Anyone taken their firesteels on a plane with them?

I carry mine, which looks like the Swedish FireSteel, on my keychain. I'm wondering if I'd have to leave mine behind or ship it to my destination.

-- Craig

See here.

I suppose one could always try. Take a cheap steel you won't mind losing. Or as others have pointed
out, you really don't need one with you on the plane, so put it in checked baggage.

I put cheaper copies of my EDC in my baggage, near the edge of the suit case, in the fold of a pair
of pants. Someone in a hurry hopefully won't even feel anything worth stealing. If they're using the
x ray stuff to scout for items, and they notice, and they take the time to find it, they can have it. :-)

Best bet is to ship anything you really want to have ahead of you to your destination. I even ship
my laptop.

Groo Said:


And I'll give my stock reply.
There are 2 kinds of baggage when it comes to flying:

1. Carry On
2. Lost or Stolen

If you NEED it when you get there, and you CAN'T carry it on, invest a few bucks and FEDEX your stuff to your destination. It's less expensive than replacing your stuff.

I don't fly very often (not at all for many years, just the two thereafter described flights), but I recently experienced how true you are !!

In March, I had to visit a customer near Toulouse, in south-west of France, to work a few hours on his computer system.
It was either a 7 hours journey by train or a 1h flight.
So I decided for an internal Air France flight.

As a technician, I always have some tools in my bag. That means the bag has to be checked as luggage and can't be carried in the cabin. And, sure enough, no knife etc.. on my person.. I hate that ... but ...
Flight without problem and on time.
But at the customer's site, bad news : the delivered machine had received some schock during its own transportation and was no longer installable.
So back home... and another visit to the same customer a week later.
same deal, same Air France flight ; the second within a week.
And sure enough one flight too much ..
I arrived safely in Toulouse but not my bag ...

Hopefully, the customer had enough tools so I could start working before my bag arrived and I did finish the installation as planned.

Hopefully again, the bag was not really lost and arrived some 4 or 5 hours later. Why ?? I still don't know... I checked in largely in time. And anyway there is a Paris-Toulouse flight every half hour ... <img src="/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />
At Air France Lost Luggage office in Toulouse, I was a bit furious about that situation and about the delay. The hostess tried to calm me down by saying this kind of incident happens very very seldomly... Not something to tell ME, at that moment ! <img src="/images/graemlins/mad.gif" alt="" />
I told her that a 50% failure rate - seen from my side !! <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" /> - was not my definition of an unusual occurence...
+ I spend a few years working for another air company and had an insider's knowledge of such problems. Some stories are quite amazing, as much for companies mistakes as for pax stupidity or, on the opposite, pax swindling...


Next time, I guess I will use the train, even if it takes some hours longer, on my own time :
let's say 8h from my home to Toulouse, by train, including the time needed to go to the station.
almost 4 hours by plane, including time to the airport, check-in time, luggage checkout (if it arrives..).
Back and forth, I will at least loose some 8 hours..
Main problem being trains are scarce within a day span... which mean I will have to leave the day before.
OTOH planes take off every half hour ... <img src="/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />
Not an easy choice...

As for sending my tools by Fedex or some other similar outfit... I don't trust them enough either... and that would mean I have no tools at least the day before + the following day...
Except if I bought a second set of tools... let's think about it some more ....

Frenchy:

Many years ago when I worked at a Borden's Dairy & Services Division as an Inventory Control Clerk for the maintenance department, I had a really tough situation occur.

One of our specialized high-lift fork trucks used in the -20 degree fairenhiet ice cream warehouse burned out its main motor. We didn't have a spare because the supplier was in town. I called them up to arrange to pick up a spare and was told they had just sold their last one and would not have another one until the next day. Since no motors of that type were available from wholesalers anywhere else in town and we could not get the burned out motor rewound the same day, I asked our supplier if anyone else in Milwaukee used that type of fork lift. They gave me the name of GE Medical Systems which at that time was located in Milwaukee. I called them up, asked for the M.O.M. (Manager of Maintenance.) and told him my situation and asked if they had a spare motor they could borrow me and I would give them the new one that was coming to the supplier who was putting it aside for me. He said sure, I went across town in a Borden's van, signed a receipt, got the motor, took it back where it was quicklly installed and we were good to go saving lost production time that is measured in thousands of dollars per hour.

What happened next shows some of the idiocies of management. The next day I took the old motor, put it in the company truck, picked up the new motor at the supplier, dropped the old motor at the rebuild shop and went back to the plant. I went to the ice cream departments top supervisor and told him I was going to GE Medical Systems to repay our motor loan and I told him I wanted (4) half gallon containers of various flavors of our premium ice cream to give the guy at GE as a treat for being so understanding. The supervisor told me to take a couple of pints of product as that should be enough for one guy. Now if you haven't noticed through some of my posts, all right!, all of my posts, humility does not become me and I went off on him in front of witnesses. I started raving about all the money the guy from GE Medical Systems had saved us when he owed me and Borden's nothing and now I should go back and insult him with a couple of penney-anney pints of ice cream. I told the supervisor, in front of witnesses, I was going to the warehouse, take (4) half-gallons of premium product and he could fire me, or take the costs out of my pay in which case I would apply for a job at GE Medical Systems where they would more likely appreciate my inginueity and respect for others help. I took the new motor, still in the shipping container, to GE Medical Systems, gave it to the man who borrowed me theirs, got my receipt back, sat around in their break room with the boss and some of the other maintenanc people, shared some of their ice cream, and told them to call if they ever needed something I could help them with.

Frenchy, when you are in such a situation, try to find someone in the locale you go to that may be able to help you out even if you don't know them personally or they are a competitor. If they want cash for helping you, determine if their price is worth it. If they want nothing but the return of their parts, try to give them something of personal value to show you appreciate their trust. At Borden's we used to help out other dairies by sharing parts we had and they did the same for us. The reason I did not call them for this part is because GE Medical Systems was closer than any of them and I knew GE had the motor.

By the way, I kept my job and second hand conversation came back to me that the supervisor thought I was a real pompus jerk who was really good at what I did. He and I got along great even with all the argueing we did while I worked there.

Good luck on your next trips!

Bountyhunter

So, that tendency of yours of arguing about everything and nothing, is not due to your present old age !
You already were like that when younger !
<img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />


Seriously : I like to work along those lines, but h?las, even with our partner, we sometimes have to fight, in order to satisfy joint/common customers !! <img src="/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

"Or as others have pointed out, you really don't need one with you on the plane"

I reckon my best chance of being marooned somewhere remote from civilisation is when I am flying. On the plane is when I want preparedness stuff the most.

Yeah. But as someone pointed out, "marooned" isn't how passengers usually end up. "Toast" comes
closer.

(Edit: Found it. But Chris doesn't say the "toast" part... must be thinking of someone else there. :-)

That's an interesting question. Of the total number of commercial airline accidents, how many
placed the passengers in a survival situation?

While it does happen ("Alive"?) I think it's rare. And airline accidents are unlikely to start
with, so...

I guess it's all about your personal tolerance for risk. This doesn't seem worth the bother to
me. But it still irks me that the one convenient way for me to have my EDC when I step off the
plane (checked baggage) is so unreliable. Because once I leave the plane, it's a whole
different game. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

If "toast" were true, why would they bother with the safety lecture?

I think this Odds report was posted earlier. It says "From 1983 to 2000, the National Transportation Safety Board investigated 26 major commercial accidents involving 2,739 people. A total of 1,525 survived, or 56%." A google turned up similar results, eg, "Survival rate of passengers on aircraft ditching during controlled flight: 60%".

Here's a more pessimistic report: "'AFRCC statistics' quote that 65% of general aviation crash victims do not survive impact. Of the 35/100 survivors, 21 are injured and last about a day while 14 are uninjured initially and have a 'half-life' of about 3 days." I'm guessing the survivors do so poorly partly because they are not prepared. I gather the survival rate from big planes is better than from small ones.

The remote crash is unlikely, but if it happens the chances of not being "toast" are relatively high.

Lawyers. No one pays attention during the briefing, no one looks at the card
showing the exits and such. Most of the time, you can't understand them anyway (lousy speakers,
bad acoustics, noisy people). Maybe it reassures some people... who knows? We've all heard
the briefing... can you point to something in it that measurably increases my chance of survival?
I mean, hearing that the bag may not fully inflate, but oxygen is flowing is nice to know... but I'm
still traveling at the same speed the airplane is just before the airplane stops moving. Ouch.
And, if I remember correctly, they don't address what to do if you happen to be on fire, or
wandering around outside after the crash or how to signal for help, or....

The briefing falls into the "can't hurt, may help, and in court we can say we told 'em" category.


Interesting stats, but they don't answer the real question.... How long does a crash survivor have to
wait before help shows up? I'd be interested in both average and max time. I'm pretty sure its much,
much less than a day, probably on the order of a few hours.

But hey... let's say you've got a few hours to kill, waiting for the help to arrive. What could you
possibly have with you that's going to make a difference? Bodies, wreckage, anything from cuts to ... icky stuff.

I don't see anything on the PSK list that's going to help at all. A knife might be useful, but you
won't have one (thanks TSA!). A flashlight, maybe. Something tells me you aren't going to need
to start a fire, and if you do, well... there's probably lots of stuff still burning... pick something.

The average PSK won't help in the immediate aftermath of most crashes. And, in the unlikely
event that you do crash, are still alive, and help doesn't come for days, PM me after you
get back. I'll buy you a beer and admit I was wrong. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

The American Airlines Boeing 757-223 that crashed on approach to Cali, Colombia - there were a half-dozen survivors who had to wait for over a day on a mountaintop in bad weather, most of them badly injured, before rescuers got to them.

An Airbus that crashed in the Alps when the pilot mistakenly programmed the flight computer for a descent of 3000 feet per minute instead of an approach glide slope of 3.0 degrees - a number of people survived and had to wait several hours for rescuers to find them. Not all of them lived that long. The first ground personnel on the scene was a newspaper reporter who was sent to cover the crash; he had to give rescuers directions to the crash site via his cell phone.

The JAL 747 that crashed after the tail separated due to a faulty repair job a year earlier - there was one survivor found in a tree, badly injured. It was several hours before she was found, IIRC.

If the crash happens on or near a major airport, rescuers will be on the scene in minutes. Otherwise, the survivors could be in for a long wait.

Many accidents involving major airlines have less than 100% fatality rate. The United Airlines flight that crashed in Sioux City exploded on impact into a huge fireball, yet almost two-thirds of the people on board survived. (That was one of the accidents where rescuers were on the scene within seconds - they were sitting there ready to roll as the plane made its approach.)

I've heard the statistic that if you hopped an airliner at random every day of the year, you would have to fly for 12,500 years before you were involved in a fatal accident. And even then, you'd probably survive. I'm not exactly sure how they arrived at those figures, and I don't believe them, but assuming that only 1 commercial airline flight in a million has a fatal accident (which I think is pretty close to the actual statistics), and you took 693,000 such flights, your chances of being involved in a fatal accident would still be just under 50%. (That's one flight a day for 1,897 years.) It's not something I lose sleep over. <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

But in the extremely unlikely event that you *do* crash, do not assume that (a) you will die, or (b) you will be rescued within the hour.

"Lawyers. No one pays attention during the briefing, no one looks at the card showing the exits and such."

Your attitude to air safety saddens me. If you can't hear the safety briefing, complain. There's plenty in it which you need to know. For example, if you put down on water and have to don life-jackets, it really is important that you don't inflate them too early. They will get in the way and block the exit. You should know where your nearest exit is.

Thinking about it and making a plan in advance is one difference between the people who freeze in place and the people who survive. There's a recent thread here which links to a Times article which talks about this. Read them. You can take some responsibility for your own safety even when on a 'plane.

"Something tells me you aren't going to need to start a fire, and if you do, well... there's probably lots of stuff still burning... pick something."

If you crash somewhere cold you might well need a fire. You can't assume the plane will be burning and even if it is, it may not be safe to approach.

"(thanks TSA!)"

Well, that's kinda the point of the discussion, isn't it? What useful stuff is the TSA preventing us from bringing? What can we bring anyway? Giving up is rarely the best choice. Whether your PSK would be any good rather depends on what you put in it. If your attitude is, "Disasters only happen to other people", why bother carrying one at all?

I didn't say I didn't listen (although I don't, past the "here are the exits" part, I've flown
a LOT. Have the silly briefing memorized), I said "nobody listens". And it's true.



This isn't my attitude, though.

All I'm saying is that the chance of needing something like a PSK on a commercial flight is so low
that I can feel a little better about not having one.

Let's make this a little more productive...

Instead of debating whether or not we need a PSK, what are a few (three? five?) items that:

• No stranded passenger should be without
• will be guaranteed to make it past airport security
• can be carried ON YOUR PERSON (since all bags are to be left behind when you abandon the aircraft, and you can't assume you'll be able to get to the baggage once you've crashed).

Here are mine:

• Appropriate clothing. I've seen people take off jackets and coats and stuff in overhead bin. I always have my (leather) flight jacket on. If it's colder, I have a heavier coat over that.
• Flashlight (two of 'em, actually :-)
• Bandana (darn thing is kinda useful, and might help with smoke / fumes, etc.)

Just because something happens rarely shouldnt be an excuse to not prepare for it. I mean if we only prepared for what is likely to occurr then why prepare at all? Granted, I do realize that we must draw the line somehwere or we walk arround constantly with 50# of gear. I guess the question is (as always) where that line is drawn.

I would add some paracord, a mirror, a whistle, a cell phone, some water purification, and some steel wool (for starting a fire with the batteries out of my flashlight.) I dunno what else--maybe some ice skates? <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Regards, Vince

I have read so many of the "TSA-Friendly Kit" threads and have come to realize that you can actually make a pretty effective kit and still be TSA-friendly. It just takes a lot of a creativity and little extra skill. By creativity I mean things coming up with alternatives to edged tools like implements for creating an edged tool in the field (blunt file and blunt piece of metal for example). By added skill I mean things like knowing how to start a fire with TSA-friendly materials (steel wool and a battery for example). Your kit may not be as capable and easily usable as the one you take camping which includes a lighter, matches, sparklite, firesteel, a 6" fixed blade and a 4" folder, but it will still be miles ahead of having not kit at all.

don't forget the basket ball (or is it "the basketball ball" ??)
<img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Norad45:

You might want to take a short dress along so that you can "skirt" any issues that come up.

Bountyhunter <img src="/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

I carry 5 lighter flints Krazy-glued to a small key blank and secured in place with a clear plastic piece of shrink tubing. It's possible that it might be confiscated, but so far no airport security person has ever given it a second glance. If they ever do - well, I paid less than $2 for the components and could probably do it cheaper next time.

I also have a key fob with a stainless steel "logo" attachment that will strike a spark from said lighter flints.

In my wallet I have a first aid certificate with a cotton ball laminated to the back of it. You can easily make luggage tags out of business cards the same way. Even if I don't have a knife to cut it open, I'll bet I can punch a hole through it with my car key and rip it apart. Because it's laminated, it will even keep the tinder dry if I go for a swim.

I also have a Princeton Tec LED light and a mini CPR one-way valve (for first aid rescue breathing) on the same keychain.

And of course, the obligatory Fresnel credit-card lens. <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />