Would you put your laptop computer or camera in the luggage hold on a flight?

[Betty LaRue]

 

 

If something is going to explode in the cabin it will in the hold as well with same or similar result.

 

Allan

 

 

Exactly. Seems a no-brainer.

 

Surely it would make sense to beef up security checks rather than issue "bans" that just create more chaos and fear.

 

 

We do not have enough specific information to understand the threat. Remember the underwear bomber? In the end you fly according to the rules or you don't fly.

+1

Right on, Ed. It's very easy to criticize every edict. But we are not sitting in on the intelligence briefings, are we?

 

I remember when we had season tickets to the Oklahoma University football games. I'm very susceptible to heat. The first two-three games of the season were often very hot. Our first game ever, kickoff was 105F in the shade, and our seats were in the sun. Add hot sweaty bodies crammed shoulder to shoulder. The first year I could bring in a gallon cooler chocked full of ice water. I drank it and used it on a towel around my neck.

After 9-11, the ban was on. No more water, no food, nothing. I couldn't even bring in unopened frozen bottles of water. It cost a small fortune to buy it inside, and by the time it got to us in the stands, it was barely chilled.

 

So I froze two bottles of water, and before we hit the check lines going in, Bob put a bottle in each of the socks on his feet, covered by his pants. We walked in, and I had a frozen bottle for the back of my neck and to drink. It beat being carted off on a stretcher.

 

We were not bombers. But if it's that easy for good people to circumvent the rules, how easy for terrorists who constantly brain storm about it?

Betty

[John Mitchell]

 

 

If something is going to explode in the cabin it will in the hold as well with same or similar result.

 

Allan

 

Exactly. Seems a no-brainer.

 

Surely it would make sense to beef up security checks rather than issue "bans" that just create more chaos and fear.

 

 

 

We do not have enough specific information to understand the threat. Remember the underwear bomber? In the end you fly according to the rules or you don't fly.

 

 

.. and one threat often just leads to another.

 

Some of those big airliners can carry almost 400 passengers. That means a heck of a lot of batteries in the hold. Also, all the bad guys have to do now is check a few laptops, etc. with defective batteries. Who needs explosives any longer...?

[John Mitchell]

There could be bright side to all of this.

 

First thing I do when I sit in an airplane is turn off the annoying in-your-face screen that they've planted in seat-backs and take out a book.

 

John le Carré novels make good inflight reading, I've discovered.

 

P.S. Just noticed that that's an Alamy photo (two actually) illustrating the Telegraph article.

[Betty LaRue]

There goes my Kindle, that carries many books on it.  My last trip it was a lifesaver that kept me from packing space-hogging paperback books.  I'm a reader by nature since 7 years old, and the last thing I do before sleeping is read. I used to check out the limit at the library, and have them all read in 5 days or so.  Mom used to say, "Get your nose out of that book and go outside and play!"

 

Nowadays its "Turn off that (computer, iPad, phone, game console, etc) and read a book!"  Reading is becoming a lost art.  While camping, I was reading by flashlight in the tent at night when the big storm hit and blew the tent down around our ears and filled my cot with water. Of course, it was my side that collapsed. 

 

Betty

[Dyn Llun]

I had a mini hassle with a security person at an Italian airport a few years ago. She asked me to 'turn on' my Leica M2 so she could check it really was a camera and not something suspicious in disguise. I said, "it doesn't 'turn on', it has no battery". She said "TURN IT ON!". I said,"I'm really sorry but it doesn't 'turn on', it has no battery, it's mechanical". She said, "TURN IT ON!". At this point armed guards were getting twitchy so I would the film on, held the camera close to he so she could here the quiet shutter noise of the Leica and pressed the release. She said, "hmmmmm, ok then". 

 

At Geneva airport a couple of years ago my camera bag was being checked over when one of the security guards came along and said "hello Pete, what are you doing here". Turned out to be an ex student of mine who was working there part time, saving up to get married while he built up his photography work. I and my gear went through very smoothly!

[Dyn Llun]

I had a mini hassle with a security person at an Italian airport a few years ago. She asked me to 'turn on' my Leica M2 so she could check it really was a camera and not something suspicious in disguise. I said, "it doesn't 'turn on', it has no battery". She said "TURN IT ON!". I said,"I'm really sorry but it doesn't 'turn on', it has no battery, it's mechanical". She said, "TURN IT ON!". At this point armed guards were getting twitchy so I would the film on, held the camera close to he so she could here the quiet shutter noise of the Leica and pressed the release. She said, "hmmmmm, ok then". 

 

At Geneva airport a couple of years ago my camera bag was being checked over when one of the security guards came along and said "hello Pete, what are you doing here". Turned out to be an ex student of mine who was working there part time, saving up to get married while he built up his photography work. I and my gear went through very smoothly!

Sorry folks, what a lot of typos! My fingers not my brain I promise!

[Betty LaRue]

That's true. Where I fly, no prob.