Postponed 3 students due to TSA

On 20 Oct 2004 19:55:32 GMT, Steve Hill
wrote:

I have a curious question...If this whole "carry your papers" mess is based
on flight instructors verifying a "students" papers...and a "student" is
anyone a flight instructor takes for an instructional flight...wouldn't it
be a simple solution to just have rated pilots who are not instructors take
"friends" for short "rides"...?? If the pilot were to elect to show a friend
how he touches the controls for a moment every now and then, I don't see
where an infraction comes into play...

You raise an interesting question.
What are you going to do with your passenger if he's sitting in the
same cockpit as you and asks to touch the controls?

What's the difference between a pilot-to-be and a
pilot-to-be-for-this-flight-but-only-for-this-flight, seen from the
point of view of homeland security?


Have you heard about the Frankfurt case of the hijacked Dimona (in the
US called Katana Extreme) motorglider?

An insane passenger hijacked the motorglider by forcing the pilot to
leave the aircraft once they had taxied to the runway. Then he took
off (I think he had some motorglider lessons, but he definitely didn't
have a license) and flew over the city of Frankfurt, right through the
approach sector of Frankfurt Rhein Main airport. This took over two
hours and Rhein Main airport, one of the busiest in the world, was
shut down completely during this time. They got him on the radio, and
he mentioned that he was thinking about crashing the Dimona into the
city of Frankfurt (they are pretty proud of their few tiny sky
crapers). As a result, the city was partially evacuated (!). In the
end they could persuade him to land on Rhein Main.

This happened in Germany - here people usually don't panic as easily
as in other parts of the world (well... at least until 9-11).


Somehow I see it coming that the same security checks for passengers
of a 4-seat Cessna as for commercial flights are going to become
mandatatory, including a closed cockpit for only the pilot. or simply
forbid any passenger flights with people that have not been briefed by
the FBI.





Bye
Andreas