Hey ToUtemFollow

Don't look down!


You have this problem?

We have the cheapo ones too, but on the news it showed that this was an industrial strength jobby

"People might think that this is some sort of amusing prank, but I can assure you that it could have had deadly consequences."

You're kidding me right? People don't think it's a prank at all, they really don't know that shining the thing at an aircraft is dangerous in any way. I'm sure the kid didn't shine the thing on the helicopter thinking "Hey, I'm going to blind a pilot today!", more like "I wonder how far this will go, I need something to aim at, oh hey! There's something!".

He just aimed it at the first distant thing he saw, probably to see if he could see the beam and follow a moving object with it.

The fact that this kid got 4 months for that is retarded. Was it dangerous? Yes. Is it common knowledge that it is dangerous? No. Was it intentional? I doubt it.

This was not a crime, it was a combination of an unnecessarily powerful product and lack of knowledge, and an understandable lack of knowledge at that. This warranted an apology, not a jail sentence.

Yep. Been lazed and dazed, so to speak. The little red penlight lasers aren't the problem. Their footprint at 100 yards is about 1-2 feet in diameter, but the handheld industrial lasers can dazzle you at a half mile with a footprint of an inch or so. I got hit a few years back in Palo Alto while heading to Stanford. I was seeing stars even after I landed. Even at the end of my shift I was still getting residual retinal patterns when I closed my eyes.

In the Iran-Iraq war the Iraqis used mil-spec lasers on opposing troops. They'd lase them as they made their way towards their positions and then machinegun them once they stopped.

Back at Ft. Rucker we were forbidden to lase wildlife because it was causing a lot of blindness in the deer and birds in the local area. You could hit a bird with a jolt and it'd fall off the branch it was sitting on or out of the sky because it couldn't see to remain upright. Not that I did that or anything...
/looks askance

Totem

Actually it is a Federal crime to interfere with the operation of an aircraft either on the ground or while in the air. There is no parsing the definition of the law in this regard.

There may be when it doesn't occur in the US or involve any US citizens...

I'm reasonably sure the AG doesn't fly over to the UK after reading a story like this and lug the kid to Gitmo.