I just posted another synopsis of this kind of "enforcement" in another thread, didn't see this one until afterward.

Since starting in GA I have had a blast. It still is wonderful freedom. That being said, I totally agree two things are eroding it:

1. Cost -- when I was a kid my schoolteacher had a plane and would go on trips after work and in summer. A schoolteacher! Gas was <$1 per gallon. With 100LL $6.50 gas alone is $50/hr for cruise now. A new 172 is a quarter million dollars. I don't even want to think how much I have personally spent even in the past 2 years.

GA has moved from "regular people" to "doctors, lawyers, and a few professional" and will likely make the jump to "executives, pro athletes, movie stars, and wall-streeters" pretty soon. It is a damn shame.

2. DHS -- stop the nonsense. The whole "department of homeland security" should be abandoned. Searching planes hoping to find "the big score"? They need to be sued, and those that make the laws need to be educated.

 

A few GA locations have "security screening" which provide only basic carry on searches. That really irritated the boss too.

 

You're right but I still see tons of regular people in GA. The friend I fly with who owns a 152 is a city sanitation worker. His other friend who flies with him is a contractor. I'm mostly a hobbyist and work in science making less than a lot of regional FOs. People I fly with in CAP are engineers, small business owners, computer people, welders, etc. Basically people who want to fly will find ways to afford it and minimize the cost.

There are still lots of planes you can buy inexpensively. Even though they're 30, 40, 50+ years old most GA planes still have a lot of life left in them. I've been seeing old early 150s an 172s for less than $20K. The next best thing are the LSAs. You can buy a brand new Luscombe 8F reproduction for less than $90K. ACA Champ and Citabria in the low $100K. And most other LSAs for under $150K.

 

My belief is that the only reason good deals like this exist is that the pilot population is shrinking faster than the planes are being totaled or parted out... and fewer people have "spare" money to "waste" on airplanes...

 

Hahahaha. Love it!

 

Yep, it was great until you had to bring race into it at the end.

 

I was going through screening at LAX a couple years ago... I emptied my pockets into the bowl and proceeded along, when I went to grab my keys, change, Etc. after they exited the machine, I was asked about something on my key ring. It was a key to a trigger lock (for a firearm I was not traveling with) They initially proceeded to treat it like it was a gun as it was shaped like one... I attempted to explain to them why it was shaped like a pistol. They did not seem to get it. TSA stated they had to take it away from me as it looked like a gun. I must have told them 15 times it was a key, and without it how could I use my gun! I also explained, If they confiscated my key, I would need to cut the lock off my gun after returning home... They still insisted it was some sort of gun even though, at one point, out of desperation/frustration I pointed it at my head and pulled the trigger! (which consisted of flexing the little, 1/8" long, plastic fake trigger which of course would do nothing) I finally had enough and requested a supervisor. The supervisor understood what it was and let me through with my key... They also let me through with a common ball point pen that can be a very deadly weapon... These people aren't too smart or educated.

One of my concerns are unintended consequenses; something to always take into consideration when making decisions. A friend of mine is a retired, big city, street/traffic cop. I asked him one day what his biggest fear, on the job was. He said it was not the obvious stuff or what you might think. His biggest fear was a middle aged white guy, with a family and a mortage. His rational was; with all that daily pressure all it could take for someone like that to cause real problems was a really bad day at work topped off with a traffic ticket on the way home.

I'm not saying we don't need security; though I fear that with the manner in which the TSA conducts business, all the TSA horror stories, Etc. they will eventually pick on the wrong, that person, and could cause a catastrophic situation similar to those they are attempting to prevent.

In closing; for the TSA, and security in general, to function with the highest degrees of effectiveness, there must be an element of trust and mutual respect and cooperation as we are all links in the chain. The TSA's current policies do not seem to allow for this. As a flight crew member or PAX, if I am ever in real trouble with an aircraft security situation; the last people I want to come save me are anyone from the TSA or Homeland Security, except for the Navy Seals or even a lone Marine!

 

Speaking strictly from the vantage of science, there is no such thing as race.

 

things would be a lot better if more people understood that.

 

You're quite correct. More than a few people are ethnically prejudiced or culturally predisposed, and there's plenty of cultural, national, and ethnic bias, but no such thing as race.

Many years ago I went through the screening and hiring process for the Border Patrol. During a panel interview, I was given a situation in which I was passing through a bus station in Laredo or El Paso, looking for illegals. I encountered a man whom I suspected might be an illegal. How, I was asked, could I determine if he was legal or not.

I replied that I couldn't, because under the constitution no citizen is required to prove his or her citizenship in such an encounter, nor carry identification as proof. Given that it was part of the employment process, I bit my tongue and stopped short of saying I didn't really care if the man was illegal. I didn't.

I live in a border state where immigration and border protection is a hot topic, and frankly it's a non-starter. I speak Spanish, and have friends on both sides of the border. For one job I lived in the bad part of town where I was in a store hold-up, the subject of a home invasion and two car thefts, and a carjacking, all by ethnic persons. Nearly every crime in the area, and there were many, were perpetrated by mexicans. An observation, most often made by...the mexicans. Is that a racial thing? No. It is what it is.

Who does the "racial" profiling at the airport? DHS?

Go figure.