Airport chemical swab

[tjm 0]

A while back I was traveling with my rig. When it got x-rayed the apparently new TSA officer looked like she had seen a ghost when looking at all the metal and steel cables within the rig. So, she called over her supervisor and he new what it was, but he wanted to do a chemical swab test for bomb residue. No big deal, but I realized I frequently jump with smoke in demo jumps and get slag and most likely a significant amount of smoke residue.

It checked out clean and all was well. My question is, Are the chemicals in the average smoke canister not on the list to get checked or was it not a significant amount on my rig?

Anyone out there who jumps smoke or pyrotechics ever have a problem?

If you're not living on the edge; you're taking up too much room!

[billvon 2,417]

>Anyone out there who jumps smoke or pyrotechics ever have a problem?

We had 100+ people on the SFO demo, and about 80 of them flew commercially afterwards. About 30-40 of them had smoke. No problems that I heard of.

[Skwrl 56]

I jump both Skydiver Smoke and the military grade stuff pretty regularly, and I've not had any problems with TSA.

Then again, you could probably Waltz a Pershing missile by most of them and they wouldn't bat an eye, but they'll confiscate your tweezers...

My theory: everyone knows that tweezers hate our freedoms.

Skwrl Productions - Wingsuit Photography

Northeast Bird School - Chief Logistics Guy and Video Dork

[LouDiamond 1]

Quote

A while back I was traveling with my rig. When it got x-rayed the apparently new TSA officer looked like she had seen a ghost when looking at all the metal and steel cables within the rig. So, she called over her supervisor and he new what it was, but he wanted to do a chemical swab test for bomb residue. No big deal, but I realized I frequently jump with smoke in demo jumps and get slag and most likely a significant amount of smoke residue.

It checked out clean and all was well. My question is, Are the chemicals in the average smoke canister not on the list to get checked or was it not a significant amount on my rig?

Anyone out there who jumps smoke or pyrotechics ever have a problem?

The M-18 military smoke is comprised of a series of multiple colored disks and the chemical components that they are made up of. Nothing in that combination should cause a positive reading during a swab.

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[format 0]

My theory:

It depends on smoke bomb starter.
Explosive oriented Airport safety instrument is calibrated on some amount of.
When off the scale - it is 'dangerous'

Unless I know for sure it's safe (by their standard) - I'd report it.

What goes around, comes later.

[downtoearth 0]

At our DZ when we have rain days we shoot alot of guns, rifles,shotguns, pitsols at various targets. Recently went to Eloy to jump and rig went through and they pulled it out and swabbed it with whatever they use. They found a single spent shell casing in my camera bag. Id say its pretty sensitive.

[CSpenceFLY 1]

So hand lotions will create a false positive also.

[DSE 3]

haven't had smoke trigger anything, but have had nitrates from fertilizer trigger it. Be careful about putting your rig down in grass that has been fertilized recently.

[kallend 1,635]

It's exploding fruit cake you should worry about.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Gene03 0]

Quote

It's exploding fruit cake you should worry about.

You think they would be more concerned with trifle.

“The only fool bigger than the person who knows it all is the person who argues with him.

Stanislaw Jerzy Lec quotes (Polish writer, poet and satirist 1906-1966)