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Hey man what are you doing! We can finally use our devices during take off and now you hint at keeping them off permanently! Eek! :P I'm sure the first battery

• jfoster 13y ago
  That did cross my mind when I posted it. I should point out that I don't know what is true. It just seems to be a contradiction that every passenger can take on board and use whatever they want in-flight, yet transponders specially engineered to be safe on a plane must be able to be disabled. I suspect the answer is that the transponder doesn't need to be under the control of anyone on the plane.
  • ZoF 13y ago
    The answer is that when there's 100+ planes parked at an airport it's confusing to have 100's of transponders on as other planes are trying to land.
    • walshemj 13y ago
      so just have a load cells on the undercarriage and a circuit that detects when a plane is landed so that you can only turn off the transponder when the plane is landed.
  • DEinspanjer 13y ago
    Maybe it has to do with the location on the transponder? A laptop in baggage or an electrical component buried deep in the bowels of the plane would be hard to get to in the event of a potential fire. A passenger's laptop would be fairly easy to put out with a fire extinguisher.
  • noselasd 13y ago
    This device is a bigger piece of equipment using more power, with physical interconnects to other areas on a plan. Moreover it normally not located a place where you can lift it up and throw it in a bucket of water, or rip out its battery if something should go wrong.