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Smartphones have very low RF transmissions these days compared to the old analog bricks. The biggest reason for turning on airplane mode is to avoid flooding towers with requests while you are relatively low. Back in the olde days, when someone asked why they couldn't use a cellphone in a plane, I would (on the ground) have them turn it on and make a call in the cockpit of my Cessna. The VOR needles would jump all over the place. Of course this was at about a foot away. In those days, towers were about 10 miles apart and phones had to be able to transmit almost 20 miles. I know because we used analog phones far offshore on our sailboat. Now we are lucky to get a voice signal a mile outside the harbor.

I recently tried to use my iPhone from the viewing area of the Sears (okay, Willis) tower in Chicago. No signal. Someone told me that if too many towers get your signal at once, they shut you off.
 
WWW said:
If the airline has Wi-Fi maybe able to pick-up a signal off of that function.
But really a cell phone in airplane mode is a receiver and does not transmit errant signals.
Just like scanners these too just receive a signal but don't transmit.
Now change that to a trans-ceiver and now you have a different mode of compromise.

I wonder how many people board a flight and don't turn off the cell phone to airplane mode ?
Then too with the speed of the airplane the cell phone must be receiving multiple towers moving
rapidly from one to the next
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Almost all receivers also generate a weak radio frequency transmission. That is why radio and television receivers are also banned from all use during a flight. Scanners are also banned for this reason, and in addition they may present a security issue…

Brian Battuello said:
Smartphones have very low RF transmissions these days compared to the old analog bricks. The biggest reason for turning on airplane mode is to avoid flooding towers with requests while you are relatively low. Back in the olde days, when someone asked why they couldn't use a cellphone in a plane, I would (on the ground) have them turn it on and make a call in the cockpit of my Cessna. The VOR needles would jump all over the place. Of course this was at about a foot away. In those days, towers were about 10 miles apart and phones had to be able to transmit almost 20 miles. I know because we used analog phones far offshore on our sailboat. Now we are lucky to get a voice signal a mile outside the harbor.

I recently tried to use my iPhone from the viewing area of the Sears (okay, Willis) tower in Chicago. No signal. Someone told me that if too many towers get your signal at once, they shut you off.
Click to expand...
Back during the transition period, when cell carriers were converting from analog to digital, while on a cruise going down the coast, if I climbed to the top outside deck, and extended the small antenna on my old Motorola Tri-mode phone, I could often connect to Verizon cell towers, if I manually locked it on analog…😎
 
My longest single flight was 16 hours and 30 minutes on a B773 with EVA Air from Houston, Texas to Taipei, Taiwan. Normally longer flights have plenty of padding but this took every minute of the estimated duration. I found this mini-review from an old post of mine several years ago...

My [longest ever] flight lived up to the scheduled block time [of 16½ hours] but also went better than I anticipated. The upgrade [to Premium Economy] cost nearly twice the price of coach, which seems rather steep, but in addition to more pitch/width/recline it also came with priority check-in/baggage/boarding/disembarking, larger IFE, full 110AC power, more food, separate bathrooms, etc. I was only able to sleep 2-3 hours at a time but almost the entire [...] flight was at night and several naps later most of the trip was over. The main meal service was actually a lot better than I was expecting, leading to only the third [coach] meal I ever found genuinely appetizing. The two previous winners being a cheese pizza on AA and green curry with beef on [Thai Airways].
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My longest one-way flights (four of them) were about 14 hrs. nonstop between Qatar and Dulles or Philadelphia, combined with flights of about 6 hrs. between Qatar and Manila, and under 2 hrs. Manila-Mindanao. My wife's native country is the Philippines, and last year's trip involved several departures around or after midnight, with long layovers sitting in airport terminals, and on the Qatar Airways flight from Qatar to Manila we were offered breakfast around 3:30 am Qatar time (I think we left around 1:30 am) and the lights were on till 5:30 am Qatar time. Up to that point, Qatar Airways had been pretty good, but that leg of the trip was like a flying Amtrak Night Owl but not as comfortable. My wife and I, both in our 70s, found the travel grueling, so this year we are scheduled for overnight stopovers in Honolulu both ways and Los Angeles eastbound. The only night flight will be Manila-Honolulu, which is 10 hrs.
 
uncleboots said:
Los Angeles to St. John’s New Foundland
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While not quite as long in distance, I once did PHX to St. John's leaving Friday at 6am and arriving in St. John's on Sunday at 2am. Yes, a hurricane got in the way and Delta almost stranded us in Atlanta( I was with my sister), but thanks to a fantastic Continental gate agent we were able to get the last Continental flight out of ATL to Newark arriving at around 11:30pm. Spent the night sleeping at the Newark Airport and got a 6:30pm Saturday Continental flight( delayed of course) to St. John's arriving around 2am in Newfoundland on Sunday. BY THE WAY: Newfoundland is a fabulous place to visit! My English grandmother was from there (Coley's Point on Bay Roberts) and I'm so glad I was able to visit with my Mother where she was able to visit her first cousin and whom she hadn't seen since the 1930's ( this was in the 1990's) when her cousin from Newfoundland spent a year in England.
 
DetroitTed said:
While not quite as long in distance, I once did PHX to St. John's leaving Friday at 6am and arriving in St. John's on Sunday at 2am. Yes, a hurricane got in the way and Delta almost stranded us in Atlanta( I was with my sister), but thanks to a fantastic Continental gate agent we were able to get the last Continental flight out of ATL to Newark arriving at around 11:30pm. Spent the night sleeping at the Newark Airport and got a 6:30pm Saturday Continental flight( delayed of course) to St. John's arriving around 2am in Newfoundland on Sunday. BY THE WAY: Newfoundland is a fabulous place to visit! My English grandmother was from there (Coley's Point on Bay Roberts) and I'm so glad I was able to visit with my Mother where she was able to visit her first cousin and whom she hadn't seen since the 1930's ( this was in the 1990's) when her cousin from Newfoundland spent a year in England.
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I left LA at 10:30 PM and arrived in Toronto at 6:AM. Left Toronto at 7:30 AM and arrived in St Johns at 12:50 PM.
 
My longest nonstop at 16½ hours and 8,000 miles from Houston to Taipei (BR 773) is relatively common by today's standards, but my longest direct flight was 25+ hours routed Houston to Moscow to Singapore (SQ 773) at 11,000+ mi, which may have been the longest at that time.

 
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