Are flashlights allowed on airplanes?

Went to the TSA website and checked the list of allowed and prohibited items. Flashlights were not mentioned. Are they allowed in one's carry on? Is there a size limit?

mac66 said:

Went to the TSA website and checked the list of allowed and prohibited items. Flashlights were not mentioned. Are they allowed in one's carry on? Is there a size limit?

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I woudn't bring your Mag 6D and expect to carry it on.....:naughty:

I carried on my Surefire e2e and L1 from Kansas City to Charlottesville, Va without any problems.

Other than that, last July I carried my e2e and L2 on a plane from Kansas City to Munich, Germany. The only problem I encountered was when two German inspectors found my SC3 spares carrier. (which looks astoundingly like a grenade!) They commented on my flashlights, and were rather impressed.

There shouldnt be any problem, unless you are toting the L6-porcupine, in which case you WILL lose it.

-tom

Re: Are flashlights allowed on airplanes?texts

I flew with a whole bunch of flashlights and spare batteries between US and Germany (Surefire A2, L2, L4, U2, some Inovas and Fenix's as gifts, SC1 and SC2 carriers, BatteryStation's Pelican case for 123's, an Otter box full of Alkies and Lithiums AAs and AAAs, red and green laserpointer in Pelican case).

In the US, not many raised eyebrow, except that they had to scan my bag a few times. It was packed pretty tight, with some gadgets (laptop, MP3, digicam etc.). Was handsearched one time ("What's in this box?" "Digicam" "In this?" "Spare batteries" "And in this?" "Umm, more spare batteries" [TSA guys sighs, shakes head] "OK, move along").

In Germany, was handsearched pretty extensively. Similar dialogue as above, but the guys actually opened the cases. Some snickering remarks ("Hey, take a look, this guy's prepared"). The Surefire SC's were not closely inspected, maybe because they are clear. The Pelican cases were more suspicious.

Overall, not much problems. Nowadays the amount of spares I carried probably would be raise more suspicion. I will pack more sparingly next time.

Just don't take anything weapon-like, like large Mags and similars ('club-like objects' in the TSA texts), or heavily crenelated bezels.

I've taken my SF L5 with me with spare cells (some loose- oops- and some in a spares carrier) to London, UK; Vienna, Austria; Bratislava, Slovakia; Chicago; Atlanta; Boston; San Francisco- all in the last two months and never had a problem. Earlier this week in Boston on my flight home a few 123 cells fell out of a pocket of my backpack when I was running through the scanner. The TSA personnel saw them and handed them to me (!). LOL

I fly alot and usually carry 2 flashlights in my pocket and two in my carry on with a surefire spare bat. carier and i have never had any problem.
Hope this helps.
Shawn

Haven't had any problems at all during this last month and a half with trips back to San Francisco, Vancouver and Missouri. No mention at all about my lights or the battery spares. Only handup I had was with my boots that have a steel plate inside.

Blazer said:

I woudn't bring your Mag 6D and expect to carry it on.....:naughty:

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:lolsign:

I've flown from Orlando, FL to Los Angeles, CA to Taipei, Taiwan for over 2 years with lights...
never fly with anything with the bezel the size of the body...I probably unscrewed my XO [now XO2] a dozen times in and out, dump out the batteries, explain the long optics, put it together, light it up...and get unnecessary comments from those behind in line..


Im considering the thought of bring my A2, XO3, and a T1 and im thinking...should I buy a spare A2 just incase one gets taken...
:thinking:

I asked before I got in line as I recently was in IN on business and another color of a MiniMag I needed for my collection. TSA just asked if my flashlight was longer than 5". I said "no" even though I think a MiniMag is closer to say 6". My bag never made the guy with the x-ray flinch.

It would be interesting to see how many threads there are on this topic.

I was thinking the same thing And it's not just on this site.

Actually it seems that every forum site that focuses on a specific topic has this same question. "Can I take [widget of forum focus] on a plane?"

GadgetTravel said:

It would be interesting to see how many threads there are on this topic.

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GadgetTravel said:

It would be interesting to see how many threads there are on this topic.

Click to expand...

I think there's probably at least 20 or so by now.

Here is a start...
http://www.google.com/search?q=flashlights+airplanes+tsa&sitesearch=candlepowerforums.com

Maybe someone can merge these and sticky it? BTW, I wonder what that text box with the google button under it at the top of the page is for...

JM-99

I've gotten all the way into Vietnam with all sorts of liquids along with my old Brinkman Maxfire LX, no sweat.(including the primary lithium batteries.)
The not really educated or world concious elite US customs agents and baggage masters were looking more to hold up the line of returning US citizens with stupid questions than to inquire about our belongings.

Well here are just two threads on which I posted experiences about flying with flashlights.

This is one from late last year where I conducted an experiment. Starting with post #102 on this thread I describe flying around the world with a bunch of flashlights to see how security was in the various countries in regards to flashlights. Okay, thats BS, I did the trip for sightseeing, but I really did report on security checks with the flashlights at each stop in the trip.

http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=99734&page=4&pp=30

The second is more recent:

I had a post, #49, describing what lights I had on what trips and no trouble with security.

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/133049&page=2&pp=30

Bottom line, no problem.

I have had no hassles carrying my Blaster 1-R 2D light