Calculation and analysis of laser hazard distances in navigable airspace for multi-beam visible CW laser radiation

Abstract The article describes the way to calculate the distances, defined by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration in the AC 70-1B document, essential for the flight safety in the case of illumination of aircraft pilots by laser radiation. FAA’s calculations and presented examples are simplified for the most common cases of a single circular beam, or circular beams sharing the same power, divergence and aperture. Proposed in this article calculation method was extended to multi-beam radiation sources characterized by different wavelengths, different divergences in two perpendicular planes and different powers. The impact of ellipticity of the beams on the calculated distances was shown. The presented analysis may be a supplement to the AC 70-1B document and may serve as a sample approach for those who need to deal with such laser sources. Laser pointers characterized by powers of up to 50 W as well as these with typical powers of several mW were considered. It was shown that even typical 1 mW laser pointers may still distract the aircraft pilots during landing or take-off which may have adverse consequences.