I know there's not going to be some written rule against salad dressing, but this is a serious question. I am visiting on the west coast this weekend, and have always stocked up on some great Japanese salad dressings available in OR that are not sold "back east". Pre 9/11 I have had no problems carrying these jugs back home, but with the messages I have seen posted about being asked to drink from beverages being carried, etc. I wonder if I'll be asking for additional hassle.

Similarly, I might (weather permitting) go geocaching while on this trip, and would prefer not to check my GPS and compass due to their value and fragility (and liquid filledness of the compass). Will these items arouse suspicion and subject me to further hassle?

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

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UAL free since the last millennium - and planning to stay that way!

Let me know what you experience with the GPS and compass. I am a new geocacher and am looking forward to having something to do that gets me out of the hotel room! My first trip with the GPS will be on the 11th. BTW have you used it on the plane?

Mikefly -

I have not successfully used a GPS onboard. I tried once on a Midway flight but had an aisle and did not get tracking lock. (I should add my GPS is, by most standards, primitive). Most of my travel is on AA, and they have a formal policy in their "prohibited devices" that says GPS recievers are not to be used onboard.

I haven't tried to skirt that rule, even though I would like to see a heading, altitude, and groundspeed display, which should be available given decent reception.

I think the GPS itself shouldn't be a big deal, but my compass is a 5" tactical sailng compass mounted on a 6" square of plywood (was used in catamaran racing so was a lash on type mounting). I'm worried that this may cause additional scrutiny.

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UAL free since the last millennium - and planning to stay that way!

I've flown every week post-Sept 11 with my GPS and have not had it questioned, except during one (of many) random bag checks. In that case, all I had to do was turn it on.

I've also used it on planes, although not very often. You have to have patience and a good window seat. It easily answers the "I wonder what town that is?" question!

Comet

I always travel with my GPS (it is also my CellPhone) and have had no problems thru security. And to using on AA, I have not yet done it (did on AS with no prob, but before 9-11) but on the GPS newsgroup they said to ask the Captain or FO or even a FA. Most find it interesting and if they are not overwhelmed they might allow it. Never hurts to ask, but be sure to ASK First, so as to not cause an unplanned security incident.

Southwest speficially allows personal GPS use while inflight, and says so in the in-flight magazine. It's the only airline that I'm aware of with this policy.

About the salad dressing I remember reading somewhere NOT to bring dark liquids on board. I have no idea why, but that's what it said and it kept me from bringing some cough medicine with me on board on a flight.

What is this? I'm always looking for something to do while traveling that will keep me from sitting in my hotel room watching the tube.

Onedog - check out http://www.geocaching.com, all your questions will be answered. only you can decide if it's interesting to you, but some of the "caches" around here are virtual caches, but obscure historical markers. Gets you out, you get excercise and fresh air (well, depending on the area you explore) and the "thrill of the hunt".


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UAL free since the last millennium - and planning to stay that way!

[This message has been edited by fholt (edited 02-05-2002).]

We've traveled several times lately, both before and after September 11th, with a DeLorme Earthmate GPS receiver that plugs into my laptop.

I've had great success with tracking when sitting at a window seat (receiver slipped between the inner window and the pull-down screen works great. No success in the aisle seat.

On UA have only been questioned once, by the 1st Officer, and he only wanted to verify that the device was certified -- no problem.

On AA, was stopped and pointed out that GPS is on the "prohibited" list, as mentioned above in this thread, and is specifically listed in the in-flight magazine.

OT: Took the setup on a Miami - Western Caribbean cruise, and it was great. Using the Street Atlas USA software from DeLorme it tracked us across the US to MIA, then tracked the cruise down the coast of FL and showed the coastline of Cuba (not identified as such), the islands of Cozumel, Grand Cayman and Jamaica, also without identification, but all with geographic orientation, and tracked our "altitude" of 3x,000' on the flights and 80' in our cabin on the boat.

AA is my carrier of choice so I guess I am out of luck. Can't figure out why they would ban it as it is a totally passive device. Guess I'll send an e-mail to AA and see what the response is, as well as asking the pilot if I can turn it on anyway. My GPS is the Etrex which looks a lot like a cell phone so I can already see a pax telling me I can't have a phone on

The explanation also showed up on the GPS Bulletin Board. The reason for prohibition seems to come from an incident involving a Teen-age Boy with a GPS on a NYC to MIA flight. Seems the boy was tracking the flight and noticed that the plane had passed by MIA (normal flight pattern) and seemed to be heading straight toward Havana (before making the turn to come in from the West). He shouted out that the plane was being Hi-jacked to Cuba and caused some panic on the plane. (This was in 1998 or 1999) So the airline decided to ban them. But like I pointed out earlier, sometimes if you ask the Captain or FO nicely, they may allow the in-flight use. Never hurts to ask.

This all sounds interesting. Would someone please post a link to the GPS bulletin board?

Danski

I spoke with AA yesterday. Of course no one knew why. The first answer was "due to 9-11" Aaaarrrrgggghhhhh I then pointed out that the ban was in place prior to 9-11 so they would have to try harder. Next resposne was it is a security issue and we will not discuss it. Finally another managere admitted she had no idea and would check into it for me and call me.

By now I am sure I have a really thick file at AA and will be randomly selected on my next flight.

I'm going to get way over my head very quickly, because while I spend some of my days playing with fancy toys to produce radio news, I leave most heavy lifting beyond the "ON/OFF" and "RECORD" switches to the engineers who know what all those little electronic doodads behind the face of the control panel are.

Essentially, however, every radio receiver beyond the crystal sets of the early 20th century is also a radio transmitter. That is caused by the physics of the circuitry that is used to amplify, discriminate, and make useful the signal coming in from the antenna and it is an unavoidable side effect.

There is a small possibility that these low-power transmissions, even though they are tiny fractions of a watt, can affect some of the navigational instruments of an aircraft, so to be "better safe than sorry" many airlines insist that all radio receivers are supposed to be turned off when an aircraft is in flight. This applies to AM, FM, TV, -- and GPS.

Cell phones, of course have both a receiver and a transmitter hundreds of times more powerful than these side-effect transmissions, so they're prohibited also. They don't work well in the air anyway, because the terrestrial infrastructure of the cell phone system wasn't designed to handle a caller moving from cell to cell at 500mph or calling from an altitude that causes the signal to reach many more cells than a ground-based signal.