"Would you really get on an airplane if you thought one Kindle switch could take it down? Come on it's just a cruel joke perpetuated by the airline industry."
-Alec Baldwin on Saturday Night live after he had been kicked off a flight last year.
"Alec are you sure this is the right way to handle this? "
"keep going! keep going!" [whispered]
Surprisingly given the amount of gadgets we take on airplanes there is no definitive answer to his question. The aviation industry says portable electronics may cause electro-magnetic interference with aircraft controls. Yet nobody, the FAA, aircraft makers, or airlines, has been willing to pay for a conclusive study that would put the issue to rest.
Here is what we do know - The air below 10,000 feet (the ascent or descent phase of a flight) is more turbulent than at 30,000 feet where we are allowed to turn our electronics back on. A pilot has less time to react at lower altitudes to a possible instrument problem. So even though there is talk of relaxing the rules about personal gadget use on planes until someone proves that personal electronics won't cause an accident none of us will be playing "words with friends" during take-off.
