High Intensity Emergency use Laser

[refuge]

Hey folks,

Thought I’d leave this idea here. Not sure if it’s been covered.

As part of our safety pack we carry a rechargeable hand held high intensity laser. This thing is extremely visible at night in the sky from a long distance. It is especially visible with thermal optics or infrared.

They are available on Amazon for maybe $30 bucks. It’s a great item to have and thought I’d pass it along.

[C420sailor]

As a pilot who has been lased (many times), be smart with these things.

Unless you’re at extreme ranges, do not hold the laser directly on the aircraft. Rapidly move the laser back and forth across, or do tight circles.

If someone is holding it on me, I take that as malicious. I turn my lights off, and get as far away as I can. Continuous flickering is more indicative of someone trying to safely get my attention, and I’ll investigate.

Do you have info on your particular laser? Most lasers have very narrow wavelengths—I’d be surprised to find a laser that covers visible, near, and mid IR with a single filter...

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by refuge

Hey folks,

Thought I’d leave this idea here. Not sure if it’s been covered.

As part of our safety pack we carry a rechargeable hand held high intensity laser. This thing is extremely visible at night in the sky from a long distance. It is especially visible with thermal optics or infrared.

They are available on Amazon for maybe $30 bucks. It’s a great item to have and thought I’d pass it along.

They have these things called flares, as well as high intensity strobes, that are designed and recognized as emergency signaling devices. Most places you're actually required to have them on hand. As a Coast Guard pilot if I saw one of those, and at night on NVGs I could see either for miles, I would come rescue you.

A laser, on the other hand, is a dangerous device that a-holes shine at aircraft which blind pilots and potentially could cause lasting vision damage. We're taught to avoid them and the people shining them as much as possible, it's a reportable event and the crew is medically down until checked out when exposed to one. You may have still been rescued if you had shined one at or near me.....when law enforcement came out the next morning. But you would not only have kept me away in the rescue helicopter but potentially disqualified me from doing anything but heading directly to the nearest place I could make a safe landing. Add to that, if you're doing your own laser light show at sea it's not at all clear you're in distress, just that you're a menace. If you fire a flare or light a strobe it's crystal clear.

In case it isn't clear and tldr, this is a stupendously horrible idea!

[C420sailor]

^^ most likely course of action.

The overwhelming majority of my experience was with IR lasers for target acq in tactical environments. The only visible lasers I encountered were as mentioned above—********.

Remember that IR lasers do significantly more damage to human eyes, as there is no blink/flinch reflex. Our IR targeting laser could easily cause permanent blindness. Be especially careful with them.

Now, if you’re out of flares and this is a last ditch effort? Do what you’ve gotta do. Otherwise, as mentioned above, large numbers of big flares is probably your best bet.

[StuM]

Count me in the anti-laser crowd.



The only way they are effectively seen is if you point them at a rescuer. - potentially blinding them. A powerful all round strobe is a much better method of attracting attention.

[EngineerRetired]

Can't see ANY good coming from their use.

[Jenta]

I absolutely do not advocate for pointing a laser pointer at an aircraft for any reason, nor at anyone on land for that matter. Having worked with lasers for years and building processing systems that used them for cutting and etching I am well aware of the safety requirements.

Obviously it can happen but it isn't a light saber to your eyeball that melts your cornea any faster than you can close your eyelid.

I worked mostly with infrared and ultraviolet lasers which is where the majority of the issues are. When you can't see the beam and it is on your eye (or skin) you won't notice it until there is heat which is usually the beginning of some level of damage.
However, even these low divergence, high power beams we were working with still diverge over distance enough that from a mile away the spot size typically a factor of 100 times greater than from 10 feet.

Add to that point that we are talking about visible light which the moment it hits your eye you know it (and can look away or close your eye) and that we're talking about a small hand held laser pen and the divergence is even greater - you're just NOT going to damage a persons eye from a large distance with your typical pen laser pointer.

Again - DON'T DO IT! I completely agree, but I do want to make a point that it is going to take a high powered scientific or military laser to cause the kind of damage some people imagine with a visible light laser pen.

It will also hurt your eyes if you stare in to the sun, an arc welding laser or an intense LED focused light.

If you WERE going to use a laser as an additional signaling beacon I think there are plenty of uses that could be useful and still be responsible.

- Use it similar to a signaling mirror where you are just scanning it by the target you are trying to alert and stop once you can tell they picked up your signal. Chances are that bobbing in the water aiming from a mile or more away that won't be a problem.

- You can shine it ON something, especially at night. Even holding it over your head and rotating it around will likely cause some reflections off the surface of the water which could be useful. A flashlight can do the same of course but may be more washed out and of course if you don't have one or it is dead...

- If it is foggy or there are low clouds, laser light will illuminate very well. It's like a searchlight from the ground when there is fog and having a blue or green laser will be visible from farther than a red one - but regardless it IS a very visible light in that situation.

So yeah sure - keep one or two on hand because they can be useful. BUT - it is correct to point out that holding one on an aircraft that is out searching for you is not the best plan. But I believe it can be used wisely.
The point of a flare is to signal your location and need. If you shoot the plane with the flare the desired outcome may not be achieved. I think it is no different with the laser light if used responsibly and in the right conditions it is just another tool in the bag.

(This is just my opinion based on my own experiences - I reserve the right to be wrong)

[jlblan2]

If sky is overcast and you buy the one that puts out a pattern as well as a beam, shining it at the cloud base will really light up the sky. It can be seen from many miles away.

[trifan]

Originally Posted by jlblan2

If sky is overcast and you buy the one that puts out a pattern as well as a beam, shining it at the cloud base will really light up the sky. It can be seen from many miles away.

Especially if the pattern looks like a bat

[redneckrob]

Originally Posted by jlblan2

If sky is overcast and you buy the one that puts out a pattern as well as a beam, shining it at the cloud base will really light up the sky. It can be seen from many miles away.

The problem is there's no indication of distress with a waving laser, so the fact it can be seen is meaningless if you want to be rescued. If someone knows you're in distress, then a strobe is more than adequate for allowing us to find you. If we don't know you're in distress, shining a laser not only doesn't let us know, it causes us to not investigate further but instead head in the opposite direction.

You can buy strobes for the same price as lasers. Do that instead.

[Jenta]

Originally Posted by redneckrob

The problem is there's no indication of distress with a waving laser, so the fact it can be seen is meaningless if you want to be rescued. If someone knows you're in distress, then a strobe is more than adequate for allowing us to find you. If we don't know you're in distress, shining a laser not only doesn't let us know, it causes us to not investigate further but instead head in the opposite direction.

You can buy strobes for the same price as lasers. Do that instead.

Cruising inland waters or near coastal without knowing someone is out there I would agree. But if we're offshore and see that, or are keeping a lookout because the Coast Guard has sent out an alert for that area - then I would investigate a pink flamingo if I saw it floating by.

[jlblan2]

I’’m still laughing about the comment about the bat!!!!!

[C420sailor]

Different situation. If you have a mayday out, and there’s a laser that correlates? Okay.

But if I’m simply out flying over the Pacific and a boat starts lasing me? I’m going midnight/lights off so you can enjoy your rave alone. I’ll likely pass coordinates, but I doubt it’ll be investigated as a vessel in distress.

Red flares? I’m investigating regardless. And, for those of you who have never used NVGs...red is absolutely obnoxious on goggles. Even dim red will gain down a set of AVS-9s. Big red flares at night!

[Jenta]

Originally Posted by C420sailor

Different situation. If you have a mayday out, and there’s a laser that correlates? Okay.

But if I’m simply out flying over the Pacific and a boat starts lasing me? I’m going midnight/lights off so you can enjoy your rave alone. I’ll likely pass coordinates, but I doubt it’ll be investigated as a vessel in distress.

Red flares? I’m investigating regardless. And, for those of you who have never used NVGs...red is absolutely obnoxious on goggles. Even dim red will gain down a set of AVS-9s. Big red flares at night!

Certainly flares are #1 and for good reason they are required kit on our boats.

I was just trying to moderate/reason out the hate on responsibly used lasers.
Certainly your point is very valid and particularly respected as a pilots perspective.

Laser vs flare just randomly seen from a boat is kind of akin to the difference of a guy that appears to be waving "hello" from his boat versus waving both hands over his head frantically. One will get different attention than the other.
However, regardless of how he waves - if he's floating on a piece of transom in the water you may think he isn't just saying "Have a nice day!"

[C420sailor]

Concur, but at night, when most lasing events occur...all you see is a brilliant and blinding flash. It bounces off everything, and it seemed like the canopy/windscreen amplified it. I’m not going to see anything with regard to its source without a really good sensor. It just looks like a blinding light emerging from darkness otherwise. With very powerful lasers and certain atmospherics you can see the beam—but those are also literally leave spots in your vision for a WHILE. As mentioned above, there is a grounding period following a lasing, so most pilots GTFO.

During the day they’re still visible, but only with a direct shot. Much harder to geolocate.

Signaling mirrors are VERY effective on a sunny day, and that is universally accepted as a form of distress signal.