sort of special equipment to track a plane.

2: That you couldn't possibly hit the eyes of the pilots from the ground.

Both concepts have been proposed on a "Gee, that would be impossible" basis, as convincingly as arguements for intelligent design. "I can't picture how that could happen" is more a statement about a person ability to think than any sort of evidence supporting their arguement.

Note what I haven't said - that is would be possible to do this with a cheap discount store laser pointer or level. I'm not saying that this would be a trivial thing to do, but it IS possible.