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I have been wanting to make this laser FOREVER and i could have made a hour long video on it. But dont worry, I have much more planned for this laser!
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There were never any planes in danger and I can prove it with science. First of all, we never turned the beam on more than 4 amps (50 watts)because we were having cooling issues and couldn't really monitor it up on the car.. (we tried 6 amps once but it was too bright.)
So assuming the beam stayed perfectly collimated, the beam would have an area of 430 square centimeters. If the laser was running at 25% power (4 amps/50 watts) that would be about 110mw/cm2 from the telescope. However, your pupil is only half this size fully open, so a pilot could theoretically receive a 50mw/cm2 exposure. A decent amount, but you have to remember even the smallest plane is traveling 150 miles per hour which would limit total exposure time to only 3ms( time it takes to cross a 9 inch beam). That puts it at the cusp of the maximum exposure limit, which is defined as "about 10% of the dose that has a 50% chance of creating damage under worst-case conditions." Here is the chart im referencing en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_s...
So even under perfect conditions, this would still be 10x less than the exposure that carries a risk of damage. That's assuming perfect conditions, but in reality it was a hazy night, the laser would not be perfectly collimated, the atmosphere would distort the beam, the windows in the airplane would deflect some of the beam, unless the pilot was staring directly at the beam they would receive a smaller dose, I tried to keep the beam moving when up in the sky, and most planes are moving faster. all of this meaning the pilot would be exposed to a much lower amount of laser energy in the real world than under perfect conditions. even at full power this laser is still within the safety factor of the maximum exposure limit. Plus do you know the odds of hitting a plane with a laser when your trying not to? just pick a random star in the sky and wait for a plane to fly over it.