Originally Posted By: tfabris
Originally Posted By: RobotCaleb
Aside from killing batteries is there any real reason for airplane mode to exist? Mythbusters looked into it and didn't find anything (IIRC). They're not exactly the FCC or the FAA, though.


I had issues with the Mythbusters tests, but your recollection is the opposite of their stated conclusion, which was that some aircraft instruments *can* be affected by RF interference from electronic devices. I'm not sure that a couple of cell phone users is truly an issue for modern aircraft instruments though. I mean, Virgin has WiFi available on their flights for goodness sake.

It's my belief (entirely uninformed belief) that the real reason they prohibit cell phone usage on a flight is the other thing stated in the Mythbusters conclusions: A cell phone that's up high in the air will connect to too many cell towers at the same time. If everyone who got onto airplanes was allowed to fire up up their cell phones, the cell networks would be overloaded by the sheer number of simultaneous cell tower handoffs happening.

One of the biggest reasons is that the testing for interference between every combination of instrument package and cell phone would be prohibitevly expensive. Each single test is outrageously expensive, then you add in the different combinations and it is mind boggling. The FAA requires stuff to be tested to be proven that it isn't going to interfere with the aircraft's systems. I can't really give any more details than that (it was a discussion on an internal news server and that was the only part I really understood).