Dudley


The only true security would be to check ids and run it through an FBI
computer for each client who gets on the ramp, including landing
aircraft, which means all pilots and passengers must obtain this
permission ahead of time. As far as I know, there is no such airport. A
terrorist can take off from his private airstrip and land at JFK, OHare
etc..

Airport security is all for show. It targets the legitimate pilot and
his family. At our home airport after 9/11 they installed a perimeter
fence at the cost of several millions. All it did was increase the deer
population inside the fence and screw up the localizer signal which
increased the approach minimums. Even an overweight American can jump
across the fence, let alone a lean and mean middleeastern terrorist.

Now it would be different if the person was loading suspicious looking
objects into a suspicous looking aircraft. But a guy taking pictures of
an airplane? Come on.

I totally agree with the OP. Many eons ago I used to hang out at the
airport taking pictures of airplanes. Even the big jets landing at big
airports. If I had been chased away I very well might have been turned
off from this whole aviation thing.



Dudley Henriques wrote:
This type of post is of course an opinion post and as such should be
respected in that context.
My personal opinion on this is that you are either going to have airport
security or you're not..period!
You can parse the "my rights are being violated" thing to death, and you can
complain about the inconvenience till you're blue in the face, but the
bottom line is simply that you can't have it both ways.
9-11 happened. It just "ain't" the same world any more. You can bash
politicians. You can bash political parties. You can holler about the way
its all being done. But the bottom line remains the same. You either have
security or you don't.
Again, personally, if its my airplane that's sitting out there on the line,
or inside that hangar, or even your airplane out there, I damn well want the
FBO involved to take some interest in who's out there taking pictures of
everything.
Just my read on it. Don't mean it to be argumentative :-))
Dudley Henriques