E200 - Serious "Flight Mode" Bug

[Guest Pagemakers]

I fly for an airline and on today's flight I decided to test the E200's Flight Mode.

....and guess what?

IT DOES NOT WORK!!!

On the ground (with a signal) it's different - Click "Flight Mode" and the transmitter/receiver part of the phone turns off. Then click "Flight Mode Off", enter your sim pin (if you have one set up) and presto your phone swings back into life. Great - it works as advertised.

However, during today's flight I turned my phone on and it began to search for a signal. Selecting "Flight Mode" does absolutely nothing, the phone continues to search and search. The audible mobile phone "interference" noise could quite clearly be heard over the aircraft's speaker. Checking the phone's "quick list" and it does not say "Flight Mode Off", so it is obviously still ON! If I select "Flight Mode" again, I am not asked for my sim pin, so this also confirms the phone is still very much in the ON mode.

I re-booted my phone several times and I had the same results every time. I also tried to select "Flight Mode" before the phone starts to hunt for a signal and it makes no difference. IT DOES NOT WORK!!!

I left my phone on during the decent and as I suspected when we landed the phone located the Orange network so it was most definitely NOT in flight mode in the first place.

I can only assume the phone will not go into flight mode if it is not established on a current network in the first place.

I would strongly suggest that Orange address this issue as a matter of urgency. Using your phone onboard a flight is not only dangerous it is breaking the "Air Navigation Order" and could lead to your arrest if your phone causes interference with the aircraft systems (and they do).

My advice to Orange would be to issue a statement regarding this very serious bug and my advice to users would be not to use your E200 (in flight mode) onboard a flight (unless you put it in flight mode before take off), in a hospital or any where you should not use a mobile phone.

[Guest nCoder]

The original SPV appears to be the same. You turn the unit on and it won't let you turn the radio off until it has found a network. It is a bit of a major bug.

[Guest midnight]

strange, cos if i set my phones to radio off and reboot it comes back up in radio off mode and does not attempt to search for the network. Thats tested with sp2k2 and wm2k3 by the way.

Admittedly you cant change it to radio off while its searching, but surely you should turn the radio off before you get on the aircraft?

[Guest spacemonkey]

The following 2 quotes seem to say that (a) you broke the law, (:lol: you did so willingly and deliberately with a full knowledge of the law in question.

But, if it's all in the name of reaserching a feature on your latest toy, I'm sure there's no moral issue.

I left my phone on during the decent and as I suspected when we landed the phone located the Orange network so it was most definitely NOT in flight mode in the first place.

Using your phone onboard a flight is not only dangerous it is breaking the "Air Navigation Order" and could lead to your arrest if your phone causes interference with the aircraft systems (and they do).

[Guest nCoder]

What if you forget though? Your phone is basically useless for the whole duration of the flight.

[Guest Pagemakers]

The point I am making is if you DON'T turn it off before boarding, you can not turn the phone on during the flight and select "Flight Mode".

You can on the P900 and you should be able to on the SPV. Christ, the battery wouldn't last on a long haul flight so you would have to turn it off.

[Guest Pagemakers]

Spacemonkey, you comments are no real help. When I first turned the phone on I expected it to work in Flight Mode.

Don't shoot the messenger here.

[Guest midnight]

quite simple.... dont forget to change to flight mode :lol:

would it kill you to not use the phone for a few hours anyways? at least its got flight mode, most phones dont

anyhoo, i dont cosider this a bug, more human error for not turning flight mode on initially (and you can turn flight mode on, and then turn off the phone, meaning it can last the length of long-haul flights by the way)

[Guest spacemonkey]

Yes, I realise that it didn't work, but when it didn't work rather than thinking, "oh my god, this is dangerous and illegal" and turning your phone off, you then turned it off and on several times and left it on during descent to test a theory thereby endangering every passenger on that flight.

Spacemonkey, you comments are no real help.  When I first turned the phone on I expected it to work in Flight Mode.

Don't shoot the messenger here.

[Guest Pagemakers]

Spacemoney, I fly the aeroplane so if it started to do something untoward I would obviously turn it off.

The user manual makes no statement about turning it to flight mode before you board the flight (manual quote - Flight mode, select when travelling on an aircraft) and I don't think it's unfair to assume that I, like most people would probability turn the phone off before boarding and then if required turn it on (in flight mode) to check something, after all the Smartphone is exactly that, not just a device to make calls on Midnight. Today for example, I needed to check my phone's calendar before committing to an appointment.

Let's agree to disagree on this one. I would just expect to be able to turn my phone on, select "Flight Mode" and be done with it.

[Guest awarner [MVP]]

With my test phones I use old sim cards that have been diconnected from the network so basically they are dead. I can turn the radio off and on without a problem.

Interesting though but don't forget I do not have an E200 to test though :lol:

[Guest moo_ski_doo]

anyhoo, i dont cosider this a bug, more human error for not turning flight mode on initially (and you can turn flight mode on, and then turn off the phone, meaning it can last the length of long-haul flights by the way)

Hmm... Not sure I agree with you there, sounds like a bug to me (well, OK, maybe not a bug, but it's not been very well thought out has it?...)

[Guest Pagemakers]

As Midnight suggests I will turn my phone to flight mode before flying tomorrow and then during the flight I will turn it off and on to see it if comes back in "flight mode".

Sadly though if you forget to do this prior to a flight there is no going back once you are airborne and as nCoder states above " What if you forget though? Your phone is basically useless for the whole duration of the flight.

I agree with you moo_ski_doo, if it's not a bug, it's not very clever.

[Guest spacemonkey]

In an ideal world you should be able to turn it to flight mode before it even thinks about turning on the radio, for instance at the pin entry screen.

Otherwise the phone will have powered up and started searching before you go to the menu and try to choose flight mode (that is after the bug is fixed) which still exposes the plain to some "risk"

[Guest nCoder]

You should be able to hold a key down while you start up the phone which would stop the phone seeking the network until you either tell it to, or disable the radio.

[Guest SirGaz]

Hmm... Not sure I agree with you there, sounds like a bug to me (well, OK, maybe not a bug, but it's not been very well thought out has it?...)

Depends on what the design specifications are for the OS. If it's specified in the design then it's a "feature" as I like to call it, i.e. it's designed that way but I don't like it.

Really you should be able to turn off the radio no matter what it's doing at the time.

[Guest Pagemakers]

nCoder when you turn the phone on in the air there is indeed a 10 second or so period before it says "searching" but even trying to set flight mode then makes no difference. It wont go into it.

[Guest nCoder]

Yeah, I just meant a screen asking whether or not to start searching with Yes or No assigned to the soft keys, No placing the phone in Radio Off.

[Guest Pagemakers]

If I remember correctly (I didn’t own it for that long) when the P900 boots up it asks you if you want to turn the phone on or go to flight mode (or whatever they call it), you make a selection and the phone continues to boot.

My only concern withy the e200 is that people are going to turn their phones on in flight and select flight mode and use their phone's PDA functions or play a game, blissfully unaware that they are have not actually invoked the flight mode function.

[Guest blewer]

On my girlfrirnds SL55, when you turn the phone on it asks you if you want to turn on aircraft mode before it starts searching.

Just thought I would add this

[Guest Hax]

Dunno quite how it works, but I would assume that a mobile would be silent until it has received a signal from a base station that it can talk too. It's pointless for the mobile to send out messages to a base station without having received anything first as the mobile has a much weaker transmitter in it than the base station and so, if it can't see a basestation, then there is no chance of it being seen by one...

Maybe the "searching..." bit is just where it is looking for incoming signals?

As I say, I have no specialist knowledge about this, but if I were to write the software for the device then that is how I would do it...

Hax

[Guest Kallisti]

blewer: It doesn't actually, it asks if you're sure you want to turn the phone on at all (presumably to prevent it accidentally being turned on in your luggage).

Hax: You're right, you don't know how it works :lol:

I think this is a pretty serious bug, and certainly not classable as a feature. In fact, I'd imagine this would mean the phone was breaching it's radio specifications and therefore licensing. Must read up on the FCC document and see if it mentions this mode at all.

[Guest midnight]

i doubt the FCC will say much about this, many phones dont even have the ability to turn the radio functions off at all, so i dont think its actually a phone requirement.

[Guest Pagemakers]

But if you "can" turn it off it should work.

Tested today on the flight and as midnight says if you set flight mode before boarding you are ok. The phone does reboot into flight mode. If however you forget your phone is rendered useless for the entire flight.

Posted from my SmartPhone!

[Guest spacemonkey]

I was playing with my SPV on the underground to test this out, I am running the I-Mate english rom on the original SPV handset and it lets you go into Aeroplane mode even when there is no reception.

Don't know about other SPV/e100 roms...