AOPA advocates in-flight mobile phone use

kirk.stant wrote:
Oh, great, now we'll have all those bugsmasher pilots talking on their
cells while flying VFR - forget about visual lookout anymore!

Newsflash! The bug smashers are already doing it, and visual lookout is
surely suffering in a few cases. It's not clear that most of these
pilots were doing a lot of looking out before they turned on their cell
phones, however, so safety may not be affected much!


It's already been documented that driving a car while talking on a
cell is more dangerous that driving with a .08 blood alcohol level.
But I guess AOPA thinks pilots are different...

I haven't read AOPA's position any further than the two short articles I
referenced, so I can't speak for them; however, even if the pilots might
not be any different, the situation certainly is. Flying an airplane
simply does not involve the close attention driving a car does, except
close to airports, so I don't think we can apply studies done for
driving to flying.


Turn the damn thing off until you need it!

Still good advice, except "need" means very different things to
different people. I suggest "you need it" should mean "safety will be
enhanced". Besides the obvious things like dealing with a radio failure,
I include calling my wife to make a position report if I can't get the
information to her by radio.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA
* Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly
* "Transponders in Sailplanes" http://tinyurl.com/y739x4
* "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org