Originally Posted By: Tim
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).


The Wikipedia article goes into detail about that, too. It seems to say: "devices are banned until FAA can conclusively prove they won't kill anyone", rather than "devices are allowed until FAA conclusively proves they have killed someone". And yeah, I see how you can't really test all the devices with all the airplanes. That would be an interesting test matrix. As a QA guy, it makes me shudder to think about it.
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Tony Fabris