no transmitters

I'm sure you guys have all heard it, but I've heard it at lest 20 times in the last month. When the door to the plane closes you have to shut off your cell phone and other unapproved electronic devices until the plane lands and an attendant instructs it is now OK to turn it back on.

halfway through the flight (at about 33,000 feet) the lady next to me pulls her cell phone out of her purse. she never turned it off. she proceeded to scroll through her txt messages and put it back in her purse (without turning it off of course).

interesting to say the least.

2 minutes later she again rummaged through her purse, and pulled out a blackberry (wireless email/PDA $500 piece of crap thinggy....) and proceeded to scroll through and check her messages. she also returned it to her purse without turning it off.

I was going to say something to her, but I don't really agree with the whole turning transmitters thing off. I'm sure high power transmitters COULD screw up the nav/coms systems on the plane, but a few hundred 2W phones should be fine.

If RF devices really did cause problems with the plane don't you think they would do an RF sweep when the brought the drink cart by? I think so.

That reminds me of another story. I think I was traveling with Jen... I can't remember. anyway, there was a guy just a few seats up. he had like 3 drinks, and during landing (50 feet from the runway) his cell phone started to ring and he answered it. this story also goes to show that cell phones (from what I've seen) don't do jack to the plane.