
US accuses China of pointing lasers at its pilots from Djibouti base - jonbaer
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-43999502
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strictnein
The NOTAM (Notice To Airmen) that a lot of this reporting originated from:

[https://pilotweb.nas.faa.gov/PilotWeb/notamRetrievalByICAOAc...](https://pilotweb.nas.faa.gov/PilotWeb/notamRetrievalByICAOAction.do?method=displayByICAOs&reportType=RAW&formatType=DOMESTIC&retrieveLocId=HDAM&actionType=notamRetrievalByICAOs)

Scroll to the bottom.

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tushar-r
Sounds like something out of Tom Clancy's "Debt of Honour" :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_of_Honor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_of_Honor)

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thinkcontext
It surprises me that an attack as simple as this is effective against a
military aircraft. Wouldn't this be an ideal tactic for low technology
insurgents to use as a counter against attack helicopters?

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mc32
I think that depends on the willingness of the attack copter “to attack”. In
this case they are not in a war, thus unwilling to escalate, in a war sitch,
I’m sure they’d fire back. (Neutralize the source, in parlance).

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koboll
And there's no better way to give away your position than to display a beam of
light emanating from it.

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drb91
This would be pretty easy to automate so you could turn it on and off
remotely.

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ythn
Seems like a simple mirror coating (or gold foil) on the pilot's visor could
mitigate. Or, if pilots don't have visor, make each aircraft have a few pairs
of anti-laser sunglasses if they are being bothered.

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genefriend
Chinese dictatorship is panicking; it’s economy is en route to a crash, sped
up by tariffs and trade restrictions coming from US and Europe. It will be
interesting if their people wake up to their dystopia filled with pollution,
random house arrests, disappearances, censorship, higher prices for consumer
goods, and jobs disappearing.

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aaronblohowiak
“Wake up to” May not be the right phrase when many of those things are the
normal that many have known their whole lives.

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hoppelhase
One could also phrase such a dystopia like this about western civs.

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matte_black
How would one phrase it?

People will wake up and realize they are debt slaves to an elite few, with
livelihoods being made obsolete by tech, with privacy becoming a luxury, with
media being used to focus public rage at any particular target?

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hoppelhase
Yep

