Covenant,
I've recieved your private message, and want to apologize for appearing to "rant". I use capital letters because I am too lazy to try to figure out bold or italics in UBB. As for me jumping on anyone that disagrees, I suggest you re read the entire post and see who has been jumped on. Even you have questioned my judgement, based on my posts that disagree with you. My opinion is that you are not that knowledgable re: firearms usage based on your posts, despite your military service.......Prove me wrong!
This is a subject that hits very close to home.
I spend 75-80 hours a month in the cockpit of several types of B-737's. I can see what works and what doesn't as far as security goes, and I can tell you, even with all of the eyewash at the airports, they could repeat their performance of 9/11. BTW, Atta, and a few of the other "suspects" were frequent flyers on my airline prior to 9/11..........
I also spend a lot of time in the leo community. A close friend is a narcotics detective for our local PD. For the last 5 years, I have assisted them in their close quarter firearms training, as well as unarmed training. I (among others) play the bad guy. Suffice it to say that I have a few bruises.........I feel that this experience, coupled with almost 13,000 hours in the air, most of that in scheduled airline service, gives me some big picture perspective on the issue. I harbor no illusion of gunfights at FL 350. I merely see a problem that needs to be solved.
When the subject of arming pilots was brought up in the wake of 9/11, I was originally against the idea, for a lot of the very reasons brought up here. After talking to many of my fellow pilots, and thinking the problems through to the end, the only conclusion I can come to is to arm the flight deck. I am not alone in this thinking. I can name just 2 of my fellow pilots that I have spoken to in the last month who are against arming pilots. I work for a major US carrier. Maybe that is the reason for consensus among my peers. See Boings post.......
I can also say that I am not very comforted by the fact that my future co-pilots in the F-Teens are waiting for me to sqwawk hijack.
There needs to be an effective means to defend the cockpit against suicidal wackos. The last line of defense is currently the aforementioned F-Teen driver. I'd like to see something between that and the ex fast food workers manning the "security" points! The door is a great start. Better pax screening would be nice (especially if they'd start targeting likely terrorists rather than little kids, pilots and octagenarians!)and x-ray of checked bags are all part of defending against the type of terror we saw on 9/11.
The bottom line is that if they make it into the cockpit, all of this is for naught. The only hope we have is that one of us can get out of the seat and meet Mr. Atta head on with the crash axe, and hope that the pilot flying can make it somewhere, or at least cage the engines before the terrs take over.......
[ 17 October 2001: Message edited by: Tripower455 ]