I don't travel by air often, but when I do, I usually land up hiking some. If I have a few hours to kill before a meeting or an evening to kill, I find some place interesting to hike. This has landed me in the desert in Arizona, swamps in Florida and Louisiana, and mountains in Colorado as well of lots of other more mundane places. With the limitations of what can be carried on board an airline these days, it is hard to carry much gear. I usually scrounge the hotel for matches, water and snacks. A few times I have stopped at a pawn shop and picked up a cheap knife. You can carry a whistle, cord, a poncho, and a light on board so you can have some bases covered.

Do any of you guys have a set air travel survival kit that you carry? If so, I am interested in what is in the kit.

Thanks,

David Enoch

Two words......

Checked Baggage.

Two abbreviations.......

UPS / FedEx

It is too difficult to keep up with the TSA's changes, and they are applied differently at every screening station.

Put it in the cargo hold, of ship it in advance to your hotel.

No set kit. The last time I flew I removed the sharps from my EDC backpack and packed them in my checked luggage.

In the backpack was a Garmin Geko 301 GPS, compass, small FAK, liter of water (is that still legal), magnifying glass, signal mirror, both 1xAA and 4xAA LED flashlights and spare batteries. Buried in the bottom of the bag where it can always be found is a DR PSP with the blade removed; as I recall I removed the blade for that trip and never put it back. The kit gives me a second signal mirror and another (much smaller) compass. Don't know the rules off the top of my head, but I recall that book matches and some lighters are okay for carry-on, other lighters are okay for checked. In any case, Doug's kit also provides a spark based method for starting a fire.

$.02, HTH

a tiny kit in checked baggage, and a small nylon rucksack. Add a bottle or two of water and you're good to go

I've usually checked stuff in my baggage. I simply cannot see going places without a knife, and if I am checking the knife, it's not too much to check other things.

However, I also have carried on a bunch of flights in the last year a P-51 can opener and about a dozen feet of paracord, both on my keychain, and they never get a look. I think adding a firesteel and/or a whistle would also get no attention. If I wanted to hike, I might add in a couple of strong garbage bags and a couple ziplocs, as well as water and snacks, and that would give me a little kit.

When I fly I scatter mini-bics through my laptop bag, pocket carry, and 1-quart ziploc full of toiletries.

The ziploc also has hand sanitizer (think fire starting), cologne (more firestarting), a mini-match (definitely firestarting), and dental floss. Never had any comment on it.

http://www.bepreparedtosurvive.com/FirestarterProducts.htm

More hand sanitizer and dental floss ride in coat pockets, along with a surefire and spare batteries. More spare batteries are in the laptop bag.

The Res-Q-Me has only gotten examined once (when it rode with my watch and keys through the x-ray instead of in the laptop bag). The screener brought it back to his supervisor who approved it. I've heard of that happening to other people as well, haven't heard of anybody getting one confiscated.

You can really take on quite a bit of gear, just not a knife. But EMT shears can handle a lot of chores and they ride in the laptop bag or ziplock.

Of course, TSA is whimsical, generally doesn't have a sense of humor (there are exceptions), and won't tolerate arguement - excuse me, "discussion."

Airport Security Confiscates Rock
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/10/airport_securit_4.html

Ditto Desperado !!!!!!

I travel by air a fair amount and usually carry-on a backpack with the following:
Ritter PSP
Surefire E2L
Heatsheets blanket
Cell phone charger
Snacks
Reading material
Rain jacket
Atwater Carey LD 1 FAK
Paper matches
A Swedish Mini Firesteel
A cheap key-ring LED flashlight
Hand Sanitizer
and an assortment of detritus that always seems to accumulate when you carry a backpack most every day

Never had a problem with TSA.

My folding knife goes into a checked bag.

I've flown both domestic and overseas flights with a PSK (with the scapel blades) and never been questioned. I've also been thru many an x-ray machine at govt. buildings and, again, never been hassled.

I usually carry a LED flashlight, a small set of tools, a Ham HT radio, home built FAK, couple of Millenium bars, water bottle or hydration bag, some paracord, digital camera and usually a notebook PC and broadband card. Knives I usually leave behind as I don't normally check luggage.

I have accidently gotten through once with a small multi-tool but wouldn't want to take too many chances on it. I also thought long and hard about the knifeless fuse from Leatherman but decided that there was too many reported incidents of individual looting ^h^h^h^h^h interpretation by the TSA at various locations to risk something in that price range. So I finally settled on a wenger clipper for pocket carry while flying.

I also stash a Gerber Artifact (usually without the blade but sometimes I forget) in the PSK.

Not great choices compared to what I normally carry but much much better than nothing.

- Eric