Short Stuff: Cellphones on Airplanes

Are we finally at the place where we can make cell phone calls on airplanes? PLEASE NO! Listen in to find out.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and
there's Chuck, and there's guest producer Jerry sitting in for
Dave c. Yeah, and this is short Stuff getting up.
No time to explain any of the Jerry Dave thing, No,
not at all, because we're on an airplane and there's
a jerk in first class yammering on his cell phone

(00:25):
because it's now okay to talk on take cell phone
calls on planes. Why would you do that to me?
Why would you even create that, that little situation, that
sketch of a horrible day, just to drive fear into people,
because it's not really true. Um, it's been a while
since I've flown on a plane. Exactly one year actually,

(00:46):
oh yet to the day, not to the day, but
about then about a year in a WEEKI jerk, fifty
four weeks. Uh. But yes, you cannot make sell phone
calls because there are a couple of bodies in the
United States that make sure you can't. The f A

(01:06):
A and the f C c OH. I thought you
were going to say Rob Low and Tom Selleck, just
a couple of bodies. Yeah, um, so yeah, there's actually
two federal agencies that ban the use of cell phones
because everybody hates it so much that everyone wanted to

(01:27):
get a no banning it. The f a A says, well,
the reason we ban it is because we're pretty sure
that that could conceivably interfere with the planes instrumentation. Um,
and you don't want to do that because you could
make a plane drop out of the skuy probably And
the SEC says yeah yeah. Plus also it will totally
mess with calls on the ground because those ones up

(01:50):
in the air will be jumping from tower to tower
and it will just be a big problem. Yeah. And
I think pre two wasn't didn't you even have to
power down your cell phone? Yes, they were like, just
don't just take your cell phone and throw it out
the window, like Mitt Rodney says, roll down your your
airplanes window and just throw it out midflight. We don't

(02:11):
even want them onto here. They were basically like, just
do not do anything with your cell phone. And then
finally somebody told them about airplane mode, appropriately called airplane
mode because it cuts off the cellular service on your phone,
but it remains it keeps like the WiFi intact if
you're if you have it turned on right, and ever
since then you could at least go through and and

(02:33):
spend a couple of hours deleting pictures that you don't
need clogging up your storage space. That's right. I like
to just like there's one of the things that was
always great about a flight, as you were just disconnected
for an hour or five hours or something, you were
just just like you could bring an actual printed book
with you and like read it, you know. But with

(02:54):
the with the advent of WiFi on planes and everything,
it's like, now it's connected and you can commu indicade
and it's just you can do other stuff that you
do under normal circumstances, and it's ruined everything. Yeah, I
will still unless I really legitimately have stuff I have
to get done for work, I will still not get

(03:15):
my laptop out and get online just to surf the web.
I'm like, I give myself that break. Yeah. No, it's
a it's good to do. It's you know, it's so
easy to be addicted to computers and the Internet and
everything that sometime it's hard. It is. Uh, the deal
with whether or not it could really interfere with communication

(03:36):
systems or the planes flight systems. Uh, that is probably
not the case because planes are hardened, meaning um, all
of those electronics that are important on a plane, like
the flight control system are covered or you know, boxed
in this electrically conductive material that prevents any kind of

(03:56):
electromagnetic interference. So they've kind of taking care of that
for the most part, but they still air on the
side of caution and they're like, but let's just not
do it. Still. Yeah, they do know that electro magnetic
interference can affect planes. Things like lightning and solar flares
UM have affected instrumentation on planes, and especially with GPS,

(04:19):
which is critical in uh, take off but especially landing. Um.
It's it's it's really sensitive to electro magnetic radiation interference.
So you don't want anything messing with that, least of
all somebody who just has to talk on the phone,
because the worst reason to allow it, right, So they

(04:40):
know that it can happen, but they couldn't find in
this one study in the two thousand odds uh, any
any smoking gun that said, yes, this plane fell out
of the sky because somebody was talking on a cell phone.
It was just they knew it was conceivably possible. Even
though they shielded or hardened the stuff, um to prevent
that that. They still said, it's just it's just not

(05:01):
worth it. Everybody hates people talking on cell phones anyway,
so why would we make an exception when it could
also conceivably mess with the planes? Instrumentation agreed. Should we
take a break? Yes, all right, we'll take a break
and finish up with this stuff right after this. Alright.

(05:49):
So here's what they don't have on planes is any
kind of alert to a flight attendant that says, hey,
there's a jerk on row fifteen in the middle seat
that's hunched down and using their cell phone. Go back
there and stop him. They don't have prejudice. Yeah, totally.

(06:09):
They should bring that pot of coffee. Um, they should stop.
They should have that stuff, but they don't. But generally,
I think anybody if they saw their seat mate next
to them trying to make a phone call or calling
somebody would be smart enough to alert the flight attendant
and say, hey, you can't do this, get this jerk

(06:30):
off a here. My hand would shoot up. Like a
third grader with the right answer to the question the
teacher just asked, I'd be like, oh, oh, they're on
their phone. I would sell on somebody so fast, Yes, yeah,
and I wouldn't even care if they gave me stitches
for niches. That's right. Um at thirty six thousand feet though,

(06:55):
you're not gonna be connecting with the cell tower anyway.
I think we have all been in situations where we
may not have realized that our phone wasn't on airplane mode,
and you'll hear You're like, when you start to land,
you'll hear your phone ding, like a message just come through,
and you're like, oh boy, I didn't know that that
could even happen. Uh. They must really mean it when
they say put your phone on airplane mode. Yeah, that's

(07:18):
what the SEC's whole position was, is that um air
traffic would mess with ground traffic, and that cell phone
towers are basically designed to hand off from one tower
to the next in a cell um as you're walking by, UM,
driving by tops, not you know, flying a couple of
hundred miles an hour at ten thousand feet as you're

(07:38):
coming in for a landing. Yeah there, and yeah, exactly
a bunch of people on a plane all doing at
the same time, because you're gonna attack the capacity of
each tower they're not designed to register in handoff calls
like that that fast. Um, and so the the SEC
is like that could really interrupt ground communications. So that's
another reason not to do it. Yeah, but generally those uh,

(08:01):
they're not looking up anyway, which is why you can't
get that signal at thirty six thousand feet. But like
I said, anything less than ten thousand beat and it
might be possible, So you just shouldn't try. Still. Yeah,
and Richard Branson said, what is one way that I
can fully ruin the experience of flying for people? And
uh in two thousand and ten, I believe around then

(08:25):
he came up with the answer, and that was to
offer cell phone service via UM little uh what are
they called pico Yeah, Pico cells. Pico cells, little tiny
cell towers that use the plane's WiFi to transmit cell
phone calls. So on Virgin UM some Virgin flights that
are not in the United States or within two fifty

(08:47):
poles of the United States, you can make cell phone
calls aboard the plane. Yeah, that's I think he probably
thought that would enhance the experience because he's all about
I mean, we both flown rgin. It's it's the best.
It's awesome. Oh yeah, there's that pantry. You can stand
up and just go get candy from any time you
want to love it. That Australian flight was like the

(09:09):
one of the nicest experiences I've ever had in the air,
for sure. I I suspect he's promoting his Virgin Mobile
business though by well maybe you know, but it is
weird that someone that has taken such great care to
make the flight such a great experience then ruins it
by saying everyone can talk on their cell phones now. Maybe. Yeah,
nice chill lights, lavender aroma therapy. It is such a

(09:32):
nice experience, for sure. It really is country. Hey, while
we're here, I just want to say, I want to
take a second when we're talking about Virgin Uh, my
niece Mila just recently flew to New Zealand for eleven
weeks because she's co starring in a major motion picture
and that's where they're shooting. Are you serious? I am

(09:53):
dead serious, man. My parents are there right now for
a level week. She is and wow she is. Yeah,
like she's one of the co lete she's one of
the main characters. Like I think her hands are going
to be on the poster. That's amazing, isn't it huge? Congratulations,
it's really exciting. I'll keep you posted as I can.

(10:15):
To be honest, I'm not entirely certain I can include this,
so we may end up editing it out. But at
the event, at least you know now well and when
the time comes, we can promote it on movie crush.
Oh nice, thanks man, that's very of course. So uh.
The FCC basically spent many years saying, like, Okay, is
this really a problem? Should we allow like Richard Branson's

(10:37):
making us look like total jerks? Should we allow this?
And they, after several years of study, they concluded they said, no, nuts,
nuts to Richard Branson. They said the flight attendants. You know,
they asked a lot of people. They didn't just do
the studies about safety. They asked actual people who work
on planes, and the flight attendants were all like, no, known,

(11:00):
Oh no, they need to be listening to us, um,
Especially in the case of an emergency. The first thing
everyone would do would be to get out their phone
and try and call their loved ones. And that's when
they most need to be listening to things. Right, that's
a big one, um. But then there's also the annoyance factor.
And this to me is where it just becomes like

(11:21):
the most important thing. Just everything else forget it. It's
so obnoxious to even while you're on the tarmac waiting
for them to shut the door, and there's people sitting
there talking on the phone. That's obnoxious. Enough of food
from the food court even that, I'm like, Okay, at
least they're they're providing their bodies sustenance and nourishment. I

(11:43):
can live with it. The phone is like and you
can tell from the conversation there's just no point in
this transpiring, and yet it is, and and there's another
one in, another one, another one. Being on a plane
like that for many, many hours is awful. It's an
awful idea. Yeah, it's that situation and where John Hodgeman
always talks about being aware of the impact that you

(12:04):
have on others, and I've always subscribed to that. But
the person that has their shoes off and they got
their Panda Express like piping hot meal in their lap
and they're talking on their cell phone before the flight
takes off, that's the person that's like paid for the seat,
Let just do what I wanted, and I paid for
the seat. Don't be that person, I know, Yeah, because

(12:24):
you just don't have an effect on everybody. Be kinder,
think about other people. Yeah, but hey, enjoy your pain
expressed because you're providing. There's got to be some nourishing
nutrients somewhere. Sure. Yeah, those green peppers are okay. You
got anything else? I got nothing else? Okay, Well, then
that means short stuff says stay off your phone. Stuff

(12:50):
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