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[OM] Re: Flying with Tripod

Subject: [OM] Re: Flying with Tripod
From: Thomas Heide Clausen <omlist@xxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2001 16:41:18 +0100
On Thu, 4 Mar 2004 15:19:49 -0600 
Geilfuss Charles <Charles.Geilfuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Greetings All,
>       Since 9/11 I have not had much occasion to fly and my question is
> this: have tripods and/or monopods been banned from the passenger
> compartments of commercial flights?
> 
> Thanks,
> Charlie
> 

Greetings Charlie,

A victim of "too much flying" since the early 90'es, I can ensure you that
since 11/9, the airport paranoia has gone to excessive lengths. I will
relay some of my experiences, then you can draw your own conclusions.

Here's what I've recently have had arguments/fights with overly-eager
airport
security staff over:

        - a 60cm thread shutter release;

        - AA-type duracell batteries. Can't get them through security -- can buy
          them in "duty free" after clearing security though (logic, anyone?);
          this happened to me less than 10h ago when departing (I am in the air 
          as I write this) Seoul;

        - carrying more than 3 cameras (somehow, I was told, the limit for
          carry-on bodies were 2....never gotten it confirmed, and yelled quite 
a
          bit -- didn't become a repeat problem). This was in Washington Dulles;

        - my trusty (executive-style) fountain pen, which I've carried for the
          past decade -- in LAX, it was on one occation "prohibited in cabin" 
and
          had to be checked. Only once -- since (also LAX), I've never had any
          problems;

        - a monopod -- in *checked* baggage. Was called to "the secret room" to
          open suitcase and explain myself to some very seriously looking 
          gentlemen with automatic weapons;

        - a laptop AND a PDA. Clearly, only terrorists carry both. I got a 
          strip-search and full body cavity search for that combo -- *outch*. I 
am
          still not entirely clear what the justification for that was, 
tho'....;

        - carrying cameras in general is in SFO reason to be questioned. They
          repeatedly xray it *carefully* multiple times, then hand-inspects 
          the bag, including removing all lens caps, body caps (thanks for 
          that thumbprint on the camera mirror, btw, I appreciated getting
          encouragement to sit down and clean the inside of my OM1...) and film
          chamber. Travel-tip: always carry your cameras UNLOADED -- they do not
          rewind the films.

Not to mention some countries immigration "services", which seems to be
more and more intrusive: I was once (in 2003 in O'Hara) questioned for
about an hour, where I was asked to account for my travels in and out of
the US since '93, including where I'd been, why, who I'd seen, what I'd
been doing, where I'd been accomodated etc. Did I mention that I used to
spend about 200 days/year travelling for work, a lot of this in and out of
the states? Missed my connection-flight too, and my suitcase got a nice
round-trip to the other end of the world before I got it. I just watched
"Welcome to Gattaca" again -- can't help wondering how many weeks into the
future the "hand over a genetic sample at each counter" really is...?

And I do not even match any of the usual "terrorist profiles", what being
scandinavian, frequent traveller, always with round-trip tickets
and with a clean record in all respects. It can actually get worse: 
I have a (very nice) colleague from Tunisia, who utterly refuses to 
travel for work, simply because "some countries" consider him as a 
"suspect" solely because of his origins. I've got another colleague 
who's got an European passport but has parents with a different
ethnic origin. He now travels only with carry-on since *every* time he hits
an US border, he's questioned for so long that airport security picks up
and destroys his suitcase. I've been with him twice when it happened. Of
course, they are not being nice about it, btw...

I've cut my work-related travelling in half over the past year, and am
being more selective where I actually go: some countries seem to make an
effort in making air-travel even more stressfull. And the days where I'd
bring 3-4 camera bodies to "interresting" photogenic spots are over.
Explaining it to security is simply too troublesome. If I
feel I will need to take pictures, it's a lil' consumer Pentax Optio S4
digicam which comes with me in the air. Travelling by air for "vacation and
fun"? Hah! If I am to travel somewhere for fun, I'll go by boat, train or
car (or I'll walk...), but I'll fly only as absolute last resort: dealing
with airports/immigration can ruin the best of vacations. And they wonder
why the airline industry is experiencing problems? (And I wonder how the
heck I'll get to burn all them freq. flyer miles...)

So to answer your question, Charlie: don't be surprised if you're given
heat for carrying <insert-unusual-device> into an aircraft. It depends on
airport, country and whoever is manning the security counter you walk
through. Best of luck, though -- I hope you're not running into
complications.

With disgruntled greetings,

--thomas

ps: Yeah, and this is actually written while in an Airbus 340-600. All said
and done, neat aircraft...

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