Electronic Bogeyman Gone?

[Bill Greenwood]

The news reports a story in the New York Times, that the FAA may soon allow some use of electronic devices on flights.
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D.-Mo. has been urging the FAA to modernize this way, and give passengers the same rights as pilots and flight attendants.

For years the FAA has told passengers that I pads and such were the equivalent of the Bogeyman under the bed. Some part of the public even believed this myth, others just went along as there wasn't much choice.

It was ludicrous, but that never slowed down the govt. folks that for 5 years claimed that Bob Hoover was unfit to fly as a pilot, and for decades claimed that it was unsafe for pilots over 60 to pilot an airliner. If anyone doesn't mind bringing a few facts into the argument, airline pilot age was first upped to 62 , then to 65. Now if the all knowing govt was correct you would think there would be airliners falling all over us due to those too old pilots. But on the contrary, there hasn't been a fatal crash of a U S major airline in over 3 years.

If the FAA were now to admit that they were wrong, they'd lose face, but then again, as far as this matters goes, they never did have much logic on their side.

I don't use many electronic gadgets myself. I don't know how to operate most of them , even if I owned them, and I don't have any desire to use them in flight while riding on an airliner. I prefer to look out the window or read.

But if would be nice to ride on a plane where the flight didn't start out with the officiial version of a hoax, that many, if not most people no longer believe in.

In some cases the FAA can change when they are wrong. After passengers were repeatedly stranded for 8 or more hours being held on planes on the tarmac, Congress finally forced the FAA to make this illegal and it has almost disappeared now.