Originally posted by Sky Viper
Myslef, I don't understand the need!
I don't see the reasoning in teaching a few thousand security screeners to recognize RC equipment as legit hobby items so that they can let us carry them on board!
How dumb do you have to be to not realize that a live RC transmitter could be used to detonate a device in a cargo compartment on board any airliner?
I can think of at least a half dozen other ways to use RC equipment for terroristic purposes, and I am NOT a terrorist.
If you find something 1000 miles from home and you want it that bad, SHIP IT! FED Ex, UPS, Emery, USPS, Mailboxes Etc. and MANY MANY MANY other companies are so ready to help that it is insane to consider the need to carry them on board!
I for one am disgusted that the AMA and our officers would even be so stupid as to waste the time of our Government's officials with such rediculous notions.
If Dave and company have extra time on hand, perhaps they could address how national security agents might prevent an RC Aircraft from delivering Nerve agents over the Super Bowl, or along a crowded beach or across the Mall in DC.
Convenience at the risk of security?
Get real!
Tom
Perhaps someone else should practice getting real.
The AMA/TSA session did not say anything about carrying RC stuff *ON-BOARD* an airliner but rather was defining the CHECKED BAGGAGE issue.
For those that go across the country for competitions or maybe just sport, carrying a box with model airplanes as CHECKED BAGGAGE is a near-prohibitive operation. Some have been refused simply because the engines had *oily substances*.
Now that ALL baggage is X-rayed, anything unusual gets the thumbs-down as well as the subject-knowledge level of the quoted post.
AMA officials -- in this case -- are simply performing a job that is part of education about how serious this RC (and CL/FF) sport can be. There is always much more to anything than that which the casual observer can reach out and see, touch or feel.
I haven't attempted to carry competition models in the airline within the past 8 or so years. However as an airline pilot up until 7 years ago, and one who frequently jumps on an airplane to go places and one that has seen this so-called *Security* cancer gobble up everything in its path, resulting in nothing more than fiscal chaos for the airline industry, I would be well willing to RISK that brand of security.
IMO, that is a good reason to *BOTHER*.