They Better Not Be That Stupid

 Let me get this straight.

After several years - or maybe even decades - of development, the airline industry in the United States just discovered this week that the impending rollout of a new level of cell phone service is going to interfere with technology in their airplanes?  And throughout the rest of the world that has done so, other places have figured out not to put cell towers in the approach path of planes coming in for landing, but here in the good old US of A we're just now becoming aware that to turn on 5G will affect airplanes coming in to land, so the answer is for the airlines and aircraft manufacturers to wring their hands, piss and wail, and ask that we not turn the cell phone service on because they haven't done a damned thing to avoid the problem?

I recognize that while we may be in the 21st Century chronologically, there is a significant portion of the population world-wide that is stuck either in the terrible twos mentally or somewhere back in the 11th Century attitude wise when it comes to general scientific development.  As in I don't want to do what might keep me alive and help me survive a global pandemic/plague, don't you dare tell me I have to wear a mask or get a shot because I haven't the mental capacity to understand what the vaccine is going to do to my body in fifty years, so no, I'm not gonna get it, but please make sure that the shelves stay stocked and get the damned kids back to flipping burgers so I can get my fast food.

What the hell is going on.  I mean, seriously.  Didn't we develop the cell phone as a technology, and did we not test the technology against things like airplanes?  I get it - there are reasons you don't want to turn a phone on with the radio receiver working in a flying airplane.  I know things are complex, but you're telling me that in the six or so years we've had 4G, organizations have been working on 5G, and no one said "let's check to make sure this stuff doesn't conflict with other things?"  

This is an awful lot like police and fire departments being unable to coordinate incident responses over the radio, or sending a couple of guys to the moon with air filters that are so totally different shaped that they aren't interchangeable in the two craft making the journey, which will be connected for most of the way out?  

That's just nuts.  I thought we were smarter than that.  And I certainly hoped that the people who build and repair and fly airplanes full of people were just a little bit more clued in on what was going on.  But I guess not.  We'll just have to accept that some day soon they'll discover all sorts of other wonderful ideas.  Such as maybe why not adding some solar panels to the wings of these airplanes to permit them to generate and store some of the electricity the plane needs to fly so that if engine failures, etc., cause the airplane to have some sort of emergency, maybe there will be enough electricity to operate the various systems need to bring the plane in to land?  Or how about connecting the little black box data and voice collection systems on-board to a battery and an antenna so that the airplane can send that data to a satellite which can then send it back to the ground, to a computer archive station, so that if there's a problem we don't suddenly notice oh, hey, that airplane's been overdue for a few days, maybe we should look for it, but rather be able to note that at exactly such a time and date, at a very specific longitude and latitude, the signal ended?  

All right.  Back into my cave, where I'm vaccinated, boosted, and taking care of myself.  I can hope that those folks who continue to live in the trees and refuse to come down to the ground and walk upright will, like so many of our less intellectually capable brethren, die out and improve the breed.  We can hope.  Or we can all turn into Russian trolls, I suppose.  Such as it is.