Dear Mr. Orr and others,

Last night's piece on general aviation was one of the finest examples
of Yellow Journalism since Hearst himself!

Apparently, background research is no longer practiced at CBS News.
One of the most popular rental (and GA) aircraft is the Cessna 172.
According to Cessna's own estimates
(http://skyhawk.cessna.com/spec_gen.chtml), this plane has a maximum
useful load of up to 837 pounds. Subtracting a pilot and fuel leaves
only a few hundred pounds of capacity.

Let's compare this to vehicles available from Ryder, the proven
vehicle of choice for delivering explosives (1993, WTC and 1995, OKC).
According to Ryder (http://www.ryder.com/images/vr_straight.jpg),
without a commercial driver's license you can rent a truck with a
capacity of up to 26,000 pounds!

While I am not an explosive's expert, further complicating your
paranoia about small planes as a terror weapon is how would one
trigger the explosives? Fire? How ironic it was for you to use
Charles Bishop's 2002 flight into a Tampa office building to make this
point - there was no post crash fire. Timer? Too much risk of damage
in the crash or premature detonation from flight delays. A manual
trigger? Do you really think someone could trigger an explosion after
penetrating a building but before their own death from the collision?

You conclude your piece by stating, "...vulnerability will be the
price for general aviations (sic) freedom"
(http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...ain593216.shtm
l). To use a tired but true cliche, freedom isn't free. People have
died and continue to die for our freedoms, including a free press.
Along with many of our freedoms comes some responsibility. While I
realize that responsibility and credibility are distant memories for
most television "journalists" these days, when you sensationalize a
percieved threat while ignoring proven threats, you have done yourself
and the free press a diservice.