I wear cheap shoes. I know, I'm a pilot.... or at least I was until just after 9/11,.... and a pilot should be able to afford good shoes. I could when I was a young F/O, but now it has to be good old Jet A1-proof plastic soles that will also stand up to waddling in de-icing fluid. The problem is that they had a reinforcing sprung-steel rod running 70% of the sole length!!
I grew so tired of taking these off for the brown-shirts, that I did some surgery on the poor old Clarke's specials and removed the offending blades. It seems that many of the modern molded sole have this spring built in. A total impasse.
In a way it's our fault!!! Twenty years ago I walked out of my flight deck, slipped on a sports jacket and sat in the back waiting to be flown home. Huh!.. " the flight is being delayed because of you Capt. XXX" (Capt. XXX is not my real name) To cut an exceedingly boring story short, I had to walk back to the office block door, nod at security, climb stairs, descend stairs, walk down the road where common people walk, enter the terminal building, find my check-out, go through "security", board the aircraft with every one glaring at me, and sit in the seat that had my flight bag over it. (No, I couldn't be fagged to carry it round the circuit with me.) On the way home, a company brown-nose explained to me that my family might be held hostage and this is why I now had to be checked. Mmmm..... so why couldn't I be vulnerable when I was the Captain? What the **** difference did my nice jacket make?? Why after twenty years, is this cr** is this still going on?
We can't make protests that simply hurt our own outfits / investors, but now is the time for some metered control over this madness. They should be obliged to explain who they think that we going to attack with 3 tin-tacks or a spring from a cheap shoe? We all know how barmy it is, why has it taken 1/4 of a century to start any serious rumbles?