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.

And then the alarm is resolved by a secondary inspection. Case closed.

Yes, exactly. That's what clearing the alarm is.

So it's stupid to get rid of the puffers just because they might have to resolve alarms with a secondary inspection. Imagine what would become of the WTMD?

So what will happen when 1000's of "perp's" show adult diapers, colostomy bags, feminine hygiene products, and on and on at a busy check point each day? A hand search/strip search for each perp with such an item, or will the booth officer nod and wink that since there are no wires hanging out of the item, it can be declared not to be a threat? That's effective security, right there.

Yes, the nuclear power plants where security officers must frequently meet physical agility requirements, clearly a foreign environment for the majority of TS "O"'s. Judging by the pictures posted on the net though, the TS"O"'s do have the edge in napping prowess.
And mentioning the US Army negatively in the same sentence as TSA? Beyond contemptible.


I spend more time in airports than I care to, an experience negatively enhanced by the presence of you and your ilk, so please can the attitude. Fact is that the problem you're talking of is a simple filter sizing issue, as any engineering undergrad could tell you. A small team of engineering students could also easily design autocleaning filters that even TSA would have difficulty messing up.

Me and my ilk? Yea, right. You don't even know what I do. It is obvious as with every other thread here people will just read what they want and not actually discuss the issue. The problem with the puffers is not the filters but with the time it takes to analyze. I have mentioned that several times but you choose to ignore that and take pot shots. I see you and Spiff are of the same ilk, don't discuss the subject, just name call and try to bully.

Careful there. I do discuss the subject and would be happy to discuss this subject in as much technical detail as you'd care to. No topic too difficult, no words too big. In this case, we can talk about nitrates, explosives, material science, and engineering all you want.

Analysis time is not a problem. The machine takes less than 30 seconds and eliminates the disgusting perversion that TSA has with shoes. Instead of wasting money on uniforms and WBI, TSA could have bought hundreds of EntryScan3s years ago. It takes 2 people to work the WBI. It takes less than one person to monitor the puffer (they can do other things while working it).

I'm sorry if you don't like it that I refer to TSA management as scumbags, but that's exactly what they are.

Bolding mine.

Analysis time/clogged filters, doesn't make much difference. Those are engineering problems and don't seem to be insurmountable. Some of this gets back to the original specifications and first article testing protocols not properly documented.

Last week I had a puffer experience. They are not all out of service. have the filtering problems been solved? Is something else going on? This time I had to turn twice, which was not the case with the original ones, if I recall correctly, so maybe they're different. I defer to the engineers who are posting here, but I'm curious.

And if the GE engineers would repair those problems and resubmit the machines for certification I'm sure TSA would look at them but GE hasn't. This is what I have been saying multiple times during this thread but no one cares to read it.

If you would have read other things in my posts you would see I advocate the use of puffers and Thermal whole body imagers along with the new aTIX X-Rays with liquid analytics to get toward the leaving shoes on and liquids in the bags.

It is much easier to blame TSA and people who work for TSA for everything.

Who wrote the specifications for the puffers used by TSA? Who signed off on waivers requested by the prime contractor? If those people work(ed) for TSA then they are the ones responsible for the puffer fiasco.

GE needs to know that TSA is going to want to buy them if they did such a thing. They're not going to do it and "hope" that TSA wants to buy it. Especially when other users seem to be ok with the puffers as is.

Also, anytime that anything is changed on the contract, and ECP needs to be done or a new contract written. GE isn't going to do anything without a formal request from TSA and guarantees that they will be paid. They designed to spec the first time and delivered what TSA asked for. It's doubtful TSA did any of that, so it's no wonder GE hasn't done anything.

It's easy to do because it's the reason the vast majority of the time. @:-)

From what I understand, thermal imaging has some of the same drawbacks as the Nude-O-Scope; it can't see in body cavities or under folds of flesh for example.