Ghost Riders in the Sky · An Alternative 9-11 Scenario

Project Achilles

‘Project Achilles’ Report · Part One—January 23, 2003
Preliminary Low-Altitude Cell Phone Experiment

January 23, 2003; 4:35 – 5:40 pm; Civic Airport, London, Ontario, Canada

Equipment:

Aircraft: Diamond DA20/C1 Katana two-seater; engine: 125 hp fiberglass/carbon fiber composite body & airframe; weight fully loaded: 1630 lbs

Cell phones: one Motorola model “120 CDMA” cell phone (A); two Motorola “i1000 plus” cell phones (B) (both fully charged at flight time)

The flight plan consisted of four ‘laps,’ elongated circuits (shaped like a paperclip) over London, Ontario, airspace. Each lap was about seven to eight miles long and two to three miles wide. Three calls were made on each of two straight legs in each lap. Calls alternated between cell phone A and cell phone B. A second i1000, intended for use at higher altitudes, slipped to the cockpit floor and could not be retrieved in those cramped quarters. A check of battery levels of the first i1000, however, showed that there had been no significant power drain on the unit.

After the third call, I decided that the cockpit was too noisy to hear the message system, so I changed my plan and called home (my wife), instead.

Calls to the business number were recorded by the message system. Two calls made it through. Of the 17 calls to the home number, only about ten calls got through. In three of these, we had a conversation (of sorts) and the rest were just white noise. (No record of which.)

Summary

In the preliminary test, only five of the 16 (attempted) calls resulted in any meaningful voice contact. In at least two of those calls, no connection whatever could be established with cell sites below. The composition of the Diamond Katana (manufactured right here in London, Ontario) makes it almost transparent to EM radiation at radio wavelengths and the results of this experiment are therefore optimal. Aircraft with metal skins will undoubtedly fare rather worse in the percentage of calls making it through.

Conclusion

The purpose of this experiment was to probe the effect of altitude on cell phone service and to iron out wrinkles in experimental procedure. In the first instance, it looks as though there might well be a decline in service with increasing altitude. The phenomenon must now be mapped more carefully.

As far as operating procedures is concerned, it is probably best to make calls to a number you know well, to be familiar with the various status messages on each cell phone display screen, and to have someone at the other end who can log the time of the call, as well as to summarize the content. (The cockpit in most light aircraft is so noisy that one cannot always hear a voice at the other end, although I did hear my wife talking somewhat clearly on two occasions.) Also, it is important to be very organized, having a special carrier case for cell phones, writing/recording materials, etc. The airspeed of the Katana was just a little fast for me to comfortably make the calls and stay organized at the same time. Two of the calls were made rather late in the current lap, even as we began to climb out to the next one. It would be better to have a separate person operating the cell phones. We also need a meaningful call classification system to fill the gaps between complete failure and an audible conversation.

All calls were handled by the Bell Mobility Network, which has some 25 cell sites operating in the London area. I have now located all the cell sites in London, Ontario, thanks to a very helpful set of maps provided by a local cell phone aficionado: www.arcx.com/sites/ . K. Dewdney

(with thanks to Corey Barrington, pilot with Empire Aviation)

‘Project Achilles’ Report · Part Two February 25, 2003

Equipment:

Aircraft: Diamond Katana four-seater (Empire Aviation)

Cell phones: C1, C2, C3, C4 (See appendix for descriptions.)

Personnel: Corey Barrington (pilot); Darren Spicknell (operator – technician for Wireless Concepts, Inc); Kee Dewdney (director); Pat Dewdney (ground recorder)

Weather: unlimited ceiling, light scattered cloud at 3,000 and 25,000 feet, visibility 15 miles, wind 5 knots from NW, air temperature -12 C.

For this experiment, we flew a circular route, instead of the elongated oval. The circle centered on the downtown core and took us over most of the city suburbs. All locations below are referred to the city centre and are always about three miles distant from it.

Protocol

At times specified by the director, the operator made a call to a specified number, stating the code number of the cell phone (1 to 4) and the altitude. The receiver recorded whatever was heard and the time the call was received. At the first three altitudes of 2000, 4000, and 6000 feet above ground each cell phone was used once. At 8000 feet above ground, only C2 and C3 were tried, C1 and C4 now being hors de combat.

For the results with timeline see table T2.

Conclusions

To the extent that the cell phones used in this experiment represent types in general use, it may be concluded that from this particular type of aircraft, cell phones become useless very quickly with increasing altitude. In particular, two of the cell phone types, the Mike and the Nokia, became useless above 2000 feet. Of the remaining two, the Audiovox worked intermittently up to 6000 feet but failed thereafter, while the BM analog cell phone worked once just over 7000 feet but failed consistently thereafter. We therefore conclude that ordinary cell phones, digital or analog, will fail to get through at or above 8000 feet above ground.

It should be noted that several of the calls rated here as “successes” were difficult for the Recorder to hear, witness description such as “breaking up” or “buzzy.”

The four cell phones operated via four different cellular networks (cell sites). Because calls were made from a variety of positions for each network, it cannot be said that failures were the fault of cell site placement. The London, Ontario, region is richly supplied with cell sites belonging to five separate networks.

It may be noted in passing that this experiment was also conducted in a radio-transparent aircraft with carbon-fibre composite construction. Failure to make a call from such an aircraft with any particular brand of cell phone spells automatic failure for the same cell phone from a metal-clad aircraft flying at the same altitude. A metal skin attenuates all cell phone signals to a significant degree. It may safely be concluded that the operational ceiling for cell phones in aluminum skin aircraft (most passenger liners, for example) would be significantly lower than the ones reported here.

It may therefore safely be concluded that cell phone calls from passenger aircraft are physically impossible above 8000 feet above ground and statistically unlikely below it.

Cell phone types, networks

• C1 Motorola i95cl – Telus Mike Network – 800 Mhz IDEN
• C2 Motorola StarTac – Bell Mobility – 800 Mhz Analog
• C3 Audiovox 8300 – Telus PCS Network – 1.9 Ghz CDMA / 800 MHz
• C4 Nokia 6310i – Rogers AT&T – 1.9 Ghz GHz GSM. (Tri-Band – Has an 1.8 GHz and 900 Mhz GSM these are European frequencies)
• IDEN – Integrated Digital Enhanced Network
• CDMA – Code Division Multiple Access
• GSM – Global Systems for Mobile Communications

Power Levels: Power output of these handsets. The Nokia 6310i and Audiovox 8300 when in digital mode will output 0.2 Watts. When the Analog Motorola StarTac is operating it is at 0.6 Watts optimal. When and IF the Audiovox 8300 is in analog mode it will operate at 0.6 Watts (However, this is not normally the case – you will see wattage levels around 0.52 – 0.45 approximately)

Frequency: Both the Telus Mike (C1) and Motorola StarTac (C2) operate in the 800 MHz range. This will allow the signal to travel at a great distance. However, the IDEN (Mike) network has fewer site locations and is a newer Digital network. Most digital technologies operate on a “all or none” basis. When it has signal it will work well. As the signal fades, one hears no static, but some digital distortion just before the call drops.

Networks: Mike Network: Newer, all-digital network with modern antenna design, and fewer cell sites; Bell Mobility Analog: Older, analog network with less focused antenna design but many cell sites; Telus PCS: Newer, digital network with multiple frequencies, modern antenna design, and many cell sites; Rogers GSM: Our newest digital network with modern antenna design and many cell sites. (All data (courtesy of Darren Spicknell.)

A. K. Dewdney,
February 25th 2003

‘Project Achilles’ · Final Report and Summary of Findings

During the early months of the year 2003, the author conducted three experiments to determine whether and how well cell phones could be operated from aircraft. The first flight (Part One) was essentially a probe of the experimental situation, to acquire some primary data and to work out a simple, readily implemented protocol. The results of Part Two (Diamond Katana 4-seater) have already appeared in these pages. The results of Part Three (Cessna 172-R) appear immediately below.

Since this completes the suite of experiments, it is appropriate to summarize the findings and to draw some conclusions. The conclusions are based partly on the experiments and partly on two other sources. (See Appendix B at the end of the report.) Expert opinion and eyewitness testimony are acceptable not only in court, but in certain scientific inquiries where events are of short duration or experiments are too expensive or impossible to carry out. Of course, eyewitness accounts do not carry the same weight as expert opinions or actual experiments, but the eyewitness accounts quoted below seem to be both consistent and compelling.

Disclaimer: The companies hired to assist in this experiment, namely Empire Aviation and Cellular Solutions, both of London, Ontario, Canada, acted as disinterested commercial parties, with no stake in the outcome or even knowledge of the purpose of the tests.

Experiments

One of the planes used to make the cell phone experiments

The previous experiment, called Part Two, established a distinct trend of decreasing cell phone functionality with altitude. It was conducted in a four-seater Diamond Katana over the city of London (pop. 300,000), Ontario in Canada, an area richly supplied with some 35 cell sites distributed over an area of about 25 square miles. The flight path was an upward spiral, punctuated every 2000 feet (above ground) with a level circuit around the outskirts of the city. On each circuit a fixed number of cell phone calls were attempted by an expert operator employing a battery of well-charged phones broadly representative of those on the market both currently and in the year 2001.

(It should be remarked that not only is the cell phone technological base in Canada identical to its US counterpart, but Canadian communication technology is second to none, Canada being a world-leader in research and development.)

The purpose of Part Three was to test the effects of what might be called “Faraday attenuation” on the strength and success of calls. The presence of a metallic shell around some electronic devices can alter their behavior by its ability to attract and store electrons, especially electromagnetic waves. For this reason, the experimental craft was switched from the Katana, which is supposed to be relatively transparent to em radiation, to an aircraft with an aluminum skin, as below.

Equipment

Aircraft: Cessna 172-R (2002) four-seater (Empire Aviation)

Cell phones: C1, C2, C3, C4, C5 (See Appendix A for descriptions.)

Personnel: Corey Barrington (pilot – Empire Aviation); Darren Spicknell (operator – technician for Wireless Concepts, Inc); Kee Dewdney (director); Pat Dewdney (ground recorder).

Weather: unlimited ceiling, light scattered cloud at 5,000, solid/broken 24,000 feet, visibility 12 miles, wind 11 knots from SSW, air temperature +19 C.

For this experiment, we flew the same circular route as we did in Part Two, The circle centered on the downtown core and took us over most of the city suburbs. All locations below are referred to the city centre and are always about two miles distant from it.

Protocol

At times specified by the director, the operator made a call to a specified number, stating the code number of the cell phone (1 to 5) and the altitude. The ground recorder noted whatever was heard and the time the call was received. At the first two altitudes of 2000, 4000 above ground altitude (above ground) each cell phone was used once. At 6000 and 8000 feet above ground, each cell phone was used twice only C2, C3, and C5 were tried, C1 and C4 being hors de combat. For the results, see table T3, for the summary see the table on the bottom left.