Technology

You should still set airplane mode when airborne for other reasons besides interference with the aircraft. For one, you'll save your battery. It takes a lot of "juice" for your device to search for cell towers that are likely out of reach. You may also want to avoid connecting to a tower outside where you have coverage. E.g. for a flight from Anchorage to Minneapolis, maybe you don't want to connect to Canadian cell towers and potentially receive charges in another country. Obviously this depends on your plan limits. But, yeah, it's not really about protecting the airplane, in most cases

If airplane mode really mattered they wouldn't let you even have a device

Absolutely still turn it on though, or your phone will be pushing it's power to the max screaming for cell towers the whole flight.

But sure if you want to pop it on when you get close to landing, you can usually get a signal that low.

I remember once when I accidentally turned on my phone during a flight instantly the plane started to plummet out of the sky. The phone slipped out of my hands and I groped for it while people and service items flailed around the cabin as the plane tumbled. Finally I slipped out of my belt and grabbed it. With only 10,000 feet of altitude to spare, I finally managed to get the phone to go into shutdown mode by holding the power button down. The plane righted itself immediately, and I slipped the phone into my pocket quietly and kept a low profile for the rest of the flight.

It’s not only the myth, is the airplane crew reminding you of that every single flight. Both on takeoff and landing.

If Airplanes were that sensitive to RF, terrorists would just be using that to down planes over major cities or during landings at airports.

I disagree. I don’t see the point of having my phone waste battery searching for a cell signal. Airplane mode saves your battery.

I could just turn my phone off entirely but then I can’t listen to music.

For me it has nothing to do with aircraft safety.

Aeroplane mode is incredibly, incredibly useful, I use it a lot and I'm almost never on an aeroplane haha.

Last flight I was on had a no electronics at all rule

A person was told they couldn’t have their kindle out during the flight

The most amusing part is that I highly doubt any staff on a commercial flight is capable of telling if people have actually enabled airplane mode or not. It’s an honor system in a country where half of the people don’t even have the decency to try to mitigate the spread of illness.

Use it if instructed to because many people don't understand what airplane mode is.

Use it if you have 2G service still enabled on your phone as there is a very low chance of 2G interfering with certain plane components due to the higher power involved, though that is extremely unlikely, there's no benefit to leaving it on. Also, you really shouldn't have 2G enabled on any phone since it's commonly hijacked to send unsolicited text messages or enable man in the middle attacks, etc., and few providers use it anymore outside of some low density areas and other limited uses.

Use it if you have 5G, for now, since there is still research being done on whether the telecom industry is correct that the new C-band frequencies they're using won't interfere with altimeters that use close frequencies. This can especially be worrisome for low budget wireless chips that don't regulate their frequencies to spec on mass produced models. And poorly maintained altimeters that might not be well calibrated with age. The gap is small enough that it's possible that there might be some interference in real world situations.

So, for the average person, it's still worth telling them to just use it. There's no benefit to having cell service turned on during a flight. The real issue is that airplane mode should really only affect cell signals now and leave WiFi alone since planes have WiFi now and a lot of applications share between devices with WiFi, and leave Bluetooth and NFC alone since they're short range and low power and unlikely to cause issues. Just my opinion as an IT professional with electronics and wireless communication experience, but not an airplane specialist.

You shouldn't risk it, because no one knows how planes work.

Everyone should leave airplane mode on whenever and wherever possible.

Airplane mode isn't for them, its for me having a quiet moment.

Believe it or not Vodafone will charge you for air and sea usage quite a lot. So be careful if you use them.

Airplane mode is still useful for lots of other things. I'd be pretty upset if the feature was removed.

A lot of things are annoying about flying but one of the top is when phones are ringing and beeping unanswered (or worse, answered) non-stop.

I think airplane mode is more for the sanity of the crew than anything having to do with safety any more.

I use it at home. Preserves battery.

Imagine the number of plane crashes if this wasn't the case.

If you have the Steam Deck you should be using Airplane mode. Wifi kills the battery, and as an added bonus - you can use your PC Steam Library and your Steam Deck simultaneously if one is on Airplane Mode.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) conducted a study in 2012 that found nearly zero conclusive instances of aircraft disturbances from cell phone usage.

Now keep in mind, federal law requires you to follow the aircraft crew’s instructions, which includes turning on airplane mode.

In 2013, the FCC got a new chairman, Tom Wheeler, who wanted to shake things up by enabling phone calls and data usage on flights.

“Allowing cellphones on planes sounds like the premise of a new reality show: ‘Cage Fighting at 30,000 Feet,’ ” said Oregon Rep. Greg Walden to the Washington Post at the time.

However, regulators and airlines pressured the FCC into keeping the rule in place, out of fear that in-flight phone calls would create chaos in the sky.

Nowadays, you can get wifi on almost any flight for a small fee, allowing you to make voice calls, surf the internet, and play video games.

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