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Confessions Of an Ex-TSA Agent: Secrets Of the I.O. Room
Jason Edward Harrington has seen some of the same frustrations, misgivings, and objections that have crossed the mind of probably every commercial airline traveler who's flown over the last decade in the U.S. One difference: Harrington got to see them from the perspective of a TSA agent. His description of the realities of the job (including learning the rote responses that agents are instructed to reassure the public with) is wince-worthy and compelling. A sample makes it clear why the TSA has such famously low morale, even among Federal agencies: "I hated it from the beginning. It was a job that had me patting down the crotches of children, the elderly and even infants as part of the post-9/11 airport security show. I confiscated jars of homemade apple butter on the pretense that they could pose threats to national security. I was even required to confiscate nail clippers from airline pilots—the implied logic being that pilots could use the nail clippers to hijack the very planes they were flying." It only gets worse from there.
The TSA exists because Americans tolerate it.
It's that simple.
We hold the purse strings AND the votes. Either one alone is enough to eliminate the TSA. But we have said, en-mass, that the TSA is acceptable in our society. So it will continue.
I've been reading that guy's blog since day one:
http://takingsenseaway.wordpre...
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Glad to know the only two times I ever went through the scanners (I travel for work frequently) that maybe somebody did see me flipping the double bird. Even happier that the on last several dozen trips my wife and I live by the words 'opt out'. Several agents have commented to me readily while feeling me up and violating my privacy that what they were doing was completely useless. In one case I was told by an agent that he felt up the CEO of the company that makes the current machines, who refuses to use them for himself or his family.
Time to get rid of the TSA, the only organization that can still get funding with a 0% success rate.
Oh, and a related set of facts I thought I should mention, just for safety and the odd chance's sake.
Discharging a firearm in an aircraft may not be likely to cause dangerous and immediate cabin depressurization, but there's still a ton of vital stuff that keeps you flying (and landing minus large fireball and crater!) that doesn't play well with getting shot up.
It's a bad idea, period. Unless lives are at stake, don't do it.
That being said, if you're on an aircraft and some surreal turn of events happens to cause you or someone else you have influence over to absolutely *have to* discharge a firearm while flying in an airliner, try to avoid lines of fire that intersect the wings/engines (and the fuel tanks they contain, although a small-caliber round is unlikely to cause a fire/explosion/sudden fuel loss), the cockpit area (obviously), directly aft through the tail (avionics/autopilot/comms/cabin air pressure pumps/etc) and down through the deck you're standing on (more avionics/flight control/comm/nav/etc, fuel tanks, and landing gear).
Avoid the instinct to consider "down" (cabin deck) a safe default direction for discharging a firearm purposefully or accidentally in an aircraft cabin. If anything, "up" (cabin ceiling) would be preferable.
Of course, avoid windows. Easy one to remember for most Slashdotters. :)
Exact locations will vary by aircraft make/model/etc, but that's a pretty good general rule-of-thumb layout.
Again, if there's any choice, do not discharge any firearm in an aircraft in flight. Too easy to fall down go BOO000OOM!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I could empty an AR-15 w/30 rounds from inside an airliner flying at 30K feet, reload, do it again, and still not depressurize the cabin to any serious extent as long as no windows were blown out. I serviced/repaired aircraft for a living.
I designed and coded the software for cabin pressurization systems used in commercial aircraft. BlueStrat is correct in all details, and if you know a little engineering you can easily convince yourself.
The cabin pressurization valve is an inflatable balloon (of sorts) sitting in an 8" diameter hole, and there are two of them. The system will easily compensate for even a large number of bullet holes in the body - 1" holes are much smaller than the area the valve system has to work with.
The pressure differential between the inside and outside can be at most 15 pounds per square inch(*). That means that a 1" hole would only present 15 lbs of force pressure on an object pressing against it, which can be easily overcome by a person. Bullet holes are much smaller than 1" diameter. Further away and the effect is negligible.
A window being shot out would not suck out a passenger. From experience, when an 8" diameter hole (the pressurization valve) is suddenly uncovered, it doesn't pull very hard on people standing near it and the pull ends almost instantly. Force isn't present for any length of time, and since F=M*A and V = A*T, you end up with very little velocity.
Sorry folks, Goldfinger doesn't get sucked across the cabin and forced through the blown-out window, and Pussy Galore doesn't have to pull the plane out of a tailspin.
(*) To reduce stress on the airframe, the cabin is depressurized as the aircraft reaches cruising altitude.This reduces the maximum differential by about 1/3.