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PORTABLE ELECTRONIC DEVICES
Thursday, July 20, 2000
House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Aviation, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Washington, D.C.
The panel met, pursuant to call, at 9:30 A.M., in room 2167, Rayburn Office Building, Washington, D.C., Honorable John J. Duncan., Jr. [Chairman of the Panel] presiding.
Mr. DUNCAN. I am going to go ahead and call this meeting to order.
Today's hearing will focus on portable electronic devices. These include such items as cell phones, pagers, laptop computers, Gameboys, and tape recorders; and things of that nature.
I recognize that this may not be the most important safety issue facing aviation today, however it is an important one, and one that has created much interest, and many comments and questions, and it is one that passengers personally experience every time they fly.
Whenever one flies on a plane, the flight attendants will usually announce that portable electronic devices cannot be used during take off and landing, and cell phones cannot be used at all.
People often ask us why their use of cell phones and other devices is restricted in this way, and we really can't give them a good answer. Hopefully this hearing will help provide some of those answers, and certainly will help educate us with regard to this question.
There is a lingering suspicion, on the part of some, that the only reason that you cannot use your cell phone is that the airlines want to make money by forcing people to use their seat back phones.
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A recent survey found that prohibited electronic devices were the second most frequent cause of air rage among passengers behind alcohol.
A passenger in England last year was sent to jail for one year because he refused to turn off his cell phone during a flight. On the other hand, there are some people who are so annoyed by people talking loudly into their phones, that they would be just as happy if such devices were banned altogether. And, in fact, both before and after this hearing was announced I have had many people say to me that it is a nuisance, or very annoying, that people use their laptop computers and click away, starting and stopping, while they are attempting to read. But apparently, it's sort of like smoking, when people ask, do you mind if I smoke, most people are too polite to tell them that they do, even though they hope secretly that they will not smoke. And in the same way, people really find people next to them, or near them, using laptop computers to be an annoying nuisance, too.
So clearly this is an issue that can generate a lot of emotion on both sides. My understanding is that, despite all of the studies that have been done, there is really no hard scientific evidence that cell phones, or other devices, actually interfere with the navigation and communication equipment on aircraft, although there are many anecdotal reports of such interference.
However, the studies also show that such interference is possible. And many pilots report that their instruments have experienced problems, which they attribute to interference from portable electronic devices on their aircraft.
I read of one incident in 1998 in which a Boeing 757 lost all three of its autopilots, and the pilots felt it was caused by portable electronic devices.
In this hearing we will receive testimony not only from the aviation perspective, but also from the communications perspective.
From the aviation community we will hear from the Federal Aviation Administration, the airlines, and the airline pilots. They are concerned about possible interference with onboard communication and with navigation and other avionic systems.
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The Federal Communications Commission will represent the communications' interests. The FCC's role is to insure that the use of cell phones in flight will not interfere with the cell phone network on the ground. We are pleased to have both the aviation and communications communities represented here today.
We are also pleased that the President of the RTCA is testifying. The RTCA has done several studies for the airlines and the FAA in this area, and we look forward to hearing what they have found.
We also have, courtesy of Congressman McGovern, and this hearing was originally requested by Congressman McGovern, the president of the MegaWave Corporation. He has a way to detect whether a portable electronic device is being used at an inappropriate time.
I would like to thank all of the witnesses for taking the time to be with us today, and I now recognize my good friend, the ranking member, Mr. Lipinski.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you for holding this hearing today. I think it will be extremely interesting, and I think it will help all of us understand the situation much better.
As you mentioned in your opening statement, you get a lot of questions about telephones, laptop computers, pagers from your constituents, and the people you wind up meeting on planes; I do, also. And this technology is developing so fast, I was just talking to a member of our staff this morning, and she was telling me about some new little phone book like things that actually, they are really two-way pagers, I guess, is what you call them, that have only come out in the last year. And I wonder if the FAA or anyone in the aviation industry has been on top of that.
So I think that this is a very, very interesting field, and other than questions that I get from fellow passengers about why isn't this plane leaving on time, and why isn't he landing on time; the question I get the most is, why can't I use my cell phone, why do I have to use that phone that's in the back of the chair in front of me.
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So, I will be happy to hear the answers, so I can tell my constituents and the people I run into on planes, what the answers are.
I have a formal statement that I would like to put in the record, and I want to welcome these witnesses here this morning.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you. All of the statements will be placed in the record, if people have them, and we will now go to Professor Ehlers.
Mr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to comment, several months ago my son, who is an Electronics Engineer, showed me an editorial from one of his IEEE magazines, which I thought over-emphasized the danger of personal electronic devices on airplanes. And since then I have had an interest in it, and have tried to learn more about it. So I really appreciate having this hearing this morning, and I'll look forward to hearing the testimony.
Thank you.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.
We have the ranking member of the Full Committee with us, the former chairman of this subcommittee, Mr. Oberstar.
Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It's a good idea to hold this hearing. I compliment you on proceeding with the subject matter, and Mr. McGovern for initiating it.
It never ceases to astonish me, at the conclusion of a flight, the number of people who, in the passageway, emerging from the aircraft, or even in the aircraft itself, haul out their cell phones, and start talking. There is a gaggle of conversation going on, before people leave their seats.
It reminds me of the days of smoking, when people could hardly wait to get out the aircraft, light up their cigarette.
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There is some sort of compulsive that people have, to be in touch. They can't stand to be out of touch, for even a few hours of a flight. And therein, perhaps, lies the answer to the increasing incident of air rage, in which use of portable electronic devices, it's a rising tide of concern.
It used to be you could stay out of touch with family and friends for a few hours. I like staying out of touch for a while. It gives me time to think, and to read, and not have to be interrupted.
But today, with all of the electronics available, laptops and pagers and mobile phones, people want to be reachable, and they are reachable.
The question is, on board aircraft, how much of this staying in touch is actually staying within reach of tragedy?
The dangerous combination of these stray electronic signals, and the internal electronics of aircraft, are a formula for potential disaster.
The average 757 has 182 computers on board, emitting signals of various kinds. Aircraft fly through all sorts of electronic magnetic fields, gathering radiation and electronic signals, and those that are emitted from within the aircraft conflict with outside signals and with the aircrafts internal signals. And there are enough anecdotal accounts of anomalies to raise concern about the use of PED's on board aircraft.
Admittedly there is no sustainable, widely accepted scientific proof that no interference occurs. But, as always, the FAA errs on the side of safety; and has been very cautious and careful in the regulation of such devices on board aircraft.
I look forward to Mr. McSweeney's testimony this morning, and that of other witnesses.
Again, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this hearing; and Mr. McGovern for initiating it.
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Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much. Mr. Bass?
Mr. BASS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I, too, help the chair for having this hearing, and my colleague from Massachusetts.
The advent of the cell phone, and the laptop computers, and all of these different electronic devices, really have made our economy and our society a lot more efficient; and to take the other side of the issue from my friend, Mr. Oberstar, sitting in an airplane, doing nothing for four hours, or having an option of picking up a phone on the back of the seat, and paying $7.50 a minute, or whatever it costs to use those things, to call somebody, really isn't a very efficient use of time.
I would also point out that I believe the airline rules, regarding using these phones, they make you turn them off when you leave the gate, but I think the FAA rule actually says that you, they can't run after you leave the ground. I'm not sure. You might want to clarify that.
I would also be interested to know what the differences are between the communications system of the phones in the back of the seat, versus a regular cell phone.
I understand the use of a cell phone at 30,000' may not work with the communications system for that phone system itself, but I think the rules that we have for the use of these types of transmitting devices should be practical, they should be, certainly the interests of safety should be number one, but not the interests of not allowing people to conduct their lives in the most efficient manner possible, while they are flying from one place—that should also be a consideration.
So, good hearing, and thank you for holding it, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much. Mr. DeFazio?
Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your holding this hearing. I have been interested in this topic for a number of years, and read the RCTA Report, the most dispositive report, a couple of years ago, and at this point they were unable to replicable any of the anecdotal instances. I note there have been a few more anecdotal incidents since that time, and I will be interested to have the FAA and others explain the potential, or the disparity between these what seem to be serious anecdotal incidents and the absolute inability to replicate them.
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And I wonder whether perhaps there wasn't some other reason for the deviation from course which might go to other factors on the plane, including human. So I will be particularly interested in exploring that, because the bottom line here, when it comes to the captive American public on these planes is that Thank You For Using AirFone is a crummy service at an extraordinary price. And I expect that the airlines make a very nice slice off of it.
And I would like to see ways to open up, you know, better service to the flying American public. I try not to use AirFone very much, both because of the cost, and because this is my 20 hours a week in transit to and from my district on airplanes, and in airports are reading time for me, for the most part, and writing. But there are times when communication is necessary, and the outrageous prices that are charged to the flying public should hopefully be diminished in the future by some sort of competition. And whether that can safely, and safety is the number one issue, be individual devices, or somehow leavening the market with more competition, I don't know. But I would like to see some changes made.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much.
Mr. Hutchinson? No statement.
Mr. McGovern?
Mr. MCGOVERN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to begin by thanking you and ranking member Lipinski for granting my request to hold a hearing on the use of portable electronic devices aboard aircraft, and their potential to interfere with aircraft avionic systems.
Like all of us up here, I am a frequent flyer. Probably too frequent of a flyer sometimes. And like many Americans, when I fly safety is my biggest concern.
But I think it is safe to say that there has been a great deal of confusion amongst the public and policy-makers about the issue of portable electronic devices on aircraft.
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Any air traveller today can testify that despite the standard warning issued by flight attendants or pilots against using portable electronic devices, PED's have become virtually ubiquitous aboard aircraft. Everything from laptops to cell phones, to compact disk players are used.
The FAA's treatment of the issue, in my opinion, has been a little bit confusing. FAA regulations prohibit the use of any PED's aboard a commercial aircraft that the aircraft's operators believe could interfere with the aircraft's systems.
Additionally, FAA regulations provide a list of exceptions, such as electric shavers, and portable voice recorders. These regulations beg the questions, one, why only commercial aircraft; and two, why are certain devices, like electric shavers, exempted?
The FAA has also published an advisory circular to help operators comply with these regulations. The advisory circular recommends that, one, the use of all PED's be prohibited during the take off and landing phases of the flight below 10,000' and two, that PED's which intentionally transmit electro-magnetic radiation, like cell phones, be prohibited at all phases of the flight.
Moreover, Federal Communications Commission regulations flatly prohibit the use of cell phones on all aircraft, because airborne cell phones interfere with the operation of cellular communications on the ground.
There have also been a number of studies on this topic. The RCTA, which is testifying here today, has done three different studies on portable electronic devices aboard aircraft. Their most recent study, DEO–233 was undertaken by the RTCA special committee 177 at the request of the FAA and the House Appropriations Committee, and is probably the most comprehensive study on this topic.
According to the RTCA, while the possibility of interference from PED's is low, ''the possibility of interference to aircraft navigation and information systems during critical phases of flight'' for example take off and landing, ''should be viewed as potentially hazardous, and an unacceptable risk for aircraft involved in passenger carrying operations.''
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Every study that I have read, and every expert that I have talked to agree, as a matter of physics, PED's do have the potential to interfere with avionic systems. Yet, to my knowledge no attempt to duplicate interference from PED's aboard an aircraft under controlled conditions has been successful.
Most of the evidence indicating that PED's actually do interfere with avionics is anecdotal. Accounts from crews that believe problems with their systems resulted from the use of PED's.
Just a few weeks ago this sub-committee held a hearing on the WAAS, the Wide Area Augmentation System, which represents part of our transition from ground-based navigation to satellite based navigation systems. A review of NASA's aviation safety reporting systems, which document possible cases of PED and interference reveals that navigation systems are the most vulnerable to electronic interference.
Now a number of authorities, including the RTCA and Profession Albert Helfrick, of Embry-Riddle University, who will be testifying today, have expressed concerns that new satellite based navigation systems may be more susceptible to PED interference.
In addition, not enough is known about the potential for intentional interference with aircraft systems. As terrorists become more and more sophisticated, we need to fully comprehend the potential for deliberate jamming of critical airplane functions.
I believe that the FAA should support the development of a device that detects and pinpoints PED's in aircraft. In fact, RTCA's special committee 177 specifically recommended that government and industry should pursue research into the design and feasibility of using devices designed to detect emissions that produce electromagnetic interference from PED's within the aircraft cabins.
A device that could detect and pinpoint PED's within aircrafts, within an aircraft's cabinet, could conclusively resolve whether or not there is a correlation between PED's and avionic anomalies. Such a device could corroborate operator observations and suspicions. It would also give pilots an additional tool to help interpret the operations of their critical systems.
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Currently if PEC interference were linked to a catastrophic event there would be no way of knowing.
In conclusion, let me just say that many people argue that this whole issue is much ado about nothing, and that those of us who are expressing concern about PED's on aircraft are overreacting. They point out that the possibility of a PED interfering with critical aircraft systems is remote, but I would rather be safe than sorry. After all, the possibility of an emergency water landing is remote, but during every flight passengers are given instructions on how to use their seat cushion as a personal floatation device.
Passenger safety must remain our top priority. Information is power, and right now I am not sure we know enough about this whole issue.
So, Mr. Chairman, again I thank you for this hearing, and I look forward to hearing from the witnesses.
Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you, Mr. McGovern, and I will say thank you once again for requesting this hearing. You spurred us into action on this, although Mr. Lipinski and several staff members had also expressed an interest in this, and I think, really, it's accurate to say there is very great interest among members and among many other people, concerning this hearing today.
Mr. Miller?
Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Chairman Duncan, for having this hearing today. This issue has been kind of puzzling to me, as I fly back and forth out of Los Angeles each and every week. And I notice mothers coming on airplanes with children, and they have their GameBoys and their CD players, and they are trying to occupy these children on a long four and a half to five hour and 15 minute flight, and I witness business people, in fact, myself when I get on a plane, if I'm there a half hour early, I use my cell phone.
I mean, times have changed. My father didn't have that problem that we face today, he wasn't faced with the hustle and bustle we seem to be faced with today, and time is precious.
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A flight to me door to door to my house is eight hours, and I call my district office, or my capitol office, or I might have to call my wife, or whatever; and those things occur. And I have often wondered if there is an impact on your communications systems. I mean, I hear people talk about it, and the stewardess is always talking about it, and I really don't have an answer to that.
One of my colleagues said that, you know, we prepare for water landings, and they are remote, but they do occur. But the question I have is, does that GameBoy really have any impact, and does that small cellular phone really have an impact on the capability of an aircraft?
I imagine the output of your equipment far exceeds my little hand-held phone. I look at radio stations and TV stations that you are flying through their air waves all the time, does that impact you? Are we dealing with an issue that is a true issue, or are we just trying to make sure we are dealing with an issue to guarantee that something doesn't happen. And I know the balance must occur. And I believe balances are necessary.
I would prefer to see an individual having a laptop out, rather than having 8 or 9 drinks in front of them on an airplane, and I know pilots would probably prefer that to.
So, I'm interested to hear what a pilot has to say. Is there really an impact? Are we dealing with a true issue, or are we just being cautious? And caution is fine, but sometimes being overly cautious is unnecessary. And I don't have an answer for that, so I am really interested, today, to hear what you have to say, and to understand this issue better when we leave.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. Miller. Mr. Boswell?
Mr. BOSWELL. I will pass at this time, Mr. Chairman, but thank you for holding the hearing, and I will join in later.
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Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much. We will proceed, then, with the first panel, and we have a very distinguished first panel.
We have Mr. David S. Watrous, who is President of the RTCA; Mr. Thomas McSweeny, who is Associate Administrator for Regulation and Certification from the Federal Aviation Administration, who has been with us here before; and we have Mr. Dale N. Hatfield, who is Chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology for the Federal Communications Commission.
And gentlemen, we are very pleased and honored to have all three of you here with us. We always proceed in this Sub-committee in the order in which the witnesses are listed on the call of the hearing, and that means that, Mr. Watrous, we will proceed first with you. You may begin your statement.
TESTIMONY OF DAVID S. WATROUS, PRESIDENT, RTCA, INC.; THOMAS MCSWEENY, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR REGULATION AND CERTIFICATION, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION; AND DALE N. HATFIELD, CHIEF, OFFICE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION
Mr. WATROUS. Good morning Mr. Chairman, ranking member, members of the committee. I am David S. Watrous, President of RTCA, Incorporated, and I'm pleased to have an opportunity to acquaint the committee with RTCA and the results of our work in the area of Portable Electronic Devices (PEDs).
As you have heard, RTCA has addressed the potential of PEDs related interference to aircraft communications and navigation equipment on three separate occasions. The general conclusions from each of these activities is that while Portable Electronic Devices have the potential to interfere with critical aircraft electronic systems, the likelihood of interference is low.
Furthermore, the anecdotal reports of interference could not be replicated, either on the ground, or in the air. The results of the RTCA activities are documented in reports, each of which is summarized in my written testimony.
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A copy of each report has also been provided to the committee staff.
To place RTCA and its activities in perspective, we are a not for profit corporation. Our mission is to advance the art and science of aviation, and aviation electronic systems for the benefit of the public, and we function as a Federal advisory committee, under a charter issued by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Our organization is widely known and highly respected throughout the international aviation community. We have no statutory authority, yet our recommendations are extensively used by government and industry when making policy, investment and related decisions.
As an example, RTCA recommendations provide the foundation for many FAA technical standard orders, which in turn serve as the basis for the certification of avionics.
The acceptance and broad use of RTCA recommendations flows from our consensus approach to issue resolution. Our activities and deliberations are open to everyone with an interest in the subject being addressed, and our recommendations reflect the consensus views of the aviation community.
We most recently addressed the potential of PED related interference to aircraft systems during the mid–1990's, in response to a request from FAA. Our committee concluded its work by making four recommendations:
Recommendation one, the FAA should modify FAR 91.21, which deals with Portable Electronic Devices, so that (a) the use of any PED is prohibited in aircraft during any critical phase of flight, and (b) the use of any PED which has the capability to intentionally transmit electromagnetic energy is prohibited in aircraft at all times, unless testing has been conducted to ascertain its safe use.
Recommendation two, PED testing efforts should be continued by the FAA, airline industry, and consumer electronic and aircraft manufacturers, to expand the investigation of those devices for their potential to interfere with aircraft systems. This effort should include existing and new technology devices, such as satellite communications, embedded communication devices, and two-way pagers.
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Three, a public awareness campaign should be initiated by the FAA, the airline industry, and the aircraft consumer electronic manufacturers, to educate the flying public regarding the potential interference hazards from portable electronic devices, especially those designed as intentional radiators.
And fourth, government and industry should pursue research into the design and feasibility of using devices designed to detect the emissions that produce electromagnetic interference from portable electronic devices within aircraft cabins.
Our two most recent PED related reports reflect a summary of interference incidents compiled during the 1980's and early 1990's. As I stated earlier, reported interference from PEDs could not be repeated under controlled conditions, either in the air, or on the ground.
It is important to note that the possibility of Portable Electronic Device related interference to aircraft navigation and information systems was verified by sample testing.
The potential of PED related interference should be viewed as potentially hazardous, and the source of an unacceptable risk to aircraft involved in passenger carrying operations. It's also important to note that the probability of interference to installed aircraft systems by single or multiple Portable Electronic Devices is considered to be small.
Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee. I would be pleased to entertain questions, sir.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Watrous.
Mr. McSweeny?
Mr. MCSWEENY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I ask that my complete testimony be entered into the record.
Mr. DUNCAN. It will be placed in the record.
Mr. Chairman, rather than read it, I would like to just take a few minutes to deal with some of the issues that have been raised, and how we look at them in the FAA.
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Basically, there are two types of devices that can find their way into aircraft. The first is referred to as intentional emitters, and some people also use the words intentional transmitters, or radiators. So the words ''emitters''''transmitters'' and ''radiators'' basically mean the same thing. So there is, on one hand, the intentional. On the other hand, there is what we called unintentional radiators, or emitters.
One, the intentional, is specifically designed to put radio frequencies into the air; the other is not—any radio frequencies that are emitted are by accident, by a failure within the device itself.
Intentional emitters can emit thousands of times greater energy into the air than unintentional emitters. So, as a result of that, we have our basic policy the way it is. We have one policy for intentional emitters; we have another policy for unintentional.
Basically, our policy for intentional is that they cannot be used during flight, and on our advisory circular to reference the question that was raised, was that our advisory circular refers to take-off and landing phases.
We basically have no problem with them being used at the gate, or in long delays while on the tarmac. During taxi and take-off we recommend they not be used.
For the unintentional emitters, we have picked a policy that says below 10,000' they should not be used. We have had anecdotal information that says that these devices have caused abnormalities to cockpit instrumentation. Below 10,000' is actually a level we call the sterile cockpit, where we want the pilots to be really focused on what they are doing, to bring the airplane safely to the ground. So we have selected that level. We think it's a good level to use.
Let me talk about potential for interference. Yes, you cannot, on a scientific basis, take an emitter, put it in a cockpit, and repeatedly determine whether it does or does not interfere. But what we have been able to do is measure the emissions from these devices, and knowing what the equipment in the airplane is certified for, we can match that with how much emissions these devices give out.
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And what we do know, from laboratory testing, is that these devices are able to emit energies that are above those energies to which the safety equipment on the airplanes have been certified.
So, when we say there is a potential, that's the potential we are talking about.
Now, what are some of the possible errors? You could have errors in heading, altitude. If you are doing ILS approaches, instrument landing system approaches, the ILS is a transmitter, so that means there is a receiver on the airplane. It can receive both ILS signals and radio signals of many different types of sources, so it could be impacted.
GPS signals can impact it. They are very weak signals, and you have listening devices, antennas, listening for very, very weak signals. They are easy prey for unintended interference.
We also are seeing wireless fire detectors on board airplanes. The failure of a device to detect properly, because it's interfered with, is very serious. It is also serious to have one detect a fire that isn't there, because that requires some kind of an emergency landing, and special procedures.
So, we are headed toward a time in aviation when there is going to be more communication and navigation information to the cockpit, and these are all intentional receivers in the airplane. Any transmitter can interfere with those. So we are seeing, in the future, more possibilities.
And I would also say that we only have to go to our local hospital to see that cellular phones have been banned from hospital usage. I was recently there when my brother-in-law was in the hospital, I talked to some nurses, and they said they have seen cases where the monitoring devices used on the patients have been interfered with by cellular phones. So it's a clear issue that we all have to be concerned of, in the safety business.
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Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. McSweeny.
Mr. Hatfield?
Mr. HATFIELD. Thank you Mr. Chairman, and members of the sub-committee. My name is Dale Hatfield, and I am Chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology at the Federal Communications Commission.
I welcome this opportunity to discuss the interaction of Portable Electronic Devices in various aircraft electronics equipment.
For those of you who may not be familiar with the Commission or my office, let me take a moment to explain our core mission.
The Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, is an independent agency directly responsible to Congress. The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934, and is charged with regulating interstate and international communications by wire and radio.
My office, the Office of Engineering and Technology, is responsible for managing the nation's airwaves, or as we refer to it as the radio spectrum, on behalf of all non-Federal Government uses of the resource.
Fundamental to our mission is the allocation of the scarce spectrum resource in the public interest, and one of our basic responsibilities is to address potential radio interference matters.
Sections 302 and 303 of the Communications Act establish the authority of the commission to regulate the interference potential of radio communications devices and to determine the types of devices that can be marketed and used by consumers.
In carrying out these responsibilities, we take into account the interference that the devices may produce. Electronic devices, as Mr. McSweeny very cogently explained, potentially cause, can be potentially classified into two areas: one, intentional radiators or transmitters, like two-way radios and cell phones; and secondly, unintentional radiators, like laptop computers, and hand-held electronic games.
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The Commission has established certain rules on the use of Portable Electronic Devices on aircraft. These rules are designed toward that interference to cellular systems on the ground, from the airborne use of cellular subscriber units. The Commission's, in other words our rules, are not intended to address potential interference to aircraft communications and navigation systems from either intentional radiators, like cellular phones, or unintentional radiators, like laptop computers.
Allow me to provide just a little bit more detail. In terms of transmitters, or intentional radiators, the Commission's rules specifically prohibit the use of cellular phones on aircraft, except for aircraft on the ground.
As I indicated a moment ago, this prohibition was not adopted to protect the aircrafts avionic systems from interference. Rather, the prohibition was made to protect the cellular service from interference.
As the altitude of a cellular hand-held transmitter increases as you go up in the air, of course, its transmission range and consequently its coverage range, increases, as well.
At high altitudes, such as those associated with in-flight operations, the hand-held unit spreads a signal over several, perhaps even dozens of cellular base stations, preventing other cellular users within that range of using the same frequency. Such interference would increase the number of blocked or dropped calls experienced by people making cellular calls on the ground.
In terms of unintentional radiators, certain products generate radio frequency or RF energy as part of their normal internal operation. This RF energy is not intended to be radiated, nor does it need to be radiated in order for the product to work.
That is, the radiation of RF energy is an unwelcome by-product, since the RF energy generated internally cannot be completely shielded from the outside.
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The FCC regulates such intentional radiators under Part 15 of our rules. Emission limits for this unintentional radiation are specified in the FCC rules, to reduce the probability of causing harmful interference to radio operations.
I think our emission limits have a long and successful history of controlling interference to other radio operations.
Now the FCC regulates a wide range of mobile communications services, including cellular, personal communications services, specialized mobile radio, paging, and air to ground communications that are capable of on-board, in-flight operation.
As I indicated before, FCC rules specifically prohibit the use of cellular phones on board aircraft in flight. The rules also limit specialized mobile radio devices on aircraft operating 1.6 kilometers or more above the earth's surface.
FCC rules currently do not explicitly address airborne PCS use, and they do, of course, permit the operation of specially designed air to ground devices, which I will discuss in a moment.
Regardless of the different FCC requirements, pursuant to an FCC/FAA advisory, as we just heard, it's my understanding the commercial air carriers themselves prohibit the use of mobile phones on board aircraft.
I see my time is running out, so let me just jump to my summary and say that in conclusion I cannot tell you definitively if mobile communications and other Portable Electronic Devices raise the potential for harmful interference to aircraft communications and navigation equipment. What I can tell you is that these devices do emit RF energy, and that the use of cellular and other similar types of mobile phones in flight could cause harmful interference to terrestrial mobile phone operations.
We will continue to work closely with the FAA to monitor these issues.
In closing, I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to appear before you today, and before other members of the sub-committee. This concludes my testimony, and I would be pleased to answer any questions that you or the other members might have.
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Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Hatfield. Let me ask the panel this, is it true or correct that no one has been able to replicate interference by these devices under controlled conditions?
I am told that there was, that Boeing actually went so far as to buy a laptop computer from a passenger who flew on a flight from London to, from Paris to London, where the pilot said there was some sort of interference, and they repeated the flight with the computer being used in the same exact seat, and they found nothing, no interference. Is that correct? That there has been no study that's shown this, Mr. Watrous?
Mr. WATROUS. Sir, I am not familiar with the particular Boeing event to which you make reference. However, to the very best of my knowledge, your statement is correct.
The fact of the matter is that the potential for interference is a function of a large number of variables. It has to do with the operation of the device, the frequency on which it's operating, the state of repair or recent maintenance, how the signal might be transmitted from the unintentional emitter to the aircraft instrument that's being disturbed, the configuration of the airplane, even the electromagnetic environment exterior to the airplane.
A large number of variables. And, as a result of that, to date we are not aware of any case where the interference could be replicated. Now there have been a few occasions with which you or the committee members may be familiar, in which a crew member has noted potential interference, or an anomaly, and a search has been made of the cabin. A device has been identified, it has been turned off, and turned on, and with the cycling of the device, the interference will come and go, or the potential, or the likely interference will come and go.
However, it's been impossible to date, to the best of our knowledge, to replicate that in controlled conditions on the ground. I am sure others will have better information along those lines, sir.
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Mr. DUNCAN. Well, we do have the anecdotal reports in our briefing paper. We are told that the NASA database reports 52 instances of pilots or flight crews reporting some type of interference, but that's out of 69,000 safety incident reports that they have in their database in the aviation safety reporting system.
And then the international aviation system has I think 40 PED related reports. So there are those reports, but it's apparently, as far as we can tell, not been established by any real studies.
Mr. McSweeny, the FAA rules specifically allow tape recorders and other devices, so what is the difference between the tape recorders, and CD players, and Walkmans? Is it the level of energy? And can you give us some examples of what would be included in the intentional and what would be included in the unintentional? You have watches, and so forth?
Mr. MCSWEENY. The real distinction is, as I said earlier, the intentional versus the unintentional. Computers, Gameboys, or a Gameboy by itself, are devices that display information on a screen to the person using them, certainly are unintentional emitters.
Examples of intentional emitters, beyond the cell phone obvious case, they now make a cordless mouse for your computer. That is, in fact, an emitter. It is intentionally emitting a signal between two devices, through air.
A Gameboy is one thing. Two Gameboys hooked together with a wire, so that they can interact, is a little bit different, because that wire tends to act as an antenna. If you think about the FM receiver that you may have in your house, it comes with a loop wire that you can tape to your wall, or put behind a bookcase or something. It's a very effective antenna, and you would have the same thing with two Gameboys hooked together.
We are now seeing palm pilots that send and receive electronic mail messages constantly. That's an intentional emitter. And so that's where we have drawn the distinction.
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If we were to write our present rule, using today's objectives, we would probably eliminate the examples, and focus on the intent, which is basically what we have done in our advisory circular, the difference between intentional and unintentional emitters.
Mr. DUNCAN. Some people say that airplanes already fly through sort of a thick soup of transmissions from radars and TV and radio organizations and so forth. And yet they say that airplanes are shielded from those transmissions.
What's the difference? Because some of those transmissions are pretty strong transmissions.
Mr. MCSWEENY. We do protect the avionics on the airplane from emitters on the ground. In fact, when we went to the electronic displays we went through an enormous effort working, quite frankly, with RTCA to identify the kinds of energies that we can see in those airplanes. And the wires that run the signals through the airplanes are protected from those kinds of energies. They are also protected against lightning.
But what we have not looked at is, is 10's of dozens of intentional emitters within the aircraft. As we move into the communication and navigation devices that we are seeing today, the GPS, the LASS, the WAAS datalink, where important safety information is coming to the airplanes, including weather and communication, and things like that.
Those are very low energy transmitters, and much of our effort on those, the certification of those devices, deals with possible interference from unintended sources, and quite frankly, intended sources.
We do look at, and somebody mentioned the issue of an intentional sabotage against, these devices. We do look at that, as well.
Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Hatfield, let me ask you, what is the difference between an ordinary cell phone and the phones that are on the backs of the seats in the planes?
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Mr. HATFIELD. Yeah, there is a lot of difference. The cellular phone that you normally carry around with you, of course, is designed to talk to a base station that may only be a mile or two away. And the reason that we have gone to that cellular architecture, that cellular type of arrangement is that in Washington, D.C. you can have scores of simultaneous telephone conversations going on at the same time.
In other words, you could be calling from this hearing room, and somebody down at my office, down the street here a mile or two away could also be having a conversation on that same frequency. Because the base station serving this building is different than the base station serving the building down the street. There is no interference.
You can imagine, though, if you take that same phone, and went up 10,000', suddenly, now, you would be sending a signal that would be broadcasting and hitting all the different base stations around the area, and potentially causing, potentially causing interference.
The phones that you use on the aircraft are using frequencies that have been set aside for that purpose, and the engineers have designed the system to, for that purpose, and therefore they don't have that type of interference.
They are using different radio channels. Sort of different lanes on the highway, if you want to look at it that way. So they won't say, they won't be interfering with the normal sort of cellular things on the ground. And also, and I am not at all an expert on this, of course they are designed to be, whatever the right terminology is, as far as the FAA, to make sure that they don't cause any self-interference on the aircraft itself.
So they are designed entirely different, for very different purposes.
Mr. DUNCAN. Well thank you very much.
Mr. Lipinski?
Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
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Mr. Chairman, I give my time at the present to Mr. McGovern.
Mr. MCGOVERN. I want to thank the ranking member. Mr. McSweeny, I just want to follow up on something that Mr. Watrous said. You talked about the RTCA's report that they issued, I believe it was in 1996, making a number of recommendations to the FAA, including more PED testing efforts should be continued.
And I was curious to find out whether, you know, what FAA has done in terms of more testing, the recommendations of public awareness campaign that should be initiated, so that consumers and the flying public know what the rules and regulations are.
And I raise that issue, because there was a Wall Street Journal issue that appeared recently in which it stated that the FAA did not ban cell phones from airlines, and kind of intimated that it was, that it had nothing to do with safety.
And then fourth—the third thing was that the government and industry should pursue research into the design and feasibility of using devices designed to detect emissions that produce electromagnetic interference from PED's within an aircraft.
And I was curious to find out what the status of that is, as well.
Mr. MCSWEENY. OK, let me take the latter first. We did initiate research to look at the feasibility of devices that could maybe detect whether unintended or intended emissions were occurring on the aircraft.
Our research was aimed through what is called, I think it was a broad area announcement, which is like a device we have to stimulate technology a little bit.
And our objective was to make that determination. It wasn't necessarily to have those devices developed, but just to see if there was a possibility of being able to do that kind of thing.
As far as testing efforts with the industry, there is an incredible amount of work that goes on in the certification of aircraft that we get involved in, in which, various RF energies in the airplane are looked at.
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All, for instance, of the devices in the back of the seats, the televisions, and things like that, are all tested. And Boeing has an extensive laboratory, where they actually have all of these devices at various locations that represent where they would be in the airplane, and RF energy is measured.
We're presently doing testing with one airplane modifier who wants to put a computer local area network in an airplane, and it is going to be a real challenge, because it is a possible source of a lot of spurious radiation.
So that's basically the testing that is going on. The very manufacturers of electronic devices that go in an airplane, test those devices for susceptibility to certain kinds of RF energy, and we are aware, and in many cases participate in a lot of that testing.
Mr. MCGOVERN. But, is it the FAA's opinion that it is technically feasible to develop technology that could detect PED's?
Mr. MCSWEENY. Our opinion is that you can develop devices to detect RF energy in the airplane. One of the things that is difficult, though, is to detect when that RF energy is an intentional energy from one of the systems on board the airplane, which the airplane has been designed to be able to sustain, or whether its unintentional, and done by one of the passengers.
That, I think, is the real challenge, when you have these devices.
Now, if it's a device that is very short in its range, and you merely can point it at an object or a person, it might have the possibility of being able to detect, for instance that there is a person on board the airplane, if you walk up and down the aisle, that is using a device they are not allowed to use.
Mr. MCGOVERN. How would you figure out, right now, if somebody was, brought a device on board to intentionally try to jam the communications and navigation system of an airport. I mean, how would you determine that?
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Mr. MCSWEENY. Well, as a part of our, the normal operation of the aviation system out there, there is no activity underway to make that determination, I can say that.
But also, the same things that make it hard to create the anomaly in service, also make it hard to cause the anomaly in service.
If you are trying to, for instance, find out if somebody's Gameboy did, in fact, cause the anomaly in the cockpit, whether you can repeat it is a function of the exact arrangement of that Gameboy in the airplane. If it is vertical it might be one kind of a problem, and if it's horizontal, it might be another.
And I would just use the analogy of your antenna on your portable radio. You can sometimes get a great signal if you put it horizontal for certain radio stations, for others you might have it totally vertical.
So it's a function of the relationships of the emitter to what might be susceptible to it.
Mr. MCGOVERN. My time is up, I think.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. McGovern.
Dr. Ehlers?
Dr. EHLERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am just curious, how many of you are engineers, or scientists? All of you? It is, OK, I thought so, but I wasn't sure.
A question, aircraft avionics is shielded. I assume it's shielded against a very broad spectrum of potential radiation.
I am puzzled. In view of that, that the radiation inadvertently emitted inside the plane, that unintentional emitters would create that problem.
I am particularly surprised at the anecdotal evidence which I have read, which indicates stable malfunction. In other words, an improper course reading, but it remains at that same position.
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That seems to be inconsistent with the type of random emissions that you get out of unintentional emitters.
Would any of you care to comment on that? First of all, I am interested in the quality of the shielding of the avionics, and the frequencies it is supposed to shield out, but secondly, how can the, how can interference give rise to a stable deviation.
Mr. MCSWEENY. Well, let me try first. First I must admit I'm not an electronics engineer, though. So, I could not, I cannot define how that condition would occur. Let me talk about the shielding. The shielding is robust. It's a very robust shielding.
The major elements of interference come both from inside the aircraft, where the signals are run through the cabling, and external radiation. There was an extensive effort to look at high intensity radiated fields or HIRF. Some of those high intensity fields come from radio transmitters, things like deep space probes, that NASA is using, are very, very high emitters. So we had to protect against the normal environment that's out there, with a reasonable expectation of how close you would fly to them.
I mean certainly we are not expecting a large transport airplane to fly right over an antenna, or an antenna farm.
So the aircraft are protected. But there are also things on the airplanes called receivers, that are looking for signals. They are looking for very, very weak signals in many cases, and those are quite susceptible to radiated fields within the aircraft.
Dr. EHLERS. Don't their signals come from antenna, which are mounted on the exterior surface of the plane?
Mr. MCSWEENY. Yes, they generally come from antenna mounted on the outside of the aircraft. You can get some leakage through the fuselage. Generally the aluminum fuselage is an attenuator, it tends to attenuate the signal in either direction.
Dr. EHLERS. That's why I...
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Mr. MCSWEENY. But you can get some leakage.
Dr. EHLERS. If they are connected to antennas outside the plane, I find it hard to believe that there would be enough radiation emitted by unintentional emitters that would get through that aluminum shell and reach the aircraft's antennas, and particularly in any sort of orderly fashion that would give a constant course yielding that is in error.
Mr. MCSWEENY. It is a remote event, but I must also add that we are preventing the extremely remote event, that of being an accident. So we have to use that level of safety when we look at these devices.
Dr. EHLERS. Yeah. To the FCC, what—the current shielding requirements on these so-called unintentional emitters of all sorts, you already have standards to prevent interference between computers and radios and TVs in their vicinity. Are these standards high enough that they would prevent unintentional radiation strong enough to affect the instruments on an aircraft?
Mr. MCSWEENY. As you suggest, we indeed under Part 15 of our rules have regulations that limit the amount of the unintended signals that are radiated by these types of devices like computers, and our levels are based upon comments and including input from other government agencies; that the rules are based upon this public process of gaining comments and so forth.
And generally those regulations are very consistent with the international regulations in this area. As I suggested in my testimony, we have found those to be generally successful in preventing interference. Now I think we have all had the experience of having your PC operate right next to your FM radio and you might get a little buzzing or something and usually just a little bit of movement will take care of it.
The difficulty, of course, if you said that I am not going to allow any emissions at all of course it would be impossible to do and be very, very expensive for the public. So it is a very difficult balancing act that we have to make sure that they don't emit too much but on the other hand don't burden the economy with so much protection that it makes a lot of devices uneconomical.
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Dr. EHLERS. Well, I think it would be wise for the FCC to take a good look at the shielding on any of these devices that are likely to be used in airplanes and insure that they are low enough that it doesn't cause interference. Things such as Game Boys, even there can be some internal shielding. In terms of the cord between them, you use a simple coaxial cable which because it wouldn't have to be very high spec would not cost that much and simply say you can't use it on an airplane unless you are using a coaxial cable or some type of shielded cable to connect the two.
My one last question since my time is expiring, the article I referred to earlier talked about the danger of cell phones being able to cause sparks such as a spark that might have blown up TWA Flight 800. Even though they admit roughly 5 watts, I find it a little hard to believe that they could emit that much of a spark between parallel areas. Can any of you speculate on the likelihood of that regardless of whether that is what happened on TWA 800 but can 5 watts—I can see it perhaps between orthogonal layers but parallel layers it is just a little hard for me to visualize 5 watts generating sparks.
Mr. HATFIELD. If I could just make one comment. Actually, cellular phones operate at considerably less power than that. You are normally talking about a few hundred milliwatts rather than 5 watts but——
Dr. EHLERS. I was using the maximum number.
Mr. HATFIELD. Despite that. Yeah, despite that, I mean the sort of hand held that you would normally carry onto an airplane would be much lower than that but I tend to agree with you. It sounds a little remote to me as well as an engineer.
Dr. EHLERS. All right. I thought, Mr. Watrous, you had a comment you wanted to make in response to one of my comments.
Mr. WATROUS. Yes, sir. I was going to offer an observation in support of Mr. McSweeny's comments. Just as we have talked about two categories of radiators, intentional and unintentional, the path for interference can be categorized in a gross sense either via cabling in the airplane or via antennas that are connected to the receivers. Based on the work that has been done by RTCA to date, the more probable path for interference is, if you will, out the window to the antenna back into the receiver.
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That is not to say that the other paths through internal wiring and cabling could not exist and there have been via the three RTCA activities a considerable amount of effort devoted to path loss characteristics, etc. And I really believe that the more probable path or course for the interfering signal is out the window, if you will, of the airplane to the airplane antenna and from that to the airplane receiver.
Dr. EHLERS. So the answer then is a very fine screen placed in the window, grounded screen?
Mr. WATROUS. As a function of frequency?
Dr. EHLERS. Yes.
Mr. WATROUS. Possibly so.
Dr. EHLERS. OK. The last comment I would have, we should have far lower prices on the installed telephones and airplanes. I think they would actually make more money if they lowered the price. More people would use them instead of trying to surreptitiously use cell phones. Thank you very much.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Dr. Ehlers. I would like to call on the ranking member, Mr. Oberstar.
Mr. OBERSTAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Coincidentally, Dr. Ehlers, I agree with you about lowering the price on those Air Fones. They would do better. Your rules on portable electronic devices cover interference with communication and navigation systems. What about other systems onboard aircraft. Are such major navigational systems as rudder flaps, thrust reversers susceptible in any way?
In the age of the glass cockpit and fly by wire technology, have you tested, not you personally, has the FAA tested the strength of signal required to cause an uncommanded rudder movement or thrust reverser or some other operational wing surface device compared to the onboard systems that command those movements?
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Mr. MCSWEENY. Yes. We have certainly looked at all possible devices on board an aircraft that are driven by signals, signals through wires, be they any of the control systems or for instance there is a full automatic digital control on the engine. So it is another example of something that is now digital rather than mechanical where it used to be many years ago.
We have looked at those with regard to all the emitters that exist on the airplane and, for instance, when the phones were installed in the back of the seats, we went through a very elaborate testing process to make sure that is done. In the certification of airplanes all of those emitters have to be looked at in combination and individually to make sure that they don't cause problems. For instance, on airplanes like the Airbus 320 and series thereafter and the 777 Boeing product that they don't interfere with the fly by wire system.
We have looked at the energies that are protected against and for unintentional emitters we feel very confident that our policy of 10,000 feet as the cut-off for their usage is a good policy. It gives time if there is a problem for the crew to sort it out, to find the emitter, to have it turned off. Also, though, we believe that intentional emitters, if there were enough of them in use onboard aircraft at the same time, and I don't know how much enough is, but you could hypothesize some scenarios, but if there are enough we believe that you could get interference and our goal is to just make sure that we do not have interference.
I think as was mentioned by Mr. McGovern if there was interference and it caused an accident it is very unlikely that we would be able to establish that as a cause.
Mr. OBERSTAR. That is very true that the device itself would be destroyed. It is just like fatigue. You can't tell fatigue is a cause of accidents.
Mr. MCSWEENY. That is correct.
Mr. OBERSTAR. So you feel that erring on the side of caution without any critical mass of evidence about emissions that in and of themselves can cause otherwise uncommanded movements or actions. The major problem is interference with signals onboard the aircraft, is that correct?
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Mr. MCSWEENY. That is correct. We have—I might just add that we have, for instance, regulations on HERF, high energy radiated fields, and we have very, very few HERF events in service. And we went through an extensive rulemaking process when these avionics first came onboard aircraft because we could not prove that we ever had an event in service. But yet our approach has been we don't want to wait until we have one.
The only two events that I can recall were in fact a ground event and an in-flight event on an airship where both engines quit because the avionics got shorted out by high energy radiated field. But we don't want to have an event on a commercial airplane.
Mr. OBERSTAR. There was a very interesting discussion—I first of all commend the FAA on being prospective and cautious about those matters, there was a very interesting discussion with Congressman Ehlers and you and others about the insulation provided on the aircraft, yet windows aren't particularly well insulated and there are antenna, as you have noted, onboard aircraft that are very sophisticated and whose very purpose is to draw in signals.
Any stray electromagnetic force is potentially going to be attracted by those antenna. It is an invitation to interference, if you will. I think no matter how small the signal absent compelling evidence to the contrary caution is the best guidance for safety in these matters. It just seems to me that with all the antenna drawing in signals from earth, from onboard the aircraft, and the electromagnetic forces aircraft fly through that there is really a potential for something serious to happen and we better not have those signals and find out afterward we should have prevented them. Thank you, Mr. McSweeny.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Oberstar and Mr. McSweeny. Mr. DeFazio.
Mr.. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just in agreeing with Mr. Oberstar and Dr. Ehlers, I mean the key if intentional emitters, that is, cell phones, are a problem or a potential problem, you know, then we would like to do everything we can to restrict their use. The gentleman from Massachusetts has a technological solution which is detection devices. I think obviously that we should continue to pursue that avenue. I think that would be wise.
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I also have read about the Japanese have a problem with cell phones interfering with daily life and they have developed devices that block out cell phone systems and they install them in movie theaters and other places where performances take place. Perhaps those sorts of devices could be installed in airplanes, which would basically forestall anybody from sneaking the use of a cell phone if a cell phone is a problem.
Obviously, given the only anecdotal evidence I don't know that I am entirely convinced and as long as you have this really rotten service that is available to people that must make calls. It is routine for me to take a 5–1/2 hour nonstop flight. Five-and-a-half hours for someone in my position or someone in business or anything else is a very long time to be out of communication so many people feel forced to use the service.
Air Fone, which is installed on United and a number of airlines stinks. It is ancient technology. Most of your calls are incomplete or unintelligible. You are shouting into the telephone and it is unbelievably expensive. I assume it is totally unregulated. Does the FAA have any authority or can they do anything about moving ahead with other technologies? I read a number of years ago the Japanese had developed a digital technology. We were going to be seeing on planes in the near future that would go to satellites.
We would have high quality and it would be less expensive, and we still have those Air Fones, which is one of the most ridiculous things. I mean it is something out of the '40's or '50's. Mr. McSweeny, can you testify to that issue?
Mr. MCSWEENY. There is activity underway and it is mostly activity by the manufacturers that we are monitoring to look at the fact that society is expecting different things today than they used to expect, and your example of sitting on an airplane for 5–1/2 hours I think is one of those expectations. There is a strong research program within the manufacturers to really look at this because people are wanting this more and more.
We, though, will always take the role of making sure that it has been proven to not be an interferer with the systems onboard the aircraft. And we are willing to work with that research to try to bring our regulatory requirements together with the expectations and needs of the people who fly in the airplanes.
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Quite frankly, when we went to the entertainment systems onboard airplanes there were many people who thought it was going to be impossible to protect against the emissions from those devices, yet through full scale testing there were ways identified to do that. And we are certainly one that wouldn't stand in the way of those ways if they show that you can match safety and——
Mr. DEFAZIO. Right. Is there any incentive on the part of the airlines to improve the service since they don't care about the rest of their service, you know, food, comfort, those things, are they getting a big cut? Are you aware of what kind of a cut they get out of that $3.50 a minute of crummy service that is provided to passengers?
Mr. MCSWEENY. No, I am not aware of——
Mr. DEFAZIO. I certainly hope to be here to ask the ATA about that. Yes, Mr. Hatfield.
Mr. HATFIELD. I think I probably should jump in here if it would be OK. These services that we are talking about, of course, are FCC licensed services, commercial services, and I am sitting here and I believe I am correct, but in 1993 Congress generally directed us to deregulate the pricing and so forth for commercial mobile radio service.
Mr. DEFAZIO. Yes. I voted against that. I voted against all the deregulations.
Mr. HATFIELD. I just wanted to point that out. And then also in addition we suggested seeing people interested in providing competing services using, for example, satellite technology and so forth, and, you know, we are anxious to—we are directed by you all to encourage that sort of competition and new technological development, so we stand ready to help in that regard.
Mr. DEFAZIO. I hope the two of you are working together and I would certainly be curious to ask how lucrative this is for the airlines and how much that impedes their enthusiasm for better service on the planes because I just got to tell you what drives people, and I have seen people use them and I have said something and gotten in some heated discussions with folks because, you know, I would like to be using mine too. I have never reported anyone to a flight attendant. Perhaps I should.
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But, you know, they say look, you know, I just tried the thing. It doesn't work. And I have to call. I got something going on. I have to make a call. I mean it isn't just the chatters. I mean I do sit next to people sometimes who just, you know, they want to use Air Fone just to deal with their social life for five hours but these are people who have essential calls to make and they are somewhat desperate and that is a big reason why you are finding people violating the rules and they tell me the quality is quite good.
Obviously, what I hear from Mr. Hatfield it is a problem for the providers on the ground. So we have to provide a viable alternative for these people and I would hope that both agencies can work together and encourage industry and then I am going to be certainly scrutinizing the airlines' role in this. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Mr. DeFazio. Mr. Lipinski.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. Boy, it is enormously difficult to follow Mr. DeFazio when one has to ask questions. Do we have a vote on, Mr. Chairman? OK. I want to thank all you gentlemen for being here. It has been very interesting testimony. I have become better educated on the situation. I would like to ask a question, though, to anyone that wants to volunteer or if all three of you want to volunteer. It will just be one question because we do have to go and vote.
And that is, is there any provision being made for cell phones or PCs or any emitter after people have had them for a while? I mean I understand that if you go in and have your PC upgraded, more memory put in it, it may cause different signals to be emitted so it may change things around. If you drop your cell phone, it could possibly cause the emittance to be changed around.
Is there any kind of provision that you are working on that will be able to monitor this situation so something that is considered to be safe when it is first manufactured and tested that after it has been bounced around somewhat that perhaps modified somewhat. Based upon what I have heard this morning it certainly seems possible that the emitting could be turned around. Anybody want to volunteer?
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Mr. HATFIELD. I think the answer to your question is, no, we do not have any program that would if the unit was dropped, for example, and let us say change frequency that that would be something that we would have any knowledge and way of remedying. If it is a change in the unit where the manufacturer of course changed the design in some way of course it would have to go through the approval process, into approval process accordingly.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Well, do you think that—does anybody else have any comment on—yes.
Mr. MCSWEENY. I was going to say pretty much the same thing, that there really is no methodology that I know of where people can bring their devices and say check my device and see if it is emitting. You can do that, for instance, with your microwave. You can go buy a little device and you can check your microwave. But I know of no device, to check multiple wide band frequencies to see if something is emitting.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Do any of you think this is a potential problem or am I being overly cautious when I bring up something such as this?
Mr. MCSWEENY. My sense is that if it is an unintentional emitter and something should go wrong and it does emit a signal, that is a very, very rare event.
Mr. LIPINSKI. But I am talking mostly about intentional emitters. A cell phone is an intentional emitter, is it not?
Mr. MCSWEENY. Yes, a cell phone is an intentional emitter and a cell phone will always emit a signal that it was designed to emit. And that in and of itself is really the problem. Whether that signal moves a little bit in frequency there are enough possibilities onboard an aircraft to have multiple frequencies of interference, so it would be very difficult, I think, to draw a line to say certain kinds of emitters are OK and certain aren't. We have drawn the line at no emitters.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Mr. Hatfield.
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Mr. HATFIELD. I would just add one sort of footnote to that that systems like cellular systems have to work in conjunction with the base stations so if something goes radically wrong then of course it won't work with its intended base—in other words, there is a centralized controller. Probably the greater concern that your question has suggested is from those units which don't have to have a centralized system to work with, in other words, can work—for example, your family radio service, I don't know if you have seen the little walkie-talkies that people buy, they don't require a central control to work. They can communicate directly with each other and my guess is going to your comment that that would probably be a greater concern than one that has centralized control.
Mr. MCGOVERN. Would the gentleman yield to me just for one follow-up to that?
Mr. LIPINSKI. Yes.
Mr. MCGOVERN. Am I correct that the FCC certification of some of these electronic devices only applies to devices that are marketed in the United States so that in addition to what Mr. Lipinski raised about somebody going to a shop and getting their electronic device altered or dropping it or whatever then if I were to buy something in Russia or in South America that it would not apply to the same standards that electronic devices in the United States and are marketed in the United States have to live up to?
Mr. HATFIELD. Well, now they cannot market it in the United States.
Mr. MCGOVERN. I know but I assume that a lot of people that are flying on airplanes, you know, may be from other countries or may be U.S. citizens that have bought things in other countries so, you know, it is conceivable that we have people flying on planes that have technology that was marketed in other countries.
Mr. HATFIELD. That is possible. That is certainly possible.
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Mr. MCGOVERN. I mean is that—just following up, is that something that we should be concerned about as well?
Mr. DUNCAN. We will have to be very quick on this because we just got six minutes left on our vote.
Mr. MCSWEENY. I could just add a very quick sentence that I believe there are some bodies in the United States, governmental bodies, that look at radiated emitters and there are mutual recognition agreements between countries like the EU and the United States that deal with that. I am not an expert in it but I do——
Mr. MCGOVERN. Yeah, I am not so much worried about the EU. I would be more worried about, you know, Russia or, you know, some other country that we may not have an agreement with.
Mr. DUNCAN. All right. Thank you very much, Mr. McGovern, and I want to say thank you once again to this panel. You have been a very helpful and informative panel, and we will let you go ahead and be excused at this time. And then we will be in brief recess to do this vote and we will start with the second panel. We will be in recess.
[Recess.]
Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Lipinski has asked me to go ahead and proceed in his absence and we will go ahead with the second panel at this time. The second panel consists of Dr. Albert Helfrick, who is Professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Mr. Robert H. Frenzel, who is Senior Vice President for Aviation Safety and Operations at the Air Transport Association of America, Captain Paul McCarthy, who is Executive Air Safety Chairman for the Air Line Pilots Association, Mr. Marshall W. Cross, who is Chairman of the MegaWave Corporation, and Mr. James E. Stinehelfer, who is President and CEO of AirCell.
And we are very pleased to have all of you gentleman with us. And, Mr. Cross, when he gets here, I suppose, and we will go ahead and proceed in the order that the witnesses are listed in the call of the hearing and that means that Dr. Helfrick, we will start with you, please.
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TESTIMONY OF DR. ALBERT D. HELFRICK, PROFESSOR, EMBRY-RIDDLE AERONAUTICAL UNIVERSITY; ROBERT H. FRENZEL, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR AVIATION SAFETY AND OPERATIONS, AIR TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA; CAPTAIN PAUL MCCARTHY, EXECUTIVE AIR SAFETY CHAIRMAN, AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION; MARSHALL W. CROSS, CHAIRMAN, MEGAWAVE CORPORATION; AND JAMES STINEHELFER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, AIRCELL, INC.
Dr. HELFRICK. Good morning. I have to preface my comments with the fact I just got off a week of the flu and pneumonia. I don't feel as bad as I sound. I am going to try to do the best I can.
Mr. DUNCAN. You sound fine. Go ahead.
Dr. HELFRICK. Thank you.
Mr. DUNCAN. Just do the best you can.
Dr. HELFRICK. I have a unique background in that I not only design portable electronic devices and other consumer electronic devices, I have also designed avionics, so that puts me on both sides of the spectrum and hopefully I have a rather broad view of the situation. I would like to state the problems from a scientific viewpoint. First, many portable electronic devices radiate. The level of radiation can vary significantly from the barely imperceptible such as a wrist watch to those that can radiate a considerable amount of power such as a walkie-talkie.
FCC divides all radiating devices into two basic groups. Not going first, you are going to hear this for the third or fourth time. Intentional radiators such as a cell phone or a keyless entry system transmitter and unintentional radiators such as a notebook computer or a CD player. On the other side of the problem every electronic system aboard an aircraft is susceptible to interference. These systems can also be divided into two basic categories, the radio-based systems and the non-radio systems.
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The radio-based systems can be quite vulnerable to interference because they are connected to antennas for the very purpose of intercepting radio waves. On the other hand, the non-radio systems are deliberately designed to be immune from radio energy. Most intentional radiators are prohibited from use in airborne aircraft by CFR 47, which is Part 15 we discussed. This includes cellular telephones.
For the case of unintentional radiators, CFR 47, Part 15, sets forth maximum radiation levels which for the most part will guarantee freedom from interference. It would appear that there should be no interference from portable electronic devices carried aboard aircraft but there are a number of factors that come into play. First, Part 15 radiation limits do not exclude the possibility of harmful interference in a few situations.
Second, just because a device is Part 15 approved, there is no guarantee of continued compliance. If a notebook computer were disassembled for repair or the addition of a new feature, if the unit is not correctly reassembled it is possible that it would no longer meet Part 15 directives. Third, only U.S. marketed devices must be tested per Part 15. Foreign devices may undergo virtually no certification. Many countries have certification criteria even more strict than ours. Some have virtually none.
This problem has been around for some time. Three RTCA committees were formed to investigate the same problem, the last being formed in 1992. The committees were presented with mostly anecdotal information on reported incidents. Some of these incidents made sense while others were very hard to explain. Even the difficult cases there were examples where the situation was repeated several times making it difficult to dismiss it as false information.
This means to say a device was turned off during flight, the problem went away. Turned back on, the problem comes back. Do this two or three times, it starts getting believable. The conclusion of the three committees was pretty much the same. Number one, there is a potential for a problem. Number two, the problem does not seem at the time to be severe. And, number three, the problem should not be ignored. I concur fully with those assessments and I also sat on the last committee.
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Whatever the level of the problem today, it is going to get worse. There is a virtual explosion of portable communication systems, PCS, and many of these are intentional radiators that can radiate strong signals. Many PCS devices transmit autonomously. That means to say you think it is off but it is actually replying and transmitting on its own. Two-way pages and cellular data links acknowledge the receipt of incoming data. Even though a passenger is not holding a cell phone to his ear does not mean that the modern cell phone is not transmitting.
One important piece of information that is missing from this problem is the radio frequency environment in the cabin of an air transport aircraft. There are no models for this environment. How many PCS devices are transmitting, how many passengers have defied the request to cease use of their cellular telephones, how many unintentional radiators are in use. One of the recommendations of the RTCA committee was to design a PED detector.
The basic premise was to locate a potentially harmful PED to within a seat or two. An SBIR was solicited by the FAA for such a detection device but only phase one was implemented. I would suggest that the SBIR be reissued for a modified phase two rather than a system capable of locating a PED that the system be modified to record the radio frequency environment of an aircraft cabin. This could be installed in a small number of air transport category aircraft and hopefully once and for all we can get a handle on what the real environment is.
Electromagnetic compatibility, that is, the ability of emitters and receptors to operate together, is an important part of all industries. Gathering the data on a cabin radio frequency environment would be an important part of insuring electromagnetic compatibility. And that concludes my comments.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Dr. Helfrick. Mr. Frenzel.
Mr. FRENZEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee. I would like to also dispense with reading from my comments because of the extent of the technical discussion from the earlier panel and ask that a copy of my full text be admitted for the record.
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Mr. DUNCAN. All full statements will be placed in the record and you may proceed as you wish.
Mr. FRENZEL. Basically, our members would agree and share the frustration of not being able to reproduce the anomalies when specific type testing has occurred. We have participated in the RTCA work. All of the different aspects of the industry including the cellular telephone industry participated in that work in order to come up with the guidelines and the recommendations that we now operate under.
We basically follow the FAA rules, the guidance there in terms of treating the different types of emitters, whether it is intentional or unintentional. There is a difference between the seat back phones and cell phones, this was very explicitly described by Mr. Hatfield in the earlier panel, in that the seat back phones are hard wired within the aircraft. They are certified to FAA standards for equipment on board the aircraft. And then the secondary thing that makes them different than the use of cell phones, as he indicated, is the fact that they broadcast across assigned frequencies so that there is no potential for interference because they have their own frequencies.
So that is the major difference. The reason is not to force people to use the seat back phones versus cell phones, it is because those phones are adapted for their use within an aircraft. We are certainly open to additional testing and new technologies as they present themselves to improve upon the quality of the service we provide now or to show further the exact impacts of unintentional interference, for example, or in fact intentional interference.
And to answer a couple of the other questions, first I am not an engineer so I cannot give you any technical background, and I am also not a salesman for Air Fone. With that, I will be happy to answer any questions.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Frenzel. Captain McCarthy.
Mr. MCCARTHY. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. My name is Paul McCarthy. I am the Executive Air Safety Chairman of the Air Line Pilots Association. We represent roughly 55,000 professional pilots for 51 airlines in the United States and Canada. ALPA's position basically is that personal electronic devices can create a safety problem during critical flight operations. In essence, we are satisfied with the current approach the airlines have taken to limit the use of these devices on aircraft.
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And that approach, again, is to prohibit cellular phone usage during flight usually from closure of the cabin door and departure until opening of the cabin door on arrival. As far as other personal electronic devices are concerned, most airlines tell passengers not to use the devices except during cruise flight, roughly above 10,000 feet. We think that approach is consistent with the provision of FAA regulations and we are opposed to any moves to lessen the current restrictions.
And as Mr. Frenzel, I am not an engineer, and how and under what circumstances personal electronic devices can cause interference is very complex. The mitigating solution is not. If safety was the only consideration, the answer would be simple. Do not allow any electronic device to be carried on or operated by anyone on board the aircraft. That way there would be no chance of electronic interference by a personal electronic device. However, we live in the real world where there are conflicting needs that must be evaluated to come up with a workable solution within acceptable safety limits.
If there is a device that has a high probability of causing a problem when it is used then the prudent thing to do is prohibit its use. If on the other hand a device has a low probability of causing a problem then you could consider allowing it to be used under certain circumstances. ALPA also participated in RTCA Special Committee 177 and the report of that committee specifically stated, ''Until suitable test procedures have been developed for PEDs designed to transmit electromagnetic energy, the use of these devices should be prohibited in aircraft during flight.'' ALPA agrees with this prohibition.
ALPA also agrees with the RTCA conclusion that no personal electronic device, whether it is an intentional or unintentional radiator should be operated during critical phases of flight, and from a pilot's standpoint critical phases of flight are those phases of flight where my navigation tolerances are measured in terms of feet rather than miles. Above 10,000 feet I have an airway that is frequently five miles wide. I can detect and correct any anomaly that might be introduced in the aircraft.
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When I am landing or departing, I have very, very precise tracks to follow so that is what we mean by critical. The least little interference will have far more dramatic consequences close to the ground. In any event, although it is difficult to scientifically validate interference from nonintentional radiators, we do have pilot reports from some of our members that have definitely experienced in-flight PED interference problems from nonintentional radiating devices.
Although such reports might not be scientifically repeatable they are proof enough for the pilots that these devices should not be used during critical phases of flight such as take-offs and landings. Although we would rather not have to deal with these problems and particularly I as a captain would prefer not to have to go back into the cabin of my aircraft and deal with a passenger that persists in the use, we realize the value to the customer of being able to operate them in cruise.
We try to be practical in our safety demands. Experience has shown that we have time to correct the occasional interference in cruise but again not in critical phases of flight. In summary, we are convinced that PEDs can cause and have caused interference. We support the current ban on the use of intentional radiators. We support the limitation of nonintentional radiators and we are opposed to any moves to lessen the current restrictions. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you and would be happy to answer any questions at the appropriate time.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Captain McCarthy. Mr. Cross.
Mr. CROSS. Mr. Chairman, committee members, staff, and my colleagues. I am an engineer, and a pilot. I used the Air Fone on the way down here. I am from the Mega Wave Corporation, a small business in Boylston, Massachusetts. In April of 1998 Mega Wave successfully completed a Phase 1 Small Business Innovation Research, or SBIR, contract for the Department of Transportation and the FAA's Technical Center in Atlantic City. I served as the principal investigator for this $95,000 team effort which included Professor Helfrick and the LinCom Corporation in Northboro, Massachusetts.
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Our research showed that a practical PED detection and location system is technically, economically and operationally feasible. We also predicted that for safety, business and legal reasons, its eventual use will be supported by the airlines. With such a system, PEDs could be used during all phases of flight consistent with trays up and carried-on items stowed announcements as determined by each carrier.
In July, 1998, the Mega Wave team submitted a Phase II SBIR proposal in the amount of $748,000 to continue its research by constructing and demonstrating a prototype version of the PED detection and location system on the FAA's 727 aircraft. Our proposal included $150,000 in Phase II engineering assistance from PRIMEX Aerospace, a major supplier of aircraft electronic systems, and a commitment to license and implement the system during Phase III of the program.
To date, the DOT and the FAA have been unable to proceed with Phase II due to funding limitations, despite the efforts of our congressman, Mr. Jim McGovern and his staff. Congressman McGovern has also pointed out to the FAA Administrator that the Mega Wave system could, in addition to its primary PED mission, detect and locate arcing from wiring prior to it becoming serious enough to cause a disaster such as Swiss Air 111.
It would also provide an early warning to an airliner as it enters potentially hazardous high intensity radiation fields, commonly called HIRF, which could interfere with critical avionics or upset fly-by-wire systems. I would like to just take a moment to sum up the system that we designed for the FAA. The system envisioned for fabrication during Phase II consisted of sensors, a detection/discrimination and control/alarm/display subsystems.
These in turn sample the cabin's complex radio frequency environment, separate legitimate external and installed avionics' signals from those radiated by on-board PEDs, and if judged to have a potential to interfere with critical radio navigation or other electronics, would alert the crew. The sensor system, I am going to hold it up for you, that we devised during that first phase of the contract that as shown here, consists of an ultra-broadband, planar dipole element with an adhesive on the back that simply pastes to the overhead passenger service units.
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We would put one of these every three rows in the aircraft. The radio frequency environment within an airliner is complicated to say the least. The actual determination of whether or not a signal picked up by the sensor is due to an onboard PED is accomplished by the detection and discrimination subsystem processing the signals from all sensors. This subsystem then determines if the PED generated signal has the potential to cause harmful interference to onboard navigation and vital communications equipment.
The third subsystem is the control, alarm and display unit. It would consist of a flat display screen and audible alarms located on the flight deck and one at the flight attendants station. The system would also provide a record or recording of each detected, potentially harmful signal for any post flight analysis. It is estimated that the installed system would weigh less than 200 pounds. That would include all interconnecting cables, consume on the order of 100 watts of power and have a 15-year life cycle cost of less than $200,000 per aircraft.
In summary, Mr. Chairman, based on our Phase I SBIR work, continued anecdotal crew reports of suspected interference, and other anomalous events and actual crashes due to suspected arcing, we remain convinced that the prudent course of action should be to proceed with Phase II. This would extend our Phase I research and design work and to prototype development/fabrication, test/evaluation and actual in-flight demonstrations of the system onboard an FAA passenger aircraft.
Successful completion of this work, which is a dual role system, would be produced by our Phase II or III partner, PRIMEX Aerospace Corporation. And it would be suitable for installation on a limited number of airliners initially to record and verify the anecdotal crew reports that Professor Helfrick discussed, and also leading some day to the widespread installation on airliners to increase safety and business by allowing expanded use of PEDs during all phases of flight.
Mr. Chairman, Mega Wave Corporation appreciates your support and the opportunity to address this committee. We also want to acknowledge the efforts of Congressman McGovern and his staff in their efforts to advance the safety and convenience of the traveling public.
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Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Cross. Mr. Stinehelfer.
Mr. STINEHELFER. Thank you very much, Chairman Duncan, and Congressman Lipinski for this opportunity. My name is Jim Stinehelfer. I am the President and CEO of AirCell, a privately-held Colorado company that provides cellular based communications services to the American aviation community today. AirCell is a classic start-up. Our company began with an innovative concept literally drawn on a napkin that we could create a dedicated cellular telephone network in the sky for aviation.
Combining our technology with existing cellular infrastructure of our more than 20 cellular partners, we are today bringing tremendous cost and safety benefit and modern wireless technology to the aviation community. Our cellular-based system, enhanced with our technology, has proven completely compatible with aircraft avionics systems and the existing ground cellular operation.
As you know, communications and aviation are both highly regulated businesses and having an innovative and proven technology is not enough. In order to bring our concept to market, AirCell required approvals from both the FCC and the FAA. The FCC has granted AirCell and our cellular partners an exception to the rule banning the use of cellular phones onboard aircraft because the FCC has determined that AirCell can provide this type of service without any form of harmful interference to the ground cellular system.
Similarly, the FAA has approved our system for use aboard multiple general aviation and private aircraft and just this week certified the first AirCell installation aboard a commercial aircraft for a data application monitoring aircraft systems. We greatly appreciate the outstanding level of support that AirCell has received from the FCC, including Mr. Hatfield, who earlier spoke, the FAA, the NTSB, and members of Congress, including the leadership of this committee which have been important elements in our success.
With public interest and aviation in mind, the FCC looked favorably at our case because we demonstrated the ability to provide new and different uses of spectrum without any cause of interference. Without this strong support and encouragement, the best interests of the aviation community could not have been served and AirCell would not have the opportunity to speak before you today.
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We have solved half the problem. We have solved the problem for the cellular phone from the aircraft to the ground. Obviously, as has been discussed broadly today, there is a large unserved market, and that is the use of the cellular phone aboard the aircraft itself. That problem we believe is solvable. While it is the public interest to support the deployment of new and innovative technology clearly safety must be the primary concern especially when it comes to aviation.
We strongly support the positions that have been voiced here today on the use of these types of devices only above certain altitudes and not in the critical phases of flight. We know that cellular phones and similar intentional radiators have the possibility of causing interference to sensitive electronic systems. Recent tests that have been conducted in Europe, although they were at very high power levels, that have begun to add some rigor and credibility to recent testing and suggest that interference is a possibility.
On the other hand, we also heard testimony this morning that the use of a wireless device, albeit as a smoke detector in a cargo hold, is successfully in use aboard an aircraft today. If you can use a wireless device for the detection of smoke in a cargo hatch, I would claim that you could also use a wireless device to transmit voice under proper circumstances. Next week AirCell will demonstrate what we think are those proper circumstances and we will be demonstrating the use of wireless devices aboard private aircraft in order to carry both voice and data to the ground and we are working in conjunction with one of America's largest electronic firms.
We at AirCell envision a future where modern information and communication technologies are fully integrated into the in-flight environment. We envision a super skyway that will bring weather to the cockpit, in-flight entertainment, and Internet access, but it is not a simple task. You need a total system design. You need testing. You need an implementation plan that makes sense and is certifiable by the FAA. You need a verification system such as Mr. Cross has suggested, and you may need, in fact, counter measures to prevent the illegal use of improper devices aboard the aircraft.
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These are incredibly challenging and difficult devices to produce. They are also very difficult devices to go through the regulatory process. We believe it can be done. We look forward to pursuing this activity with the support of such committees as yours. Thank you very much.
Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Stinehelfer. Dr. Helfrick, you mentioned that if there a problem here, it is one that is going to grow tremendously because of the, I believe you referred to it as an explosion of these types of devices in the future. Is Embry-Riddle or anyone to your knowledge doing additional research on this at this time, and why do you think it is that—I mean you heard me mention earlier the great lengths that Boeing went to purchasing a personal laptop computer and having someone sit in the same seat with the same computer on the same flight, the same route, and yet they were unable to show any interferences because it was a different day maybe. Why do you think it is that they just haven't been able to show any type of problem in these tests?
Dr. HELFRICK. I am going to take your last question first and back up. Boeing, I think took 266 notebook computers. Now if you consider that population 266 there are probably 26,000 of them in the air right now so we were trying to simulate a situation that has enormous magnitude with a very small number. Also, there are so many variations. For example, how a PED radiates depends upon which mode it is on, whether display is bright or weak or what program it is running, and so on and so forth.
There are so many permutations of that. I think statistically there is no way you could get them all so it was a very, very small sample. And we know from the actual environment that we don't have daily occurrences so if you just put 266 laptops in an aircraft, a very, very small number, I wouldn't expect an occurrence. Are we doing anything at the university? No, not at the moment. It all comes down to the big old bugaboo called money. I am here at the courtesy of the university but we would be happy to pursue things like that.
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Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Frenzel, you may have heard me mention earlier that there is a NASA study showing that 43% of air rage incidents are caused by alcohol and that the second cause, 15% of air rage incidents were caused by people being told to turn off their laptop computers or other PEDs and becoming very angry about this. Is this consistent with what your members are telling you and do you think this is a growing problem, the resistance to doing something about these devices?
Mr. FRENZEL. Well, I think in general, not necessarily just PEDs but I think there is showing more and more a growing resistance to instructions to do particular things and perhaps the laptop or the use of other PEDs is just one manifestation of that whole environment that is taking place on the aircraft itself.
Mr. DUNCAN. Captain McCarthy, have you ever had any personal problems in flights that you have conducted or what are some of the things that some of your friends who are pilots have told you about?
Mr. MCCARTHY. Usually I can say no to that, Congressman, but in this case, yes, I did have one and most of the pilots you will talk to have maybe had one or two occurrences in the course of a 28 or 29-year career which goes back to Dr. Helfrick's statistical probability. In my case, it was at cruise altitude and it was a known deviation of the compass heading on a glass cockpit highly computerized aircraft.
And I asked the cabin staff to go back and see if anybody was using something. Someone was using a video, these like a Walkman but a Videoman. This was several years ago, where you could put a video cassette in and watch a little movie. I asked them to turn it off. The compass returned to a correct heading. And experimentally turn it back on. There it goes again. And that was good enough for me.
And as I say, most people that do what I do for a living have seen this, have done their little unempirical tests and have the conclusion that the rules we have in place are prudent right now.
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Mr. DUNCAN. Well, I think it is best to be safer than sorry, as I think Mr. McGovern or someone said earlier. I use a cell phone occasionally at home but not as much as it seems like a lot of people are becoming addicted to. And I mention I know a few weeks ago I drove from the Rayburn garage a few blocks up to the Capital Hill Club. In that three-block period, I passed two people in their cars who were using their cell phones and four out of six people that I saw walking along the street in that short period, and then I heard one go off at a funeral, I heard one go off in church one time.
Friday night I took my youngest son to a late movie and one went off right behind me. One went off yesterday in the hearing in the Resources Committee room and Chairman Young exploded. So if he does, as some people expect, move over here as chairman of this full committee in the next Congress maybe some people ought to be warned that he does not like these telephones ringing. In fact, we had one ring here earlier this morning, didn't we, in this room. I don't know. I don't know. It does seem like it is something that is really growing. Mr. Lipinski. We are going to go to Mr. McGovern first.
Mr. MCGOVERN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Lipinski. Captain McCarthy, what other than making an announcement to urge people to shut off all their electronic devices and then having the flight attendants kind of walk up and down every once in a while and notice whether people are using these things inappropriately can you do or do you do to monitor this? My question is how would you know? Do you always know when people are using these things?
Mr. MCCARTHY. No, but interestingly beyond the cabin staff, and that is why they are back there. They are not back there to serve drinks or to make people comfortable. They are back there to make sure that that part of the aircraft is being run properly. Beyond them performing the tasks they are charged with, I find that other passengers are the best police force we have. Enough people are responsible and take what we say to heart that they will not idly tolerate a cellular phone user sitting next to them particularly when you are on approach into the airport, which is interestingly where you most frequently see it.
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If we are in approach and it is bad weather and there have been delays and somebody wants to arrange for their limousine to meet them, they have an overwhelming temptation right about 1,000 feet when the flight attendants are buckled in to pick up the cellular phone and give a call and that is precisely the worst possible moment where this could happen. And as I say, the other passengers seem to be the best deterrent we have.
And on the testimony from AirCell, I might point one thing out. If I were in a general aviation aircraft and I have the passengers with me in the same cabin space, I can clearly detect usage. I can't do that in my airplane.
Mr. MCGOVERN. Right. So you would be supportive of the kind of technology that Mr. Cross is advocating or something similar to that?
Mr. MCCARTHY. I have to be honest with you, Mr. McGovern. I would have to think about that very hard. Putting a light in the flight deck is not necessarily a panacea.
Mr. MCGOVERN. Right.
Mr. MCCARTHY. I have to have a lot more information than simply something is emitting, and in actual point of fact, and I would love to have human factor studies done on this, but the human factors consequence of having a warning enunciated in the flight deck during a critical phase of flight may in fact be more detrimental than helpful. Instinct without any study, I would rather have the chief flight attendant notified than I would the pilots during the approach. It just seems like it might be a better way to do business.
Mr. MCGOVERN. But you would agree that increased monitoring would probably be a good thing? I am asking that question now as someone who flies on planes and listening to the testimony of everybody who has gone before you nobody seems to be able to put anybody's mind at ease that we don't have to worry about all this stuff. We have heard from Dr. Helfrick that things are going to be more complicated and potentially even worse rather than better.
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I guess my question is that if that is the case, I mean I have been on planes, I will tell you, where I have seen people inappropriately use cell phones. I can't tell you that I have reported them to the flight attendant but I think most people who fly frequently can attest to that and so there are people that kind of slip through the cracks. I mean if this really is a concern then we want a system in place, I think, that is fool proof as possible.
Mr. MCCARTHY. And if I might, I take your point, and I would only with the caveat that detection and alerting are probably both good things. My point was primarily how do we go about the alerting and what do we do as a consequence of it, and I believe that that is a part that would probably take a whole lot more thought before we get into it. I don't disagree with anything you are saying, however.
Mr. MCGOVERN. Dr. Helfrick, Congressman Lipinski and Congressman Ehlers before were questioning Mr. Hatfield from the FCC about the certification process that we have for electronic devices that are marketed in the United States. And you mentioned in your testimony that other countries, some countries have just as strong or even stronger certification requirements. There are other countries that have no certification requirements.
Can you explain to us what we should be concerned about? I mean if they don't have certification requirements in some countries is the radiation level that is emitted, is that something that could be significant?
Mr. HELFRICK. Yes. Having certified equipment under Part 15 myself, I can tell you that there is quite a bit of additional engineering and additional material that goes into devices to keep them from radiating. It was spoken earlier about shielding. That is what it is, little shields that are soldered in very labor intensive, very expensive. If you can get away without it, you will save a lot of money.
The problem is that if you do not have strong regulations then manufacturers will be absolutely tempted to put as little shielding or virtually no shielding inside the equipment and it could radiate quite a bit. We are not talking about 20% more or 30% more, we are talking about hundreds, maybe even thousands of times as much.
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Mr. MCGOVERN. If I could just ask a general question
of everybody here. Could you kind of give me your analysis of how you think the FAA is doing in kind of responding to some of the concerns. I mean you mentioned that you would like to do more studies but you don't have money. Mr. Cross has been asked to do a study but it has kind of stopped for reasons they have told you for financial reasons more than anything else.
Mr. CROSS. That is correct.
Mr. MCGOVERN. But there are a whole range of recommendations that were in the RTCA report about educating the public, better about pursuing more vigorously testing. I mean can you give us an analysis of how you think they are doing and what you think they should be doing that they are not doing?
Dr. HELFRICK. Well, I really am not privy to how much money the FAA is spending on this problem but I can say one thing, we are discussing it here so it hasn't gone away. So I see it only hanging around.
Mr. MCGOVERN. I guess I ask the question—I mentioned this briefly in my opening statement about a Wall Street Journal article that came out just very recently in which, you know, the point of the article was that the FAA doesn't even ban cell phones on—doesn't have a requirement to ban cell phones on airlines. That is more of an FCC requirement and it just seems to me that there seems to be some confusion amongst the public as to, one, what the rules and regulations are and, two, whether they are real or whether they are being done for safety reasons for just for financial reasons.
And the other things is again, and I don't know whether Mr. Cross' technology is the way to go, but it seems to me that as I said before in this day and age where, you know, we have to worry about terrorism and other things somebody could get on an airplane with a device to try to intentionally jam the navigation and communication system that it would be helpful or would be a good thing to try to have some sort of monitoring device to be able to detect that and where it is coming from. I don't know if anyone wants to——
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Mr. CROSS. In your last point, Congressman, the Russians at the Paris air show a few years ago were selling a briefcase jammer for GPS. This was reported in the open literature and magazines.
Mr. MCGOVERN. Am I correct or am I overstating if somebody were to have that kind of device, how would you detect it, I mean if you didn't have a device, a detection device, onboard?
Mr. CROSS. You will see an anomaly on the GPS approach if you are doing a——
Dr. HELFRICK. If you recognize it as an anomaly because when you are IFR you don't know.
Mr. MCGOVERN. Thank you.
Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Thune.
Mr. THUNE. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, panel, for your testimony. Captain McCarthy, as I understand it right now each airline has different policies when it comes to the—is that correct that it is airline by airline?
Mr. MCCARTHY. The differentiation, as I understand it, is primarily do we turn off the cell phone in the jet way or do we turn off the cell phone when the forward entry door closes. I am not aware of any airline that does not prohibit cellular phone use while the aircraft is under its own power nor am I aware of any airline that allows use of nonintentional radiators at the lower altitudes. So there are differences in before engine start but after that, I think they are fairly uniform.
Mr. THUNE. Would you support, favor government regulation to make sure those policies are consistent and uniform or is it adequate that each of the airlines adopt what seems at least in your opinion fairly uniform policies today?
Mr. MCCARTHY. I believe the policies in place are adequate. That is our position. What we have works and our position basically is to resist the temptation to somehow lessen to allow more freedom of use of these devices. We would be opposed to that. Nor do we feel that any particularly greater stringency should be addressed. We think we are in good shape right now.
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Mr. THUNE. Dr. Helfrick, and others if you care to comment on this, but my understanding is that there have been efforts to try and replicate the interference that has been caused. There was a Wall Street Journal article, I think, about Boeing going so far as to place a laptop computer that a passenger had, test the same flight, same seat, same computer, and were not able to duplicate that interference. Why is it that these events are not able—they can't be replicated at least in controlled environments and why are these events to random in their effects?
Dr. HELFRICK. Let me take a stab at that one. You have to have a large number of variables all come together. If, for example, you were using a certain navigation frequency and you were using a laptop computer it would have to radiate on that frequency. Now if you look at the radiation from laptop computers they vary depending upon what program you are running, the brand, a whole bunch of things if it just so happens that it does radiate at that frequency.
Furthermore, you get a lot of attenuation through the fuselage of the aircraft that was spoken about earlier. You get a lot of attenuation but there are what is called hot spots and cold spots. You can find spots inside a fuselage for all practical purposes that there is no attenuation. So if you put the right frequency on the navigation unit, have the right laptop at the right place in the airplane and everything comes together you could have interference.
Now how many laptops does it take to find that statistical combination? Quite a few. But unfortunately quite a few fly every day, much, much more than can be done on a controlled test.
Mr. THUNE. Is it possible that because of all those variables and stars needing to align to create that kind of—the conditions that would provide for interference that those conditions and variables might exist independent of a PED? I mean are we attributing the effect to the PEDs, is that possibly pursuing a false lead?
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Dr. HELFRICK. Well, in my testimony I said PEDs radiate. We can measure that. We know that. And navigation equipment is susceptible to radiation. We know that. And if you get the right combination—let me just tell you something. I have demonstrated on many occasions absolutely interference to navigation equipment from the PED. I have taken the absolute worst radiator of all, a pocket AM-FM radio with headphones. It is the most serious radiator of all.
It is innocuous but it is the worst because internally it has something called a local oscillator and that local oscillator falls exactly on navigation frequencies. I can demonstrate it any day you want to see it. Now why doesn't it happen every day? Because typically you don't have a hot spot, you are not tuned to the right frequency, etc., etc.
Mr. THUNE. I would expect these efforts are going to be underway but is it possible that we will be able to design aircraft systems that would shield them from interference from PEDs?
Dr. HELFRICK. You have two things here. When you say shielded from interference, remember that some of these systems require receiving radio waves. You can't shield them. I mean you have to hook them to antennas and they have to pick up their desired signals. Those systems that do not pick up radio signals, those are very carefully shielded. They are so robustly shielded that you can take a direct hit with lightning and run through it. You can actually function through it. So when it comes to the radio based systems there is no shielding. Now on the emitter, yeah, you can shield that more.
Mr. THUNE. I see my time has expired, Mr. Chairman. I thank you and thank the panel.
Mr. SWEENEY. [Presiding] Thank you, Mr. Thune. Mr. DeFazio.
Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To Mr. Stinehelfer, on page 4 of your testimony you talk about from the consumer standpoint we see a World War I phones goes anywhere and the same mobile phone that a person uses on the ground can be used onboard aircraft in a safe and controlled manner. You address that to some extent. You said there were some big technological hurdles to cross there. Is that sort of your one point of emphasis because you are looking at the cellular market as opposed to an improved, hard wired, installed system on the airplanes?
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Mr. STINEHELFER. Yes, my comments were referring to a wireless based system. One of our great challenges in any of these systems are not only just the possibility of devices from Europe or from Russia but also devices in the United States. There is not a single standard for cellular phones today, as you know. There are actually five different technologies operating on at least two major different frequency bands.
Some of those bands fall within the same areas that aircraft systems operate on. So the challenge is really not—is not defined—the challenge is to define the single solution that can be used by multiple users.
Any one system can be designed, but the fact that there are five different technologies, there is analog, there is digital, there is TDMA, there is CDMA, there is GSM from Europe; and these are all changing every day. We hear about 2.5G cellular, 3G cellular, hundreds of models coming so it's an ever-changing challenge, and I don't think that you are going to be able to find a simple solution, but there are solutions that can be developed but they are what I call a system solution, and I believe they involve not only the development of a wireless system, probably something similar, to the new devices that are coming along with the wireless local area networks such as—it's called 8O2.11 or Blue Tooth or similar—the technologies that are out there. But it has to be a complete solution where you also have detection, and then you also potentially have a form of electronic counter measure where you would block the illegal use. There are some tremendous regulatory challenges in the electronic counter measure portion. There are FCC rules that basically prohibit you from using electronic measures even though the ultimate good is the protection and safety of the aircraft and the public benefit allowed by these systems. And so it's going to be a difficult process.
The engineering part is actually the easy part.
Mr. DEFAZIO. Right, OK.
Mr. STINEHELFER. The difficult part is going to be the social environment, the enforcement and the control.
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Mr. DEFAZIO. OK, thank you. Well, then that leads me to Mr. Frenzel then. I have got to say that it seems to me at least the short-term solution is the status quo, the status quo being the prohibitions on the wireless phones with the exceptions noted about aircraft on the ground and so forth.
Now when—you know, I mean, I guess I have a couple of question. I wish they would send an AirFone representative, but you are going to have be a proxy for AirFone. Have you ever used one of those things?
Mr. FRENZEL. Yes, I have.
Mr. DEFAZIO. You have? Do you find it to be a great and cost-effective device?
Mr. FRENZEL. It's challenging to use at times, yes.
Mr. DEFAZIO. Yes, all right. What does the average airline—you know, what's their share of the AirFone at $3.50 extortional charge per minute?
Mr. FRENZEL. I don't know what the premiums.
Mr. DEFAZIO. OK, we will have to ask the individual airlines, but I assume that there are not allowing AirFone to use their markup and, in fact, they are getting some sort of a cut?
Mr. FRENZEL. I am sure there is a contractual arrangement.
Mr. DEFAZIO. All right. So are you aware of any of your members who are working in partnership with someone to provide improved service at a lower price?
Mr. FRENZEL. Well, I think our members are always looking for those type of things.
Mr. DEFAZIO. Well, you know, and you represent the ATA; I represent, sir, the consumer side. No. I don't think they are ever looking for things without being pushed by Congress or their passengers. I am just asking, I mean, are you aware of anybody who is doing that? I mean, has it been discussed in, you know, ATA meetings that, gee, this service really stinks and the prices are extortional and we should do something about it, and the group is working, you know, or pushing for new technology and entering into partnerships and things that you are aware of?
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Mr. FRENZEL. I am not privy to anything in terms of the discussions about AirFone itself, but I know that Air Cell has come over both to our offices as well as working with some of our individual carriers to look at alternatives in terms of what their technologies might provide for the aircraft so I know that both ATA as well as some of our individual members have been doing that.
Mr. DEFAZIO. OK, because, you know, I haven't witnessed what Captain McCarthy talked about because I would have probably been grabbing the cell phone out of the person's hand, and then we might have another kind of incident. But, I mean, I have seen it at altitude where, you know, the stupid things aren't working or they aren't installed. United now has gone back to one phone on the bulkhead on a number of their most advanced aircraft 777's for whatever reason. I don't know whether they are saving money or, you know, what the deal is but they are not installing the seat phones on some of those planes. So I have seen people use them generally at altitude, and mostly not for something that was really trivial and just because they are driven to it by the lack of availability of an option. I mean, all their lives are—you know, I fly long distances so perhaps I see it more frequently than some of the other members who fly short distances. But, you know, I share their concerns and particularly since the Captain and others are more definitely documenting incidents than just sort of these vague anecdotes I have heard in the past. So I would hope that the ATA would take the initiative to push its members to go out there and look for it. I mean, this technology is promising, but I think given the regulatory hurdles and things we are worried about, it's a few years off.
I have got a bet in the interim there is some kind of hard-wired alternative that's available that's being used somewhere in the world or some provider who could provide that in a very short period of time so we could obviate this problem and not make it an air age or an enforcement problem that we are working on the overworked flight attendants. I mean, that's—you know. I mean, you are just creating a temptation, $3.50 a minute for something that regularly doesn't work, works with static or you are shouting into it, you know, is in the—you know, in the year 2000 it just seems to me we could do better, but I am going to hope that one of the airlines will be forthcoming in telling me how lucrative for them. Perhaps if they are getting half of the $3.50 a minute, I mean, they are just—they will get no incentive.
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So thanks very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. SWEENEY. Thank you Mr. DeFazio. Mr. Lipinski.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Captain McCarthy, several times during the course of the hearing this morning you talked about you don't want to see the standards lowered at all. Do you think that the standards should be raised at all?
Captain MCCARTHY. No sir. I think we have reached a fairly good balance as to where we are with the use of these devices. I think it's sometimes lost that all of the non-intentional emitters are allowed, and the longer the flight, the longer you can use them. So the Game Boys, the Walkmans, the computers, all of this are allowed at altitude. And in that context we really need to refocus on the existing cellular phones and whether or not the existing cellular phones which are now prohibited should be relaxed. We think the prohibitions that are in place right now are more than adequate, and it is the relaxation that we are concerned about. We think we got a pretty good scheme in place.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Are you satisfied that all the new technology that has come along—we have talked about earlier this palm pilot that just went in the last year; are you satisfied that all that technology has been investigated sufficiently by either the Federal Communications System or the FAA that there doesn't need to be any further investigation before it's allowed on aircraft above 10,000 feet?
Captain MCCARTHY. Well, as Professor Helfrick mentioned, the plain old AM/FM radio is one of our biggest offenders. Everything that comes out—and you will find a listing for most airlines of what is and is not permissible. The key here, however, is the restriction to altitudes where an anomaly introduced into the aircraft system is detectible and curable by the pilots without really posing a hazard to the flight. Something happens. I look down; my magenta lines, moves. Something made it move. I can detect that, and I can cure it. I am much less optimistic about my ability to detect and cure at 500 feet above the ground.
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So as long as we restrict these things to upper altitudes, if some particularly obnoxious device comes on line, I feel fairly confident that it will start to manifest point, and then at that point we will be able to go back and hit it, but I have to make a pitch with all of the technology and everything else. When I go to Europe, I have to communicate with their traffic control for both normal and emergency on old HF radios. Humphrey Bogart used HF radios pre-World War II in the movies, and I am still using the same doggoned radio.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Did he have that in the move ''China Clipper'' back in 1936?
Captain MCCARTHY. Yes. ''Come in Rangoon. Come in Rangoon.'' Well, in a couple of nights I will be saying, ''Hello Bombay. Hello Bombay.'' And it will be no better radio than it was 50 years ago. So if I am going to spend money; if I am going to take technology, the very first thing before I discommode a passenger, I would love to have better radios so I could talk to air traffic control as an instance.
And just to put the whole thing in focus that we are speaking about here, we have reached an equilibrium. We have a finite amount of money to spend on air safety initiatives. We need to be very, very careful and pick and choose where we put that finite amount of funding, and if we talk about communications, if the battle is between the convenience of a passenger who wants to be in touch or the ability of the pilot to speak to air traffic control, I know where my vote goes.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Maybe we can introduce some legislation—oh, Congressman DeFazio is gone. I was going to say maybe we could introduce some legislation that the profits from AirFone go into aviation safety.
Captain MCCARTHY. I buy that, to satellite radio, yes.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Absolutely. Congressman DeFazio did make mention that on United 777's they now have just one telephone or they are using just one telephone on the bulkhead wall. I have an article here out of the ''Wall Street Journal'' that pertains to power ports, and it talks about the problem that an American airliner had where sparks started coming out of it, and United apparently has had some problems. Neither one of them now are allowing these power ports to be used until they have been reinspected and perhaps rewired.
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Does anyone on the panel have any more information to shed on this particular situation, and does that have anything to do with the telephone that Congressman DeFazio is talking about?
Dr. HELFRICK. Well, let me comment on that. That's not an interference problem at all. That's just a matter of opening up a power port to anyone who walks in which is very dangerous because you don't know what they are going to plug into that, but that really should have very little bearing on interference problems.
Mr. LIPINSKI. But it is obviously—I mean, if sparks are flying out of something on a plane, it's certainly could be considered a dangerous situation, right?
Dr. HELFRICK. Oh, unquestionably, but it's not an interference problem.
Mr. CROSS. If I could, Congressman, I would like to point out that the system that we designed for the FAA would find that, would locate it in the cabin because the sparks generate radio signals just like, you know, static that you hear on your radio from lightening or a vacuum cleaner or something.
Mr. SWEENEY. Does anyone else have any other comments?
Dr. HELFRICK. If I can make a general comment, you know, an aircraft is certified. They install all the avionics. They turn everything on. They make sure that nothing interferes with anything else, and it takes an enormous amount of time to do this, and then an aircraft is certified.
If you come along and you want to add something to an airplane, you got to go through most of the procedure again so we make sure that nothing aboard an aircraft interferes with anything else, and then what. We open the door and hundreds of people come in with God knows what, whether they have been certified or what, and they start using all this stuff. It almost makes a mockery of the whole certification process to turn around and let people come in with all kinds of things.
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The same thing with the power outlets. If you put a connector aboard an aircraft, it's got to be an approved connector; an approved installation has to be certified. You give it to the passenger. He plugs in God knows what.
Mr. LIPINSKI. It sounds a little bit like the security around here on Capitol Hill, everything you go through, but there are so many ports, other openings around there.
Mr. Frenzel, when the airline makes the on-board announcement after takeoff that PED's such as laptops can be used, do any of them remind passengers that wireless modems and Internet access are not allowed and given the proliferation of this type of technology, do you thing a specific reminder would be beneficial?
Mr. SWEENEY. Given the discussion we had earlier today, especially with the wireless mouses and things like that, yes, that type of notification would be appropriate as new technology develops, and we will make sure that those announcements are looked at.
Mr. LIPINSKI. Mr. Cross, in your testimony you mentioned that your technology has the potential for additional uses beyond PED detection. Can you explain that?
Mr. CROSS. Yes sir. It can be used for detection of earth when an airliner is flying into high intensity radiation fields that could again interfere with navigation, communications, but also the fly-by wire systems that people speculated about that phenomenon because after all there is still radio signal alert the crew of. And the second thing is we have touched on it very briefly is you gave a good example of the arcing on the arm of the chair for the outlet, and it would detect that sort of phenomenon also and tell the crew about where in the cabin it was coming from. So it whether it was cables gradually degrading and breaking down in the cabin and starting to arc and a power outlet for the convenience of passengers. It would also find that.
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Mr. LIPINSKI. I thank you very much, gentlemen, for your testimony. It's highly informative, and I think it will help us very much in this situation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. SWEENEY. Thank you, Mr. Lipinski. I—we have been here for a little while, and I only have a couple of short questions. I want to thank each of the panel members for their well-prepared and informed testimony. It does help us on this committee to be into focus on the priorities.
Professor Helfrick, you have done a pretty good job of outlining the option of shielding and the improvements in shielding, and I understand that there are limitations to what that option offers in terms of solving the problem as it relates to radio-based systems. What are the other impediments aside from the normal research and development cost kind of issues? You said earlier, I believe, that there needs to be more work and the volume of which the shielding would occur. What are the other impediments?
Mr. HELFRICK. OK, the shielding is only effective on the PED, and part 15 already regulates that so unless we start rewriting part 15—which I do not suggest. I do not suggest that, but you did mention research, and I think what we need to do, and it is my suggestion that we characterize the problem; everything is anecdotal. The Captain saw it, I believe, and believe me, I believe him. But he doesn't know what frequency was involved or whatever. If there was a recorder on board—and I am not suggesting every aircraft get a recorder. We are doing this as a research project so maybe a dozen or so. He reports an incident. We go back to the recording, and sure enough there was a cell phone on or whatever.
Now the FAA mentioned that they can't do this because they couldn't separate the normal transmissions from an aircraft from those brought on board. That's totally false. Every signal has a well defined signature, and I can tell you in a second what signals came from airborne equipment and what came from elsewhere so it's very doable.
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Mr. SWEENEY. Thank you. One final question. Mr. Stinehelfer, the FAA allows your cell phone to be used on general aviation aircraft but not on commercial. What's their explanation? I should have asked the question of the FAA earlier, but...
Mr. STINEHELFER. The Air Cell phone at the present time is used on both commercial and on private aircraft. We have only done a single installation aboard a commercial aircraft, and this was in what I will call a hard-wired scenario where we were monitoring part of the aircraft systems.
So we have solved, basically, the problem from air to ground in order to protect the ground cellular system. We are working on the technologies now to operate aboard the aircraft in which case we have to protect the aircraft systems.
Mr. SWEENEY. Your one commercial effort is a hard wire though; it's not a cellular——
Mr. STINEHELFER. That is a hard-wired application. That's correct.
Mr. SWEENEY. Then why are cell phones—are they allowed the use of cell phones on general aviation and not commercial?
Mr. STINEHELFER. The actual—the cell phone itself is not allowed to be used aboard any aircraft in flight whether it be commercial or general aviation, and the issue is the protection—from an FCC point of view, the issue is to protect the ground cellular system because an aircraft in flight sees, as Mr. Hatfield described, hundreds of cells on the ground, and those cells are interfered with by the single phone in the air.
What our system does is we have solved that problem so that our phone from an aircraft does not interfere with anything on the ground whatsoever. We have found a way through technology to avoid the issue the FCC was concerned about so they have allowed us to operate our phone on the same frequencies and with cellular companies. Aboard the aircraft, our present implementations are all hard wired. We are demonstrating wireless solutions, actually, within the next few weeks.
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Mr. SWEENEY. OK, thank you. I want to thank all the panelists for your time and your effort, and I will conclude the hearing. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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