A 13-year-old Florida boy has been arrested for allegedly shining a green laser at a sheriff’s helicopter.
GP:
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office said the incident occurred around 12:30 a.m. on Thursday while the helicopter was flying over 7th Street Northwest and 11th Avenue in Largo.
In a video shot inside the helicopter, released by the sheriff’s office, the deputies locate the boy pointing the laser and direct law enforcement on the ground to his location.
“Get up and get somebody on this gentleman. He’s blinding our pilot,” a deputy can be heard saying. more
You in a heap of trouble boy.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/lubbock-man-sentenced-to-a-year-in-federal-prison-for-aiming-laser-at-dps-helicopter/ar-AA1nhWVa
What about the survey airplanes shining lasers at the ground , with people all around. Oh, that’s different.
Felony charge at 13. Congratulations kid.
All pilots nees to wear laser resistant glasses. like cops wear bullet proof vests.
He’s 13. He’s “bored”. He’s up and wandering around ouside after midnight.
He just happens to have “a flare gun with a mounted green laser in his jacket.” Because that’s something that 13-year-olds just happen to have in their jackets when they’re outside after midnight wandering around with nothing to do and “bored”…
And innocent, because didn’t realize that it was a POLICE helicopter. Aw…
Can we just bring back whipping? Or the stocks? Or arrest his shfbrains parents?
Idiocracy.
I vote for a Buck Jones Ass Whippin!
Sure would be nice if they took murders by illegal aliens that seriously.
If a kid with a laser pointer is a danger to our Armed Forces’ helicopters, we’re in deep shit.
mortem tyrannis
izlamo delenda est …
Do flare guns benefit from precision aiming devices?
@ Anonymous
SATURDAY, 20 APRIL 2024, 22:47 AT 10:47 PM
“…laser resistant glasses…”
Unless technology has had a breakthrough in the last couple of years, there is no such thing. Last tech review I saw, you’re suggesting that pilots to wear welding goggles at night.
it is rarely direct impingement on the eyeball that is the problem but the reflections within the cockpit make it light up like a Christmas tree, while your pupil tries to stay “wide” for night vision.
If you’re suggesting that pilots should wear NVG over our communities, you’re asking for problems problems.
The kid knew what he was doing and it was “wrong.” Yes, parents need ro be responsible for feral kids.
Sippin’ Covfefe coffee
SUNDAY, 21 APRIL 2024, 9:26 AT 9:26 AM
@ Anonymous
SATURDAY, 20 APRIL 2024, 22:47 AT 10:47 PM
‘“…laser resistant glasses…”
Unless technology has had a breakthrough in the last couple of years, there is no such thing.’
Hey, ALL the Storm Troopers had laser resistant lenses in their helmets in “Star Wars”, and they had to aim and shoot GUNS!
https://youtu.be/n0u_6g7ssCk?si=PLQx53ByUf1dIZyp&t=16s
Oh.
Never mind.
shinging a flashlight at an aircraft is a federal offense.
When setting up an LZ for an Air Care flight, we were under strict instructions to point no lights at the helicopter. This usually wasn’t an issue as most firegrounds and highway accidents had scene lighting like an aircraft carrier deck, but if enough units couldn’t be spared to ground light and there wasn’t a handy, well-lit empty shopping mall parking lot nearby, we would stuff Streamight light boxes in traffic cones with the holes plugged and set them in the corners of where we wanted to define an (ideally) 100′ x 100′ box, and let them drop there.
One time the Chief had us land them on the apron of the fire station because the accident driver had very thoughtfully impaled herself at the opposite corner from it, which was fine for size but was on a slope that Command had neglected to mention to the pilot (we yeggs didn’t talk to them, we were basically paperweights for the landing markers) was steep enough that the pilot had to slow his landing and (later) be very cautious about his takeoff because he said he had some sort of slope indicator and if it went off, the helicopter was grounded and would have to be hauled off on a flatbed, and wouldn’t THAT be a great news story to explain why the hospital was down one helicopter AND a main firestation only had back door access!
Happily, at that time most of our helicopter pilots were Viet vets, and I had the general impression from my limited contact with them that their previous “every day” was slightly more hazardous than plopping down on the concrete driveway of a suburban firehouse, so other than slowing his finals to make some FAA guy happy, it wasn’t really a problem for him. He told me about the slope problem while he was waiting for the flight surgeon to return from the scene (and I was waiting to be a paperweight again), but not much else as the thing was still running and they weren’t gone long (turns out even a flight surgeon can’t field fix a stickshift through the eye), but other than yelling over the thing to be heard, dude was calm as a backyard barbecue, and they were ALWAYS like that.
I don’t know what they use for pilots today, but I don’t think that lasers would have fazed them much, seeing as how they trained with guys shooting at them on the way down and such. No, it’s probably not a good idea to point glowy things at dimmed night cockpits of any sort, but those guys were so good I believe they could have landed by feel if they had to.
And based on stuff they told me about shopping carts and rotor downwash I think they were so bored with civilian flying that they might have PREFERRED to, but that’s a different subject for another day…