Meanwhile - the world has changed, and no, it is no longer cool to park an
aiplane in an open access area with the key readily available. Get
real, and get over it.

I take it you are referring to the DXR (Danbury CT) drunken joyride to
HPN (Westchester NY). I'm based at DXR, and spoke with the airport
manager, an instructor at the FBO whose plane was stolen, and several
other people who are very close to the incident. The key was not
"readily available", and all keys to the plane were accounted for.
However, it is likely that keys to another plane also happened to work
on this plane, and the person who stole the plane likely had access to
some of these other keys, being as he was a maintenance apprentice of
some sort.

Airplane keys are just not all that secure. They don't have that many
pins, and they are not high quality. (Nor would high quality keys and
locks make much of a difference when clipping the grounding lead and
swinging the prop will get the engine going).

The airplane was not in an "open access" area - Danbury is fenced in all
around. A gate was apparantly broken by the intruder. Granted, it
might not have been a jail-quality gate, but is that the way we really
want to live? Even if it were, good wirecutters would get through a
fence pretty easily.

And if not at Danbury, at any number of tiny strips all over the
country, where people believe in freedom and the integrety of their
fellow citizens.

Jose
--
You may not get what you pay for, but you sure as hell pay for what you get.
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