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...
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