Annals of Pointless security Theatre

There’s really no need to switch off your phones and iPods and iPads next time you are on a plane. Over to James Fallows:

– 100% of the pilots making those landings and approaches have GPS receivers right there next to them in the cockpits, of the kind you would have to turn off if you had one in your lap in seat 38F;

[…]- More and more pilots have iPads turned on through the entire flight, including United pilots who are being switched en masse from paper to iPad navigational charts. I now use an iPad extensively when flying, because the program I use, Foreflight, is so much more adaptable and informative than the paper charts it replaced. It would make things riskier, rather than safer, if I had to turn it off at arbitrary times.

– And, on all “non-airline big-aircraft” flights, like political charters or corporate jets, people leave their “devices” on the whole time, and it never causes a problem.