Are cell phone calls on airplane flights inevitable?
Yes. We are not the first time to use cell phone plans on airplane flights. And we are not going to be the last. Cell phone calls on planes, are not new, they are just an innovation that took off in the last few years.
Cell phone calls on planes, are not new, they are just an innovation that took off in the last few years.
They have been possible since the day plane passengers started taking calls. There have been several successful trials on airlines around the world using cell phone calls as early as the 1970s, although most of these experiments were conducted outside the plane cabin. For example, the pilot of a private plane called a flight attendant on board several times during a commercial flight from London to New York in 1971, asking to make a cell phone call to his wife, telling her that he was having trouble with his plane. The experiment was unsuccessful as he was able to make only one telephone call to his wife.
The most successful pilot experiment in the world using cell phones on planes was done by the crew of the Air France flight from Paris to Rio de Janeiro in 1978. The captain, who was responsible for the flight safety, had the first passengers answer their cell phones, and use the speaker phone to speak with the crew. During an emergency they would also use the speaker phone and listen to the radio transmissions, which would help them with the decision making. The passengers also used the same strategy to communicate to the crew and to make contact with each other on the flight.
Some pilots experimented a little more, in the 1980s and 1990s, with the passengers using the speaker phone. This way it could be used as a tool for communication. But, the communication between passengers was limited to the radio phone. The most recent experiments are using the “smartphone” to make calls on commercial planes.
The pilot of a commercial flight from Copenhagen to Stockholm used a new technology called the “SMS radio phone” to make calls to the ground crew. During an emergency a signal would be sent by the plane to the emergency services, and they would use this information to assist the flight. The pilot used a digital radio mobile phone to call the ground crew, giving them the