Lazer strike at LHR

What does the military do? Special googles or face shield?

 

They need to publicly start sending people to jail for a long time.

 

There have been several that are doing time.

But there is no way to find them unless someone turns them in.

 

They get caught once in a while but when we wuss out and spank their hand it will never stop.

Those guys and computer hackers both I'd say serious hard time in a real live prison, I don't care if they are 12 years old.

 

We had laser goggles/glasses we could wear, but they were optimized for YAG IR lasers at 1.06 microns. Probably would not even see the green, visible wavelength (~0.5 microns) lasers that seem to prevail with all these idiots. Good news is the green lasers cannot hurt the eyeball as badly as the military IR lasers, which can burn a hole in the back of your eye, leaving a permanent dead spot. Plus our lasers are much more powerful than the available green lasers.

If you wanted to block the 0.51-0.53 micron range, the result would probably be opaque. Note there are goggles fast enough to do that electronically, but those close a shutter, not a good deal for a pilot landing or taking off.

 

I wonder why it took them over an hour to decide to turn around ??

 

When you are dazzled, it is difficult to tell whether the effects are short or long term.

Incidentally, laser is actually an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. We used them for decades without realizing florescent tubes were essentially lasers except the shutter at one end was missing.

 

Not really true at all. Because of the focusing properties of the eye (100,000X), and because anything in the visible to IR range makes it past the cornea and lens (UV does not, and hence burns the cornea and in some wavelengths, the lens), even very low mW green lasers can permanently damage the retina. A burn can occur before the aversion reflex, which is greater than 0.25 seconds, has a chance to prevent the damage from occuring. Low energy green lasers, which have become ubiquitous, can and have caused many permanent retinal injuries.

The thing that can to some extent protect pilots, and others, is distance. The energy concentration of the laser decreases over distance so there is less energy being delivered for the eye to concentrate. Most fliers that have been hit by visible laser light, have at worse experienced flash blindness and residual ghost imaging that subsides very rapidly.

IR lasers trigger no aversion reflex and, as Taz points out are more powerful and remain concentrated over longer distances. They pose a greater danger to be sure, but you can't get a 100mW IR laser for $30 on eBay...as far as I'm aware.

Take home message: don't look directly at the business end of ANY laser for any amount of time.

 

Yep, basically fancy dark sunglasses tailored for certaint wavelengths. Lots of fun to wear at night so you can't see anything.

 

NVGs at night are 100% protective...and we fly with them nearly full time, at least in fighters. No pilots fly with dark glasses at night for laser protection...the risks would so far outweigh the benefit it would make no sense.

 

Yes... NVGs do protect against laser from some angles.

Yes, USAF pilots do fly with dark glasses (Aircrew Laser Eye Protection/ALEPS) at night in some areas. I first encountered them in the '06-'07 time frame, they were hated but there were enough of us getting lazed that most people did wear them. You could not wear them and nobody would know until you got hit in the eye with a laser and then you were screwed.

I haven't seen the ALEPS in several years as my flying situation has changed significantly and lasers aren't such a problem but they are still around. Check out AFI 11-301 as it has all the painful details.

 

The laser goggles we had that were cut for 1.06 microns were clear and did not affect vision, but we very seldom wore them since there was not much of a threat. If they could track you well enough to shine a laser in your eyes at 200-400' and 540 KTAS, they could shoot you down using something else. The NVG goggles from my era were too crude to add anything to night missions. We did OT&E on some early ones and they were not recommended for operational use. Times change and the new ones are much, much better, lighter, and less bulky. Resolution is far superior, too. Not sure what they can do about laser dazzling, but they have to help. I tested goggles, too, that were for nuke blasts that may have been incorporated. The shutter on those was so fast, someone could use a flash bulb 6" from your face and you would never see it before the shutter closed.

You are correct on green lasers. Powerful enough, it will permanently hurt your vision. Even the so-called eye safe lasers at 1.7-2.0 microns can cause damage if powerful enough.

 

Yeah Vol4 has it all. We never flew with anything, even flying with the Commander's pointer, where I think you've got the highest probability of incurring a self-administered off-axis exposure from a reflection. Probably different now as the probability of an exogenous laser threat may have changed. Cool stuff.

 

Is it really that much of a 'problem'?

I'm not talking about laser guided missiles focusing on you, but some crazy on the ground with a laser 'flashlight' as per the OP?

Cheers,
Ian

 

Reading that again, I guess it is!

Cheers,
Ian

 

This!

Same goes for everything we do from medium altitude...good luck aiming a laser into my eyes as I'm rolling in from 12,000 feet or more and the scatter from all but a truly weaponized laser makes it inconsequential. I think the threat is higher in a board meeting that your boss will goon your eyes with his green pointy thing. Perhaps while on approach to land by malicious kids at home or bad guys in a war zone as well...I don't know, but I never had an intel brief where we were told about a laser threat. Sounds like others definitely had.

 

1400 incidents, but I wonder how many damaged eyes...permanently damaged eyes? interesting topic.

 

+1 (on the topic, not the damaged eyes!)

There's some pretty powerful laser pointers available for cheap today. But, as noted, I suspect more damage is likely done by the boss in the conference room than this way....

I certainly don't claim to know, but surely even an 'evil' kid hiding at the end of the runway can't do *that* much damage? An airplane cockpit glass is pretty substantial & my (albeit limited) understanding of optics says that's going to at least somewhat disperse the thing. Then the chances of it hitting an eyeball?.... I dunno (but am open to being educated as always.....)

Maybe it's the "shock" of having some kind of light like that unexpectedly in the cockpit that freaks 'em out?

As you say, interesting topic.

Cheers,
Ian

 

When we started getting the PAVE TACK system in the early 80s, all of us F-111F aircrews needed to get a laser eye exam as a baseline to determine if you later had laser eye damage. That YAG system was very powerful and there was no training frequency (usually 1.7-2 microns on later systems like LANTIRN and LITENING). The big worry was reflected, stray energy. Before we started using the system on the UK ranges, I worked with some really excellent UK physicists who did the basic calculations on the danger from laser scatter and reflections. Most UK ranges were overwater, so we turned out to be OK, but had to be very careful if there were any other ships or boats in the area. Since the laser was IR, no warning of anything until damage occurred.

 

Taz, reading these posts has opened a new learning experience into the modern weaponry of which I know nothing. Confusing but fascinating. Thanks for the inputs.

 

The threat isn't that someone is going to get you at altitude over a battlefield while maneuvering. They are gonna park somewhere on final where you are nice slow and stable and they can watch the beam trace and point it right there in the cockpit. The sale of hand held multi watt lasers has recently been curtailed in the US but they are still available in other countries and can also be built with readily available components if someone desires. Depending on the wavelength they can be dangerous over a thousand feet and depending on atmospheric conditions, wavelength and output the beam trace can be seen during daylight hours so you may not even be wearing NVGs.

At a minimum it's distracting as the laser beam reflects around the cockpit. if you haven't had an opportunity to see high power handheld lasers in action it's worth checking out on YouTube. A couple squadrons ago our first shirt did a demonstration with a 1 watt blue laser and although it was up close it burnt a hole through my helmet bag pretty quickly. In daylight it was bright and visible when pointed at the side of a hanger a couple hundred yards away. Would I want to have it pointed into the cockpit on final when I'm 500'? Hell no. Even with the larger slant range required to shine it into the cockpit and whatever attenuation of the beam from traveling through the windscreen it would be extremely distracting even if it didn't cause eye damage. You really gotta check out some videos or something to appreciate just how bright a multi watt laser is.

 

I remember reading a story in one of the safety mags about army guys that had suffered eye damage from the IR laser illuminators they use.... If I recall correctly they had the thing on inside a vehicle and nobody realized it until the guy who had it shining pretty much directly into his eye started having vision problems.

It's worth noting that the FDA output limit for IR lasers for civilian sales is even lower than visible lasers.

 

I was an Officer in the Armoured Forces and we had a special setting for the laser range finder for reduced emission during peace time. Even so it was dangerous to the eye sight of targeted personnel.