Laser Flares

I am constantly concerned by this belief that lasers are guaranteed to be safe. To much energy on your retina will repeat will damage it permanently, hence the fear that is expressed by aircrew over lasers being pointed at them. There are no standards for marine signalling lasers so in effect anything sold as one is not recognised by any rescue authority which make it's use almost pointless.

We need first to have proper safety standards for any signalling laser then we need international standards for the nature of the signal so it is recognised properly so that rescuers know it is both an emergency signal and safe.

As for flares I would suggest they are safe as long as you remember they are bl**dy dangerous, and in reality the same applies to lasers
 
maxi77 said:
There are no standards for marine signalling lasers so in effect anything sold as one is not recognised by any rescue authority which make it's use almost pointless.
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So, Maxi77, the most used pointing device invented since the stick is "almost pointless" is it?
 
Cantata said:
They tried to take em all away several years ago, but all the teams howled - white paras are excellent for assisting with searching at night e.g.a remote marsh area, and are instantly available to the team and a lot cheaper and quicker than waiting for a helo equipped with FLIR. So some teams had them issued again. Still the case as of last May when I left.
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Off topic, but can you share why you left? Given the comments of other CG types on here the heidbummers at the MCA seem to have developed a comprehensive programme of staff demoralisation recently.
 
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If I'm going to be pressganged into paying a whopping premium for my electricity I'd like a choice, and my choice is nuclear power; I don't get that choice at the moment, so all that's available to to me is to make a weak pun based on those badges the german greens wore in the 1980s.
 
penfold said:
If I'm going to be pressganged into paying a whopping premium for my electricity I'd like a choice, and my choice is nuclear power; I don't get that choice at the moment, so all that's available to to me is to make a weak pun based on those badges the german greens wore in the 1980s.
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So long mile island, Chernobyl, Selllafield, Windscale, Fukushima Daiichi, every country from Britain to the Ukraine that has nuclear power has had major catastrophes. And this is your first choice?
 
Cantata said:
They tried to take em all away several years ago, but all the teams howled - white paras are excellent for assisting with searching at night e.g.a remote marsh area, and are instantly available to the team and a lot cheaper and quicker than waiting for a helo equipped with FLIR. So some teams had them issued again. Still the case as of last May when I left.
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I'm not sure of the history because I haven't been in the CG very long, but we certainly carry white flares and orange smokes in our vehicle. In a substantial metal box.

TEPs are a different matter altogether and the powers-that-be have written reams abut how they are to be handled (or not). Of course you have to pick the thing up and hold it at reading distance before you know if has expired or not.

Personally I have always held a deep distrust of flares and I don't have any on my boat. However having been involved is a search and rescue that was initiated by flares, I've decided that I will carry 2 paras, 2 reds and 2 smokes, just in case. I won't be storing them in the usual plastic tub though, but will get a decent metal box for them. I still don't like them, but I can envisage scenarios when they could be the key difference between being rescued and not.
 
PabloPicasso said:
So long mile island, Chernobyl, Selllafield, Windscale, Fukushima Daiichi, every country from Britain to the Ukraine that has nuclear power has had major catastrophes. And this is your first choice?
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Yes; 6 decades of nuclear power generation in the UK has resulted in no deaths and no significant releases of contamination into the environment. I like those odds.
 
PabloPicasso said:
So long mile island, Chernobyl, Selllafield, Windscale, Fukushima Daiichi, every country from Britain to the Ukraine that has nuclear power has had major catastrophes. And this is your first choice?
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I live 3 miles from an old nuclear station & have no qualms whatsoever.
The sooner we get some new ones the better
Why we cannot build them ourselves is beyond me & why we have to mess about arguing with private enterprise is unbelievable
HM gov should get off its backside & get building
& while we are at it we should get f.. Ing fracking as well
I will not repeat what i think about windmills !!!!!
 
I would never carry nasty pyros were it not for the regulations, which some countries enforce. I have yet to see a laser flare in operation but reading the blurb suggests that it spreads its beam a lot more than a laser pointer, so it is not so dangerous to observers. Nevertheless, for the last mile, where it is supposed to replace the red hand held pyro, at night, a powerful torch could substitute. In the day, smoke would do, if a heliograph will not. The parachute flares are better replaced by electronic GMDSS elements in my view.
 
RAI said:
I would never carry nasty pyros were it not for the regulations, which some countries enforce. I have yet to see a laser flare in operation but reading the blurb suggests that it spreads its beam a lot more than a laser pointer, so it is not so dangerous to observers. Nevertheless, for the last mile, where it is supposed to replace the red hand held pyro, at night, a powerful torch could substitute. In the day, smoke would do, if a heliograph will not. The parachute flares are better replaced by electronic GMDSS elements in my view.
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Lasers have just as much capacity to be nasty as flares, this idea that they are completely safe is just as worrying as the potential dangers of flares
 
RAI said:
The parachute flares are better replaced by electronic GMDSS elements in my view.
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I think they're better used in conjunction with them personally. Considering how dangerous flares are in theory they have a history of being really quite safe and they have done infinitely more good than harm.
 
penfold said:
Yes; 6 decades of nuclear power generation in the UK has resulted in no deaths and no significant releases of contamination into the environment. I like those odds.
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In fact, you can argue that conventional coal-powered power stations have released more radioactivity into the environment than nuclear power stations have. Because it isn't monitored as rigorously as nuclear generation, it is difficult to be sure - but some types of ash would count as low level waste if tested as rigorously as the waste from nuclear stations.

You can think of it this way. Many sedimentary rocks carry significant amounts of radioactive material - you can check this by looking at radon maps of the UK (e.g. http://www.ukradon.org/map.php?map=englandwales). Brick clays are particularly active, as you will see from the stripe up the east side of the country. Coal is no exception, and the radioactive component is concentrated in the ash when the coal is burnt to produce electricity. Further, radon (which is a radioactive gas) is released in the flue-gases.

Of course, thermal power stations also emit other nasty things, which is why they have vastly tall chimneys to allow the gases to disswipate before reaching ground level.

Personally, I'd be happier living close to a nuclear power station than to a coal fired one; the environmental effects of the former are far less than those of the latter.
 
Now this really is threat drift, but just to stoke the fire, almost 40% (39.7%, I think) of the electrical energy used in Scotland in 2012 came from renewable energy sources, hydro, land fill gas and wind. With the aim of it being 100% by 2020.
 
RAI said:
I am talking about this one.
http://www.odeoflare.co.uk/
Are you saying this is more dangerous than a hand held pyro?
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They class themselves as Class 3R, and this what is said about such lasers, A Class 3R laser is considered safe if handled carefully. In other words safe as long as you remember it is dangerous. To put it an other way the classification of the laser implies it can be dangerous unless handled properly, much the same as a flare.
 
To try and classify an odeoflare in the same category in relation to risk to handling as a explosive flare is to my mind erroneous. I base this statement on reading the RYA assesments and the CA RATS assessment. I personally am increasingly nervous about carrying explosive flares and reading recent articles by the RYA and CA reinforces my view - but each to thier own!
 
nickf said:
To try and classify an odeoflare in the same category in relation to risk to handling as a explosive flare is to my mind erroneous. I base this statement on reading the RYA assesments and the CA RATS assessment. I personally am increasingly nervous about carrying explosive flares and reading recent articles by the RYA and CA reinforces my view - but each to thier own!
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You perhaps have not worked with lasers for many years, and as it happened handled a fair amount of pyrotechnics and explosives. They are both dangerous, though in different ways but I suspect you would find losing an eye just as limiting as losing a hand
 
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