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I'm about to take a plane trip to my dads house but I'm just curious why you must have airplane mode on?

I'm no aviation master here, just looking for information.

Piggyuniform
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    To avoid interfering with aircraft systems. – Ron Beyer Dec 26 '16 at 14:46
  • Can Bluetooth and wifi still be used? Airplane mode disables cellular connection. – Piggyuniform Dec 26 '16 at 15:11
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    No, WiFi and Bluetooth both use transmitters. Airplane mode means airplane mode and switches off all to the phones' radios. – Simon Dec 26 '16 at 16:41
  • @Simon Airplane mode still allows GPS and Wifi reception, at least on some models. – J W Dec 26 '16 at 18:31
  • @JonathanWalters GPS is receive only. WiFi can't work without transmitting since it must negotiate with the access point and acknowledge network data recevied. You may be confused with some other function but there is not such thing as "receive only" WiFi. – Simon Dec 26 '16 at 18:44
  • @Simon I didn't say that the WiFi works in some sort of receive only mode. I said it works in airplane mode. I have experienced this with multiple phone manufacturers and models. I am using WiFi to post this comment while in airplane mode. – J W Dec 26 '16 at 18:58
  • @JonathanWalters That's a serious flaw. WiFi should be disabled. What phone are you using? The whole point of airplane mode is that the transceivers are turned off. You can manually enabled WiFi afterwards, but that violates airplane mode. – Simon Dec 26 '16 at 20:12
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    @Simon This works for me as well when I switch to airplane mode (which at first turns off any transmission) and then selectively turn WiFi on again. Then I have airplane-mode minus WiFi, i.e. WiFi works, but nothing else. I have a Moto G1 if that helps, but I'd expect other phones to behave similar when I explicitely override AP mode. – PerlDuck Dec 26 '16 at 20:13
  • @PerlDuck Since you are now using a transmitter, you should check with the operator if it's lawful or not. – Simon Dec 26 '16 at 20:15
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    @Simon My experience mirrors that of PerlDuck: airplane mode initially turns off Bluetooth and WiFi, each of which can be subsequently enabled and used whilst in airplane mode. This has been my experience with two different generations of Samsung Galaxy and a Moto X. I will further point out that the US airlines that instruct passengers to use phones only in airplane mode also advertise and encourage use of the in-flight WiFi. – J W Dec 26 '16 at 20:27
  • @Simon I don't think the operator has sth. to do with or can influence the behaviour of a phone I bought at amazon. But I confess that I (as a pax) have once turned on GPS in-flight to see how fast we travel. I was surprised it worked (given the metallic tube the cabin finally is). I thought of Faraday and didn't expect GPS to work. – PerlDuck Dec 26 '16 at 20:28
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    Anyway I got off the plane thx guys – Piggyuniform Dec 26 '16 at 20:33
  • Yes, @Piggyuniform, sorry. We were getting off-topic. Hope you don't mind. – PerlDuck Dec 26 '16 at 20:35
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    In addition, there was wifi and I had Bluetooth headphones, to sum it up, airplane mode does disable both bluetooth and wifi, but they can be enabled, this means that you are bypassing airplane mode, but AP mode is still blocking cellular service ;) – Piggyuniform Dec 26 '16 at 20:39

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