My most recent encounters with TSA and flying about the planet.
Light in question, surefire C3, nothing special, I think I had an E1e in there as well. Trip involved a conference for a few days far far away.
I put my travel sack, shoes, belt, and soul through the X-ray machine to be analyzed, walk through, no problems. Then the fun phrase, "Sir, may I look inside your bag?" came up as they saw the C3. They pulled it out, swiped my bag for the GC analysis. And put the light back in. The GC machine then beeped testing positive for something evidently evil.
The folks then took everything out of my bag and started swiping all of it. Got a few compliments like, "hey this is a nice light" from the pair of people screening everything I owned. My coworker was laughing her head off, for some reason I always set something off.
Turns out that they had detected RDX in my bag after the swipe thingy. I had been working in a propellant and explosives lab so that added up. They took apart both my lights after x-raying them again, spares carrier (6x123a's and a P90), swiped everything and finally let me go.
Lesson learned, don't travel with that bag again until I wash it. On the way back they didn't seem to care about my light. I was early so didn't mind the possible delay and fun of having an explosive compound on my stuff.
Side notes: 1. Getting the 20 minute search by security is amusing, and if you have plenty of time, a neat place to sit and watch the system at work. 2. Coworkers can find it funny when you are delayed. 3. TSA is not amused to find about 20 expired boarding passes in your carry on. 4. The poor TSA people appreciate it when you aren't a pain in the butt, and laugh when you offer to restrain a lady that was outraged that she had to take her shoes off.
Light in question, surefire C3, nothing special, I think I had an E1e in there as well. Trip involved a conference for a few days far far away.
I put my travel sack, shoes, belt, and soul through the X-ray machine to be analyzed, walk through, no problems. Then the fun phrase, "Sir, may I look inside your bag?" came up as they saw the C3. They pulled it out, swiped my bag for the GC analysis. And put the light back in. The GC machine then beeped testing positive for something evidently evil.
The folks then took everything out of my bag and started swiping all of it. Got a few compliments like, "hey this is a nice light" from the pair of people screening everything I owned. My coworker was laughing her head off, for some reason I always set something off.
Turns out that they had detected RDX in my bag after the swipe thingy. I had been working in a propellant and explosives lab so that added up. They took apart both my lights after x-raying them again, spares carrier (6x123a's and a P90), swiped everything and finally let me go.
Lesson learned, don't travel with that bag again until I wash it. On the way back they didn't seem to care about my light. I was early so didn't mind the possible delay and fun of having an explosive compound on my stuff.
Side notes: 1. Getting the 20 minute search by security is amusing, and if you have plenty of time, a neat place to sit and watch the system at work. 2. Coworkers can find it funny when you are delayed. 3. TSA is not amused to find about 20 expired boarding passes in your carry on. 4. The poor TSA people appreciate it when you aren't a pain in the butt, and laugh when you offer to restrain a lady that was outraged that she had to take her shoes off.
