What is allowed on planes nowadays, I am flying with my DW and kids to Chicago in Oct. and was wondering if I can take my DR PSK on the plane or if I have to check it?

Mike

P.S. All of the items below will travel with me if allowed except hospital pager

You won't be able to carry on the Swiss Army knife. Any fishhooks in the personal survival kit would probably be confiscated at security screening. The Leatherman might also be a problem.

Here is a complete list of prohibited items from TSA:

http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/prohibited/permitted-prohibited-items.shtm

As you can see, no knives so the SAK, Leatherman, and the scapel blade and maybe fishing hooks from the PSP are out of the question.

Grant,

You might have trouble with the fishhooks, scalpel blade, tinder quick and sparklite.

When I flew this summer, I changed some of the items and pack location to look less obvious.

• Stuck freshnel lens in paperback book. If asked I would have replied that it helps me with the small print.
• Took extra pair of showlaces, put them in ziplock baggy and added the duct tape. Looked like repair kit.
• Put the signal mirror in ziplock bag with comb, toothbrush, small tube of toothpaste, cheap bic razor. Looked like a shaving kit.
• Took DR PSK and added bandaids, motrin, tylenol, alcohol wipe with other FAK type items. Looked like small first aid kit.

The goal is to look ordinary and safe while carrying allowed items to suppliment PSK. It wasn't perfect, but I felt like I covered most contingencies for 2 hour overland flight.

Edit - You also might be able to carry pack of safety matches.

kd7fqd,

What is allowed and what you can carry are two different things. My DW and I traveled to Alaska and back this summer using two airlines, four airports and through 2 countries. My carry on had a DR PSK with original contents, ham radio, AMK FAK, batteries, headphones, couple of MP3 players, wires, antennas, cameras, etc. Never did anyone give it a second look. My wife's purse with a metal aerosal container caused panic in the TSA workers. Go figure.

I did attach my pocket knife to a chain and dropped it through the handle opening of my checked bag so I could easily retrieve to cut the zip ties with which I secured all the luggage.

I flew to Reno last month and put all of my PSK,FAK and outher items in my check bag. With no problems. No lighters thou, TSA is death on lighters, the matches made it thru ( go figure.)

There's been a change in the lighter ban. New Policies for Lighters Pictured are Bic, Cricket and Zippo lighters.

The problem is that the TSA does not follow their own rules and has a tendency to make them up as they go. Do the words arbitrary and capricious come to mind? Do yourself a favor and simply put anything questionable in your checked luggage. None of us like flying "naked" but its a better alternative than having to throw something away or miss your flight arguing with someone who could care less.

Craig.

Common Lighters with fuel are prohibited in checked baggage.

Thank Guys (and Gals) really helps, I think I will check everything and save myself the headache of being naked if I leave anything behind

Mike

Unless contained inside a hard TSA approved case like the Otterbox.

Craig.

One of these days I'm going to fly in a toga with 99 cent flip flops and no luggage. The screening requirements are beginning to get silly.

If this didn't pass muster, you don't stand a chance.

One of these days, if we don't stand up to all this BS, you are going to be REQUIRED to fly with a toga, flip flops, and no luggage. I doubt inmates at San Quentin are treated any worse than the flying public. At least I believe the DOC officers are are telling them what the rules are.

In my mind, the terrorists have won. They have succeeded in in getting us to suffer through any humiliation or indignity in the name of "safety." I think Benjamin Franklin said "he who gives up liberty in the name of safety deserves neither." Incredible how smart those founding fathers were, ain't it.

Craig.

One of these days we will all be flying naked ('cept on SW Airlines of course)...

I haven't flown in about three years, not because I'm afraid of flying, but because the whole experience had gotten so darned inconvenient and uncomfortable. I truly empathize with those who have to fly routinely, especially today.

I flew to Europe a couple of times in the mid-70s, after the terrorist attack on the Munich Olympics. What we are experiencing now was routine in European airports even then. It was not unusual to be selected at random for a pat-down search, for example.

It's a bad old world out there. We in the US are only beginning to get the picture.

Commercial planes are better equipped than you ever can or will be.

http://www.flightsimaviation.com/data/FARS/part_121.html

Let me put it to you this way.

If your commercial jet goes down on takeoff, if you survive, and you can walk, then you'll get away and be treated quickly.

See this:
http://break.com/index/bangkok-plane-crash-survivor-footage.html

If you don't walk away, you're most likely dead.
Same goes for landing. We're not talking about small planes here, we're talking about big planes.

I can find no record of any survivors of a mid-air incident involving commercial jets.

The movie with Tom Hanks - the one where he's on a desert island for years and years - is fiction. The impact from a plane crashing into the ocean is more than enough to "de-glove" the body from the skeleton, and the idea of going from 300+ knots to zero in milliseconds - and surviving to eat crabs over a fire started with a fresnel lens is, at best, amusing and at worst, a delusional fantasy.

When I travel, I mail the stuff I might need - on the ground - to the hotel where I'm staying. If I check bags (rarely), I put the not allowed stuff in there, but I almost never check bags.

An old thread about an air crash ( a short time after take-off and while the plane was trying to fly back to the airport) :
Gabon Express crash
My (ex)co-worker, who was in that plane, survived.
He "only" spent two hours in the water, before being rescued.
Had this happened at dusk/night, a waterproof or at least water resistant flashlight for signaling could have been a real life saver.

EDC what you can... you never know what will happen, what will come handy... or more than that !

(OTOH a kitchen sink would NOT have been useful, in those circumstances)

I hate to go OT, but it *really* bugs me when a person is shooting video when he should be HELPING people.

C'mon, a he films a guy walking past him, sloaked with blood. Sorry, I'm not going to help you, dude, I'm SO putting this on Youtube!

There seems to be this idea that if you're behind a camera, you're not really there, you're really at home watching it passively on TV.

P.S. I was very impressed that the that jet engine could continue to run while floating in the sea, threatening to suck up Tom Hanks like that.

Not to discredit the fictional nature of that, but you would be amazed at just how much water, ice, chicken, and dynamite can be flung through a jet engine.