Originally Posted by
NY-FLA
Get your head up and look past the faux security provided at our airports. Institutions which demand real security; US Army, nuclear power plants, use puffers very effectively. The GE Sentinel puffers, correctly used and set up, alarm only on those who have been in contact with explosives. At your typical airport, this would be an infinetesimally small per cent of the traffic through them. (I suspect a non-alarming puffer does not support the circus adequately)
If, however, your purpose is to impress the American Idol following/junk science junkies and further the war on drugs/the citizenry by high tech strip searching poor schmucks passing through the airports of this nation, WBI fits the bill perfectly.
And, BTW if, as you surmise, all it takes to get puffers back in the game is to meet the terms of the RFP, GE could simply include free maintenance on longer life filters.
TSA = FAIL once more.
The puffer would and have alarmed on nitrates such as medications and fertilizers. They have alarmed on the guy who went golfing the day before and didn't clean their shoes. The puffers are the same as the Explosive Trace Detection machines being used at the checkpoints and baggage areas. True they only alarm on what they are set to alarm for. There aren't false alarms, the machines are alarming because they found a substance such as nitrates. The puffers and ETDs are not set for drugs but idiots do try to get through checkpoints with drugs wrapped in aluminum foil then wonder why they alarm the walkthrough. The alarm needs to be cleared and when an illegal item is found the police are called and the matter is handed over to them.
Ah, yes the nuclear power plants where there have been reports of guards sleeping and I won't even go into the recent Army issues. Neither have a thousand people per hour going through them. The Statue of Liberty use puffers and they have had nothing but problems with them.
If you haven't seen, airports are very dirty, dusty areas. It isn't a matter of just cleaning filters. The read time for the puffers increased to a length that was unacceptable (which would give great cause for complaining here). Would you want to wait 30 seconds per person to get through a puffer? You think lines are long now...
GE hasn't offered free maintenance nor would they ever. Maintenance is contracted out and they won't get their continuing piece of the pie. If the manufacturers would correct the problems then I'm sure they would be looked at again.
Puffers are a great piece of equipment if they work correctly. A puffer/thermal machine would be the best thing since sliced bread.