G5 and big airplanes - what are they thinking?

I hadn’t paid much attention, the few grand things I heard about G5 technology a while back, made it sound more like an entry drug for a dystopia existence.

Now that it’s about to be unleashed, the aviation news finally caught up with me.
To me it seems humanity’s frivolous greed and self destructive knows no bounds.

FAA 5G Statement issued on January 16, 2022

Today, the FAA cleared an estimated 45 percent of the U.S. commercial fleet to perform low-visibility landings at many of the airports where 5G C-band will be deployed on Jan. 19.

The agency approved two radio altimeter models that are installed in a wide variety of Boeing and Airbus planes. This combination of aircraft and altimeter approval opens up runways at as many as 48 of the 88 airports most directly affected by 5G C-band interference.

As of Jan. 5, none of the 88 airports would have been available for landing during low-visibility conditions. The wireless companies agreed to create buffer zones for six months around airports where transmitters are in close proximity. They also agreed to delay deployment until Jan. 19 while the FAA reviewed new data detailing the location and power of wireless transmitters in all 46 U.S. markets where this service will be deployed.

Even with these new approvals, flights at some airports may still be affected. The FAA also continues to work with manufacturers to understand how radar altimeter data is used in other flight control systems. Passengers should check with their airlines if weather is forecast at a destination where 5G interference is possible.

The airplane models approved include some Boeing 737, 747, 757, 767, MD-10/-11 and Airbus A310, A319, A320, A321, A330 and A350 models. FAA expects to issue more approvals in the coming days.

The airwaves are a shared national resource and exist in an environment of continual technological change and marketplace development. As a result, the federal government must have a set of underlying policies to guide the difficult and highly technical decisions about spectrum allocation and its ultimate effects on incumbent as well as new users. Unfortunately, the Trump administration had no such unified spectrum policy; as a result, policy ended up being made by individual agencies.

Less than 14 months after President Obama took office, his administration produced an integrated spectrum plan and broadband plan. It was not until 20 months into the Trump administration that there was even an attempt to create a national plan for spectrum usage. In October 2018, President Trump ordered the plan to be available in six months. But it never happened. …

Oh dear, more cascading consequences of making a narcissistic clown the President of our nation. Our overwhelming willful disregard for actual physical reality is truly astounding. Then for me to get this close up view of what we Americans are doing with all this wealth and power we’ve acquired is downright heartbreaking.

This was one of the weirder stories I was following. Especially since I know a 5G conspiracy nut. Unfortunately he’s locked out of facebook at the moment, so I didn’t get his take on it. There had to be something weird, given that Europe has 5G near its airports. So, Trump, of course. And, the “let the market figure out” mindset.

In my short spurt of googling I didn’t find anything that actually explained how the interference would happen, but if the FAA and airlines is taking it serious, I can’t imagine there’s not a there, there somewhere.

Though the full story requires a subscription and I’m about out of time.

I would have thought that the FCC would have caught this if it were a concern.

Agreed.
Still more and more planes are “fly by wire” so who knows what kinds of vulnerabilities might exist.
I imagine we’ll be hearing more about it. One way or the other.

Speaking to CNN’s Richard Quest today, Emirates president Tim Clark said that they were not aware of the issues until yesterday morning “to the extent that it was going to compromise the safety of operation of our aircraft and just about every other 777 operator to and from the United States and within the United States.” …
“We were aware of a 5G issue. Okay. We are aware that everybody is trying to get 5G rolled out after all it’s the super cool future of whatever it may be communication and information flow. We were not aware that the power of the antennas in the United States have been doubled compared to what’s going on elsewhere. We were not aware that the antenna themselves have been put into a vertical position rather than a slight slanting position, which then taken together compromise not only the radio altimeter systems but the flight control systems on the fly by wire aircraft. So on that basis we took that decision late last night to suspend all our services until we had clarity,”

CNN link

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I really don’t understand the electrical / radio waves / radio bands and all that hoo-doo voodoo.

So, I’ll take his word for it.

  • There was one moment in time that I was able to correlate that electrical stuff to standard mechanical physics - at least enough to pass the test.