Ask a commercial pilot anything
Jun 17, 2010 | 12:20 AM
#13
Teamspeed Pro
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 2,667
From: Nashville, TN
Q: how laughable is the sense of security that we have at airports
A: Extremely! You struck a nerve with this one. I still remember when they confiscated by fingernail clippers at security in Jackson MS 3 weeks after 9/11. The guy said I had to break off the little pointy part that folds out (never knew what that was for anyway). I told him I couldn't do that. He asked why not and I told him since he had just informed me that it was potentially lethal I couldn't take a chance of injuring myself and delaying the flight. He was not amused.
A few months later on an overnight in Norfolk, I purchased a manicure set at a dollar store because I saw that it contained cuticle scissors and my wife had just been saying a day earlier that she needed cuticle scissors. I thought, "For a buck I get to be a hero." Next day, TSA confiscates the set because of the cuticle scissor...a little half inch curved scissors! I said to the guy, "You do realize that I sit in the cockpit and have available to me there a razor sharp crash axe?" He called over his supervisor who wanted to know if I had a problem. I said "No, I realize you have your rules but this would not pass any reasonable person's litmus test for sanity." Again, not amused.
Yes, it's a joke...eyewash so that politicians can tell their constituents they have addressed the problem.
After the shoe bomber, they had us all removing our shoes. Why couldn't it have been a bra-bomber?
A: Extremely! You struck a nerve with this one. I still remember when they confiscated by fingernail clippers at security in Jackson MS 3 weeks after 9/11. The guy said I had to break off the little pointy part that folds out (never knew what that was for anyway). I told him I couldn't do that. He asked why not and I told him since he had just informed me that it was potentially lethal I couldn't take a chance of injuring myself and delaying the flight. He was not amused.
A few months later on an overnight in Norfolk, I purchased a manicure set at a dollar store because I saw that it contained cuticle scissors and my wife had just been saying a day earlier that she needed cuticle scissors. I thought, "For a buck I get to be a hero." Next day, TSA confiscates the set because of the cuticle scissor...a little half inch curved scissors! I said to the guy, "You do realize that I sit in the cockpit and have available to me there a razor sharp crash axe?" He called over his supervisor who wanted to know if I had a problem. I said "No, I realize you have your rules but this would not pass any reasonable person's litmus test for sanity." Again, not amused.
Yes, it's a joke...eyewash so that politicians can tell their constituents they have addressed the problem.
After the shoe bomber, they had us all removing our shoes. Why couldn't it have been a bra-bomber?
Jun 17, 2010 | 11:40 AM
#17
Teamspeed's Florida Ambassador
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 5,085
From: Mayamee
