TSA: Here we go again

[gemini 0]

Last night at Orlando I was told I had to surrender my weight belt to the TSA. I have carried the belt all over the country without issue. I always place it in its own bin for scanning and push it through last so I can get to the other side and put my shoes on, put the computer away, and then answer the "What is this question?" At most it has been swabbed, but usually one of the other TSA folks says "It's a weight belt." and that's the end of the inspection.

But in Orland, it was scanned twice and then pulled from the bin, folded up, and I was told "You have to surrender this because we can't see through it." I asked for it to be swabbed and was told "No". I asked for a supervisor and the guy said "I am the supervisor".

Because I held my ground for a few minutes, he said "Well you can go back and check it." I asked him how they would see though it in my luggage and his reply was "Well there are different rules for carryon and checked luggage." He then handed the belt to another TSA person who told me as she escorted me back out to the ticketing area "Sorry about this. That guy is an ass!" I was a little surprised to say the least.

Southwest found a box for me, but charged me $25 for the "third bag" since I had already checked my underweight gear bag and underweight clothes bag.

As I went back through security, which in Orlando is an ordeal, as I waited for my shoes, bag and computer to come through the scanner, a TSA person said he had to examine my helmet bag which was strapped to my computer bag.

He looked at the altimeter and protrac and asked what I used them for. When I said skydiving, he said he had always wanted to do that, but was afraid of the first jump. We talked for a few minutes, when "the supervisor" came over and asked "Is there a problem here?" The TSA agent rezipped my helmet bag and told him "Nope. Just his plastic helmet, gloves and jump log."

Glad I didn't have to pay another $25 for something else.

From no on I an throwing the weight belt in the clothes bag so they can sift through my dirty underwear!

Blue skies,

Jim

[Scrumpot 1]

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From no on I an throwing the weight belt in the clothes bag so they can sift through my dirty underwear!

Hey Jim. Sorry to hear you had the hassle. That really is the key though with weight-belts. I have never taken mine through security simply because a friend of mine who is a TSA screener told me something pretty much as this guy told you. A-Hole attitude about it all or not aside. If it can not "X-ray through", technically he is correct, that it can not be carried on. The theory behind it is that it could allow someone (terrorists, presumably) to "open it up", and access something (dangerous - like chemicals or explosives) that the TSA could not otherwise see. If it is checked, it can not be accessed directly by you in flight, and theoretically anyway, they have other ways to detect on checked bags, if something has a "device" associated with it, that would have to be automated otherwise in some fashion, to set it off.

In short - if I am carrying a weight belt to an event - I will check it. A checked weight belt has never caused an issue that I am aware of anyway.

As with ANYTHING else TSA though - YMMV.

Blue Skies,
-Grant

coitus non circum - Moab Stone

[fff3 0]

Reminds me of a time in my commercial diving days when I chucked 50lbs of lead in the trash as checking it was more expensive than it was worth. Airlines don't exist to cater to suspicious skyumper gadgets or lead weights. J

[Squeak 17]

Well at least he had a VALID reason to not allow it as carry on, and was in fact doing his job properly.



I hate being confronted with the "but if we let you take your rig on board you might jump out at 30,000 feet"

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[gemini 0]

***Well at least he had a VALID reason to not allow it as carry on, and was in fact doing his job properly.***

Well then...he's the only one since I've never had a problem with it before and that includes Houston Bush, Houstin IAH, Midway, Atlanta, Ontario, Tampa, John Wayne, LAX, San Antonio, Dallas, Toronto, Seattle, and Newark.

Blue skies,

Jim

[Jayruss 0]

I've never understood why skydivers carry on their weight belt as the belt causes the most trouble. I carry other articles on to make up the weight difference.

__________________________________________________
"Beware how you take away hope from another human being."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes

[diablopilot 2]

Because 30lbs of lead can quickly turn an "in weight bag" to a $100 surcharge bag, and since the airline will let a 350lb lard ass on board to squeeze me out half MY seat, I'll take the liberty of wearing my lead.

----------------------------------------------
You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[Jayruss 0]

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Because 30lbs of lead can quickly turn an "in weight bag" to a $100 surcharge bag, and since the airline will let a 350lb lard ass on board to squeeze me out half MY seat, I'll take the liberty of wearing my lead.

oh im a small guy and have hauled more than enough weight around this planet, but as i said, i'd rather take other items on. The idea is, if you have extra weight, you have to carry something on, why not choose something other than your weight?

Besides, how else are you going to collect all of those TSA cards?

__________________________________________________
"Beware how you take away hope from another human being."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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oh im a small guy and have hauled more than enough weight around this planet, but as i said, i'd rather take other items on. The idea is, if you have extra weight, you have to carry something on, why not choose something other than your weight?

Density. A small to medium sized rig (if it's stolen enroute to the wrong boogie, you won't be jumping) and jumpsuit (not much use jumping if you can't match everyone else's fall rate) fit in a carry-on sized to the domestic airline sized limit but there isn't much left over room.

[cpoxon 0]

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***Well at least he had a VALID reason to not allow it as carry on, and was in fact doing his job properly.***

Well then...he's the only one since I've never had a problem with it before and that includes Houston Bush, Houstin IAH, Midway, Atlanta, Ontario, Tampa, John Wayne, LAX, San Antonio, Dallas, Toronto, Seattle, and Newark.

Whilst this is a real pain, especially in days of reducing weight allowances on airlines (or rather increased charges for the same allowance), but you can see the point. Stuff could be hidden inside the lead shot. I'm not sure how much useful space you could get out of a 2lb bag and still shield the contents but there you go, it is still a risk, despite other screeners having either missed it, or not thought it as big a deal.

When you think about it, it doesn't really make sense to transport high weight generic stuff around like this. Yes, I'd object to wearing someone elses clothes and I'd rather wear my own rig and jumpsuit, but lead is lead. Why does it need to be humped half way round the world (or continent)?

The simple solution is for dropzones to provide lead for visiting jumpers. Lead is really cheap isn't it? In rip-off UK it is £2 ($3) per lb, I'm sure it is much cheaper in the US. Buying lead locally has to be cheaper than the fuel cost repeatedly transporting it back and forth. Providing lead for visiting jumpers is a great and simple service that makes visiting a dropzone much easier. I'm sure a dropzone as proactive as Spaceland would be keen to offer such a service? I'll be out there in April for TSR. Any chance you could have such a scheme in place by then Jim? I tell you what, if you can source 2lb bags out there, I'll buy them from you for the event and leave them at the dropzone to get the scheme rolling.

Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

[kallend 1,623]

Jim,

One of our mutual friends (a lady who wears 20+ pounds on the outside whacker on big ways) wears her belt under her shirt going through the TSA screening. The magnetometer apparently doesn't see lead shot.

...

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

[CygnusX-1 42]

Lead is a non-ferrous metal so it (probably?) won't be picked up by walk through scanners. However if you were ever caught by a TSA person trying to "smuggle" lead shot through security, I would not expect to make it to your flight on time.

[popsjumper 2]

Face it, Jim...it's simply because you look like a vicious terrorist.


Funny this happened at Orlando. It's not like they've never seen a weight belt before. The super was out of sorts that day, I guess. Imagine that!

In another thread they talked about how skydiver-friendly Orlando was.

My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

[AMax 0]

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Jim,

One of our mutual friends (a lady who wears 20+ pounds on the outside whacker on big ways) wears her belt under her shirt going through the TSA screening. The magnetometer apparently doesn't see lead shot.

How interesting ...

jp: thats exactly why i always carry mine on board ... extra pounds can easily translate into extra charges.

The problem with TSA is that they have enormous rotation. my impression is that its always new people who get freaked out when they see skydiving gear.

[stevebabin 0]

Screw the weight belt....you just need to learn how to arch harder.

"Science, logic and reason will fly you to the moon. Religion will fly you into buildings."
"Because figuring things out is always better than making shit up."

[gemini 0]

OUCH!....that really hurts...lol

Blue skies,

Jim

[hackish 8]

As an aside lead is actually quite expensive. I often hear the old school hotrod guys bitching about the price of it since they use it for body work.

Some time ago I thought of designing a weight belt that you filled with water. On opening you could then just uncock the drain and waterbomb anyone below you. Seriously though it would make all the weight belt issues go away.

-Michael

[mnealtx 0]

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As an aside lead is actually quite expensive. I often hear the old school hotrod guys bitching about the price of it since they use it for body work.

Some time ago I thought of designing a weight belt that you filled with water. On opening you could then just uncock the drain and waterbomb anyone below you. Seriously though it would make all the weight belt issues go away.

-Michael

http://www.thebeerbelly.com/products.asp

Only gives you 5 lbs worth of weight, though...

Mike
I love you, Shannon and Jim.
POPS 9708 , SCR 14706

[pchapman 261]

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Some time ago I thought of designing a weight belt that you filled with water.

Since you think things through I guess you'll also realize the little problem with lead being over 11 times more dense than water. (Spherical shot of course won't attain the same ratio.) A 34" long water belt that's 6" high and a chunky 1.5" thick is going to only get to 11 lbs of water.

"I'm sinking on the formation... pull the emergency dump valve!"

[edit for typo]

[shropshire 0]

1 kg of water is a Litre (think how big a litre bottle of Coke is)- so you're going to have BIG bags of water to make up the same weight.

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[Rookie120 0]

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and Newark.

The TSA up here in Newark dont give a damn! They are to busy stealin from your bags down below to worry about weight belts.

If you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck!

[skybill 18]

Hi gem,
Glad you made it thru!!! I guess this "supervisor dude" did not "see" your protrac as I'm sure it would have set off his bells that it was a triggering device for a bomb!!!!

SCR-2034, SCS-680

III%,
Deli-out

[freakyrat 1]

Jim

Sorry to hear what you went through in Orlando. I think you have probably read about my fiasco with TSA at Houston Hobby a few weeks ago. They decided that they had to swab my rig. They never got to it as the inside of my kitbag tested positive for explosive residue (False Positive) Now at the same time my rig was run through the xray machine again and it seems like while they stopped the screening line the Supervisor didn't know where my rig was. They never swabbed the rig itself. I ended up opening the rig based on this swab test of the KITBAG (main and reserve compartments) so that the EOD guy could check it. Nothing was found. He admitted to me later that he expected to find NOTHING out of the ordinary. I put everything together closed the main container up and where did the RESERVE pilot chute go. You guessed it in and against the so-called contaminated kitbag.

Now my kitbag could have been contaminated from almost anything. Like Glycerol is used in almost all soaps, hand lotions, shaving cream etc. A biffed landing can screw up a jumpsuit with nitrates.

There just has to be a balance struck somewhere. I mean we all want to be safe when we fly and I didn't mine paying for an unecessary reserve repack. The thing that I have to question is Why wasn't the rig swabbed? Were the swabs contaminated or the machine contaminated from an earlier test? If this same rig and kitbag have passed swab tests before, what was different this time that the kitbag didn't pass. As I posted to a different thread I washed the jumpsuits and kitbag and took them both to Love Field and the TSA did another swab test and they were all clean.

Chris