No TSA Checkpoints at more than 2500 GA Airports! Annd here we go

That was not a fun read.

They hate us.

And people wonder why I don't often volunteer that I'm a pilot and plane owner in social circles. Here it is.
 
"The next time you look up and see one, wonder to yourself: 'Where’s it going? Where’d it come from, and what’s on board?

"There’s a good chance it could be illicit narcotics.”

Apparently most of us are crooks.
 
Kansas Flyer said:
"The next time you look up and see one, wonder to yourself: 'Where’s it going? Where’d it come from, and what’s on board?

"There’s a good chance it could be illicit narcotics.”

Apparently most of us are crooks.
Click to expand...
There's equally a "good chance" that cars you see driving down the highway "could" be carrying illicit narcotics. :rolleyes:
 
Lesson learned. Be nice to anyone who can turn out to be an informant
 
It's not as easy as they are claiming .... this guy got away with it as the "rides" he used are long range haulers. Come through my area, especially at night, and you'll have someone asking you questions from law enforcement.

NOTAMs from El Paso through AZ for night flight will have all "NAV/Position lights required ON" statements. I've ridden out bad weather with CBP pilots at several dromes around here and the lights aren't necessary according to them ... they state your engine heat signature can be seen for miles. I have a lot of night hours, and several times while putting the plane in the hangar I could hear drug runners that didn't even bother trying to fly far from the border check points ... blacked out ultra light would fly about 50AGL right over my hangar, then there'd be a CBP chopper and ground trying to catch the guy. They always "dropped" and hauled rear back to the Mexican side ...
 
Election season. Divide and conquer. Like the ad I just saw on TV promising to soak the rich so YOU can have more money.
 
I have a few thoughts on this based on personal experiences.

First, when I was in high school, there was a DC-6 that landed in a pasture in the middle of north central South Dakota close to where we had our ranch. It had engine trouble and landed to make repairs. A rancher drove up on his tractor to offer help, but became very suspicious at the answers given by and the demeanor of the pilots. So he left his tractor directly in front of the DC-6, walked away and called the state police. The plane was loaded to the gills with pot that was being flown from Mexico, over the US to Canada. The plane was confiscated and eventually sold at auction for less than it took to fill it with gas. As I understand it, it crashed several years later in the Caribbean where it was being used to haul air freight.

Second, when I was at E-RAU Prescott campus as a seriously cash strapped student I was sitting at the bar in JRs (a dive of a bar popular with students at the time when a guy came up to me with a bus ticket to a small town in MX. He said there'd be $5000 under the seat of a Cherokee and all I had to do was fly the plane back to a small airport in the US and not look at what was in the back.

This was 1983 - pre-aerostat, pre UH-60s with night vision, etc, and the odds of getting caught were very low, unless someone informed on you. However, I still said "no thanks" on ethical/legal grounds.

Two things occurred to me. It explained how a few of the students there who didn't have rich parents still had really nice cars. It was also obvious that either someone at E-RAU who had access to both student financial aid information and information on student pilot certifications was providing leads on possible recruits, or one of the other students I knew personally had identified me as a possible recruit. I was not impressed with the implications of either possibility.

-----

The point here is that the government could i suppose put TSA agents at every single airport in the country, including out 1800x100 gras stip in an airpark, but there's still at least 50 grass strips within 50 miles that are not officially "airports", and there are still an awful lot of DC-6 sized pastures out west. So that obviously won't work.

What's next then is banning general aviation. If you were around after 9-11 you know how that works, and you also know it doesn't take much at all for hysteria to take over and rights and privileges to get thrown on the bonfire of "the public good".

Vote accordingly.
 
Kansas Flyer said:
"The next time you look up and see one, wonder to yourself: 'Where’s it going? Where’d it come from, and what’s on board?

"There’s a good chance it could be illicit narcotics.”

Apparently most of us are crooks.
Click to expand...

The more important question is, did they file a flight plan?
 
Years ago just north of the US border in Alberta . I was heading up to buy Ag parts . I saw a large plane sitting in a farmers yard a mile or so off the hiway. Curious I found a road that lead to the farmers yard. It was a DC-3 parked off a grass strip behind a shelter belt. Farmer was also an Ag spray pilot. As I got close to turn in to the yard a pickup stopped me and asked what I was doing . And please no traffic allowed in farm yard.
I asked a few golfing friends who lived in the area about the DC-3 . They said it worked the winter season in South America freighting. I asked what sort of freight , they didn't know.
 
ja_user said:
There is no doubt that the TSA could fix a problem that we were not even aware we had.
Click to expand...
And give us problems we wish we didn’t have.

Yellow journalism is not only alive and well, it seems to be well into a massive resurgence.
 
I think everyone (most everyone) is reading too much into this article.
 
midwestpa24 said:
Well that took sensational reporting to a whole new extreme.
Click to expand...

It’s Yahoo link aggregating the Louisville newspaper. What else do either one have left?

Of course Yahoo hasn’t existed for coming up on four years. Verizon Media Group. Cough. Automated link aggregator at a carrier.

Most valuable company on the planet on Jan 3, 2000. Just a Verizon link aggregation engine now.

Dead companies aggregating dead companies inside a telecom carrier’s automated software package, and yet people still associate the Yahoo brand with something of substance.

Clicky clicky. Verizon needs to finance your next phone. Unlimited data. Got some nice Yahoo links over here for ya! Haha.
 
DaleB said:
And give us problems we wish we didn’t have.

Yellow journalism is not only alive and well, it seems to be well into a massive resurgence.
Click to expand...
But the media is always truthful and unbiased, no?
 
Reporter is an amateur in yellow journalism:
I would’ve included the impact on global warming.
Add the fact that airline travel is tax deductible, so most rich people don’t pay taxes.
 
danhagan said:
It's not as easy as they are claiming .... this guy got away with it as the "rides" he used are long range haulers. Come through my area, especially at night, and you'll have someone asking you questions from law enforcement.

NOTAMs from El Paso through AZ for night flight will have all "NAV/Position lights required ON" statements. I've ridden out bad weather with CBP pilots at several dromes around here and the lights aren't necessary according to them ... they state your engine heat signature can be seen for miles. I have a lot of night hours, and several times while putting the plane in the hangar I could hear drug runners that didn't even bother trying to fly far from the border check points ... blacked out ultra light would fly about 50AGL right over my hangar, then there'd be a CBP chopper and ground trying to catch the guy. They always "dropped" and hauled rear back to the Mexican side ...
Click to expand...

Back about 1987, the DEA aviation guys let us use their hangar to change out an engine on a huey that had a sick engine during a cross country ferry flight. They told us how they were using FLIR back then to find operators flying lights out over the border. I'm sure their capabilities are even better now. Also, when I was on shore-duty in San Diego, we used to spend hours in the pattern, at night, at OLF Imperial Beach, getting new pilots checked out in CH-46s. Border patrol C-180s were below us in the downwind (probably around 200' agl) spotlighting illegals crossing from Tijuana. There was a hell of a lot of action going on down there back then. I can only imagine what its like now.
 
Larry Vrooman said:
The plane was confiscated and eventually sold at auction for less than it took to fill it with gas.
Click to expand...

Reminds me of this: During high school in the 70's, my father prided himself on buying super cheap vehicles at auction, driving them awhile and selling for much more. Going across to Juarez Mexico (our sister city) was huge back then for shopping, the race tracks, bull fighting etc. One of my father's vehicles was stopped shortly after being sold and the owner got arrested ... seems they didn't quite get ALL the drugs out of the vehicle prior to auction ... everything was cleared up as the drugs sniffed out were an exact match to the previous bust that resulted in the original auction ...
 
danhagan said:
Reminds me of this: During high school in the 70's, my father prided himself on buying super cheap vehicles at auction, driving them awhile and selling for much more. Going across to Juarez Mexico (our sister city) was huge back then for shopping, the race tracks, bull fighting etc. One of my father's vehicles was stopped shortly after being sold and the owner got arrested ... seems they didn't quite get ALL the drugs out of the vehicle prior to auction ... everything was cleared up as the drugs sniffed out were an exact match to the previous bust that resulted in the original auction ...
Click to expand...
I thought you were going to tell us your father got to sell that vehicle twice :)
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I thought you were going to tell us your father got to sell that vehicle twice :)
Click to expand...

There were so many confiscated back then, he didn't need to ... a lot of people "lost" their vehicle for not paying the tax on alcohol brought over. They still auction quite a few. Have to be real careful though as you can look at them, but can't start them ...
 
Jeff Oslick said:
Anyone who is surprised by negative reporting on GA by USA Today is new to this. They've played this same line for at least 20 years. I suspect there is an editor there who tried to become pilot but couldn't hack it and carries the bitterness through their life.
Click to expand...

Or owns stock in railroads.
 
TommyG said:
TSA wouldn’t be able to find a brick of coke if it hit them in the face, just like they miss guns and other weapons everyday at major airports.
Click to expand...

True, but it makes sheeple feel better that TSA is "on the line":confused:

Unless you're willing to screen by profiling like Israel ... good luck ...
 
danhagan said:
True, but it makes sheeple feel better that TSA is "on the line":confused:

Unless you're willing to screen by profiling like Israel ... good luck ...
Click to expand...

I would be feel much better if we engaged in even basic profiling. Heck, it would at least remove the presumed guilt from a pretty darn wide swath of people and allow better screening of ones with higher risk profiles.
 
Pugs said:
I would be feel much better if we engaged in even basic profiling. Heck, it would at least remove the presumed guilt from a pretty darn wide swath of people and allow better screening of ones with higher risk profiles.
Click to expand...

My last flight pre-Covid on commercial, a young teenage girl was getting "the business" from TSA and the father looked like he was about to be detained for intervening ... I thought this is total BS ...
 
I watched as a 2 year old child had to remove her shoes at a TSA checkpoint. The look on her face was distressing (as if she was asking why are they taking my shoes?)

But, TSA saved us from that dangerous toddler.
 
Pugs said:
I would be feel much better if we engaged in even basic profiling. Heck, it would at least remove the presumed guilt from a pretty darn wide swath of people and allow better screening of ones with higher risk profiles.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure the TSA is capable of doing that as it's now configured. ANd there's not enough money or time to do it the way Israel does.

It's far easier - and avoids some blowback - for the TSA to just screen everyone. Administrative convenience and all that.
 
wsuffa said:
I'm not sure the TSA is capable of doing that as it's now configured. ANd there's not enough money or time to do it the way Israel does.

It's far easier - and avoids some blowback - for the TSA to just screen everyone. Administrative convenience and all that.
Click to expand...

easier in the sense that no intelligence is required.

Monumentally wasteful.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top