Boeing tests and determines that tablets could be safe for take off

It certainly would be nice to fire up your tablet once you get on a plane and start watching a movie or reading a book and not have to shut it down for take off.

The FAA is deciding whether it will allow passengers to keep their devices fired up from push back at the gate to 10,000 feet.

It should announce its decision by the end of the month.

But there are still concerns they could interfere with cockpit equipment.

Boeing says interference from personal electronics and the use of WiFi can cause pilot displays to blink or even black out. Even though there’s never been a reported case of that happening, Boeing’s Bret Jensen said they have created the problem in the lab.

“The frequencies that were used during the testing were higher than normal,” he said. “There’s no way that any of those kinds of levels of WiFi would be actually seen during an actual flight.”

The cockpit displays that were impacted during these tests are an older generation of displays which were taken out of production last year.

“These were on the Phase-3 display units,” Jensen said. “It was the previous versions of the ones that we are installing now.”

The FAA might require airlines with those older units to replace them. Right now, they are only recommending they be replaced because of the possible interference.

There are 139 737’s with these units in operation now. Eighteen 777’s have them, but that’s just the U.S. fleet. The international fleet numbers aren’t known.

Jensen said the company has tested all of its equipment with the assumption that personal electronics will eventually be OK to use without restrictions.

So the FAA’s prohibition below 10,000 feet really doesn’t impact Boeing airplanes.

“All that’s already been done,” Jensen said of the testing. “The altitude really doesn’t make a difference for us. The WiFi can be on at 5,000 feet or 25,000 feet. It doesn’t matter for the equipment on the airplane.”

One other interesting note I turned up while researching this story is that the worry with making mobile phone calls in flight is not about interference with flight controls. Those calls would actually put the cell service on the ground in jeopardy. Towers aren’t designed to handle information coming at them from above at 500 miles an hour.

The Los Angeles Times reports Virgin Atlantic and Emirates have designed airplane cell phone systems that direct signals to special towers on the ground that can handle them.