As a tactical matter, I wish you all would stop pointing out to the FAA that (at least for items one and two) Harry Potter in hardback or Architectural Digest magazine are dangers that are as big or greater than your Kindle. I’m not sure why you expect their response to be un-banning the kindle rather than banning your books and magazines.

As to the interference, I see no difference in frequency spectrum or output power between the devices current today and those tested in UK Civil Aviation Authority CAA Paper 2003/3; “Effects of Interference from Cellular Telephones on Aircraft Avionic Equipment” and the NASA report that stated: “If a CDMA or GSM wireless handset radiated spurious signals equal to the maximum allowable FCC limits, it would result in large NEGATIVE safety margins, even when considering “reasonable minimum” radio receiver interference thresholds”.

Until the person next to you sees that as a signal to talk to you the entire flight about their personal problems or how much they hate something.

You need to work on making your body language more hostile.

Self important? Please explain.

I don’t think personal attacks are warranted or effective.

Okay, I’m gonna go ask my dentists receptionist if fluoride is safe.

What you’re doing is the very definition of self-important.

So go buy an airline and run it how you like.

I would guess that the “proof” that these devices don’t harm the flight equipment already exists without the need for expensive testing — because, out of millions of flights, with millions of passengers, I find it very unlikely that  even 99% of the time people *actually* turn off the devices.  Think of the millions of takeoffs and landings that occurred successfully with all the running devices onboard (either through wilfulness or forgetfulness)

Then again, I wouldn’t venture to estimate how many non-lethal (and not worthy of media attention) seemingly random glitches occur in a cockpit over the course of millions of flights, so I guess I take back my second paragraph.

but seriously, instead of making up fear-mongering bullshit about someone’s iPod bringing down the airplane, why not be honest?  “Take-off and landings are the most critical moments of the flight, and so we require you to put away all reading materials and electronic devices and pay attention to the safety warnings.”  I can’t imagine you’d have any less compliance than you have now.

However items larger and heavier than phones should probably remain stowed for purely mechanical threat reasons.

I dropped my ipad once from waist height.  It chopped into the wood floor like an axe leaving a 1/4″ deep divot.  Quite sure it could have seriously damaged my toe.  Really don’t want those flying around the cabin if there is a problem.  A phone in the head would hurt quite a bit, but a tablet or laptop could easily seriously injure someone.

(PS the ipad was fine.  This event caused me to stop using the smart cover.  What happened was I didn’t have a secure enough grip and when the thing started to slide I reflexively grabbed the smart cover which just pulled right off.  Significant flaw in the magnet attachment idea.)

(The co-pilot may take over the flight controls. He never takes over the captain’s responsibility.)

I can’t see a difference between my Kindle and a paper book except for the weight and number of pages. Oh, and having text in a readable size. 

Otherwise, what you said. Except when you’re stuck on a tarmac not moving for hours. That’s a pain in the tush, since most of us plan for 30 minutes without our device, not six hours.

It isn’t “10 minutes”. For me, it’s often been 40 mins or more at each end of the flight. Which is stupid for a two hour flight.

Our “gadgets” are where all of our “magazines” and books are now! My “gadget” is even how I send postcards to my grandma! Print magazines and newspapers may not be an option much longer. You might as well suggest people churn butter.

Meditation sounds good. Until the person next to you sees that as a signal to talk to you the entire flight about their personal problems or how much they hate something.

Obviously it isn’t the most horrible thing in the world, but the TSA has made some people less tolerant of consenting to stupid, random authoritarianism.

Also: Appeal to fear.

Also: Strawman (Cut the Rope, as opposed to composing a critical email for work, to send once you’ve landed).

The FCC tests all these devices to ensure they don’t cause undue interference. They could (may already) test the “airplane mode” and deny the use of that term to any device that emits EM in that mode. There’s no reason for this duplication of gov’t testing!

But the FAA claims it IS a technical problem, so let me ask a technical question:  why not build a Faraday cage around the passenger cabin and be done with it?

But if I am merely using my Kindle app, I don’t see how that is any different from the person sitting next to me reading a paper book and they aren’t required to put the book away at any time.

I just wish they would relax the some of the restrictions in a reasonable way.