Texting While Flying vs. Texting While Driving

[kscessnadriver]

Ya' know...I'm gonna stop trying to convince ya' all that it is best for everyone to follow the rules. Ya' all go ahead and text any time you want. Not me!

If I didn't text while flying, there are multiple times I would have ended up not being able to land, due to a lack of ground crew. That would have resulted in crashing the aircraft for no reason, other than not texting to the ground to tell them the plan had to change.Quite frankly, its safer for me to text at times.

[Janet Davidson]

So how did crews manage before texting? Did they keep crashing?

[Frank Giger]

Okay, seriously, it's a matter of prudence.

For me it would be insanity, since I fly straight VFR below 3,000 AGL.* For someone that's all auto-piloted and more or less monitoring the aircraft rather than flying it, I don't think a short text is going to make the aircraft enter a spin.

I'd equate it with sipping on a cup of coffee or looking at a sectional; one more distraction to be careful of.

I'm also sort of a luddite when it comes to cell phones. I am very conversant with PC's, administer my own webserver, blah blah, but working "smart" phones is bewildering. Mine is the most simplistic flip phone available to our plans, with nice big buttons and simple options.

* Straight VFR is not to be confused with straight and level flight.

[martymayes]

So how did crews manage before texting? Did they keep crashing?

Obviously, the crew of the Hindenburg didn't send a text to Lakehurst before arrival.

[Mike M]

For someone that's all auto-piloted and more or less monitoring the aircraft rather than flying it, I don't think a short text is going to make the aircraft enter a spin.

winter of '92. no autopilot, but had a copilot in a beech 1900. 400'/3 with blowing snow at KCOS using the ILS landing to the north. first try, waved off at the marker because the needles started drifting. back around, fly it myself this time, everything looking good, then the needles started drifting again. up and around, "want to go to kden?" "no, let's try it one more time." copilot's turn. just before getting to the marker, i dropped the plates book and reached back to pick it up. pax in the first seat behind copilot is dialing his cellphone. copilot says "there go the needles again!" "HANG UP THE @#$% PHONE!" and the copilot says "they steadied back up". after we got to the gate, i asked the guy what he was doing. "calling my wife to let her know we were landing"

your mileage may vary.

[kscessnadriver]

So how did crews manage before texting? Did they keep crashing?

They were severely limited on operating ranges. Long story short, I'll continue to text while flying. Let the FCC come find me. The FAA sure as heck isn't going to enforce rules from another agency.

[Mike M]

They were severely limited on operating ranges. Long story short, I'll continue to text while flying. Let the FCC come find me. The FAA sure as heck isn't going to enforce rules from another agency.

Commerical?

[teknosmurf]

Ya' know...I'm gonna stop trying to convince ya' all that it is best for everyone to follow the rules. Ya' all go ahead and text any time you want. Not me!

As far as I understand it, for our little GA aircraft and not for commerical flights, the FAA says it is up to the pilots discression to determine if equipment is adversely affecting the flight.

ILS landing to the north...there go the needles again!" "HANG UP THE @#$% PHONE!" and the copilot says "they steadied back up".

As someone else stated, prudence is the key. That pax should have been told to keep his phone off...no doubt. The pilot had no way to tell that it would not affect the flight, therefore the rule SHOULD be enforced. Buf for nice VFR, when the pilot has things under control, this doesn't even apply. Heck...I don't even have needles in my plane, therefore the phone can't affect them.

Some could say that those darn needles are more of a distraction than a simple text message. Just use the GPS...oh wait...to much technology and button pushing again?

BTW, I am not advocating people start having conversations either. I have sent maybe 2 or 3 texts the entire time I have been flying. I just hate being limited on something that could be useful when used WITH common sense.

[Janet Davidson]

They were severely limited on operating ranges

Hmmm - the R34 made it all the way from East Fortune in Scotland across the Atlantic to New York sans cell phone. Tho' they did have a cat on board - maybe it's whiskers were antenna

[justinvon811]

This thread is such a big topic and I feel like not enough reason, common sense, or public facts are being used...

I have a two pronged idea about this whole topic so before it get's lengthy, bear with me... I'm one of the newest generations of pilot's, I'll admit, but having over 23 years experience with aviation with everything from flying Super Cubs across the country and landing on anything grass, to landing my Part 121 Jet doing a Cat II approach while talking to New York Approach Control, I'd like to think I have a bit of perspective on aviation. I understand aviation (and this fourm) services a wide age range, and I'm not taking shots at anybody. That being said...

Part 1: Common Sense

Texting is sort of a new (past 5-10 years) trend. Who's going to be more apt with this sort of technology? How about the newer generation... (I'll admit right here, I was not quite out of diapers when Voyager flew around the world) After my own personal attempts at teaching my parents to text, I can safely say (and I think we can ALL agree) that technologies are learned at different rates for different age groups. Some people text better and faster than others, young one's in particular. This one should be simple enough when it comes to flying and texting, but it's not it seems. Ask any 10th grade, high school girl and ask her to text the first page of your favorite novel while not looking at her thumbs or the telephone. I'd almost put money on the fact she could do it in under 3 minutes with 85% grammatical perfection. (More than sufficient for text messages )

I towed banners for years to build time. Anybody who has ever done that sort of flying know's what I'm talking about and would probably agree on how texting while doing 45 mph in clear and a million weather really helps pass the time when we would fly "8 Hours a day".

Now I'm not saying if you're a 20 hour student pilot, white knuckled, and barely legal to buy tobacco, you could text better than most. Or if you're a several thousand hour pilot, in the soup and getting bounced around to bits, shooting an NDB approach, at night, near water, in a thunderstorm, that you should text at all!! (or even be there!)

This is the common sense, I feel like it shouldn't have to be beat to death. Personally, I feel if it isn't a crucial phase of flight, you don't take 5 minutes to send a one word text message, and feel like safety is not being compromised, have at it! Text til your thumbs bleed!

That leads me to the nay-sayers on some safety issues...

Part 2: The Technology/Safety Issue

Mythbusters is a great show... Probably not a board certified/peer reviewed/super scientific method of fact finding, but still a fairly legitimate source of information. There was an episode where they built a mock cockpit, got together with a local avionics company (for actual aircraft equipment), and tested how cell phone signals interfered. They had a cell phone signal generator and even amplified the cell phone signal 1000x to try and create interference but could still receive the nearby SFO VOR signal.

http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2006/04/episode_49_cellphones_on_plane.html
http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/db/transportation/cell-phones-interfere-plane-instruments.html

Cell phone on an airplane myth? Busted...

Aside from the theatrics of TV, it's a simple fact of using different frequencies! I'll just regurgitate some private (commercial maybe? I can't remember) pilot information that I'm sure we can all recite from memory

VOR (ILS) Navigation: 108.00-117.95 Mhz (VHF)
Airband Comm Freq: 118.00-137.00 Mhz (VHF) Why don't our voice communications knock out our LOC or Glide slope when we transmit? Duh...
GPS (yes, it uses frequencies): 1575.42 & 1227.60 Mhz

(drum roll please...........)

Cell phones (slightly paraphrased): 700, 800-900, 1300-1500, 1700+ Mhz... All of which in Mhz.

As you can see, NOWHERE near VHF Comm or Nav frequencies... There are some that think new 4G cellphone technology uses frequencies a little too close to the GPS frequencies, and might cause interference (yet to be shown or proven, just hypothesized). That is a topic for another post though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_frequencies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_signals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airband
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHF_omnidirectional_range

To summarize, I feel like texting while flying is all up to the PIC. There will always be cockpit distractions and managing them is part of what we are as pilots. Texting while flying show's nothing to your stick and rudder or overall flying skills, but is something that should be done on a personal basis with safety in mind. I personally text all the time when flying for fun, and it's situational as some people have already discussed. There is nothing about it that is inherently stupid. It's like age old firearms adage...

Gun's don't kill people, people kill people...