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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Air travel with a sextant
From: Fred Hebard
Date: 2004 Dec 8, 23:03 -0500
From: Fred Hebard
Date: 2004 Dec 8, 23:03 -0500
On Dec 8, 2004, at 10:48 PM, Alexandre Eremenko wrote: > I remember this question was asked once on this list > but I've never seen a reply: > How does security control react on a sextant > when you travel in an airplane? > (I mean after September 11). > Can anyone share his/her experience? > I suppose you don't check it in with your luggage. > Alex. > > I assume that one wouldn't want to put a sextant in checked luggage if at all possible. I asked the federal security officers at several airports about whether it could be carried on board. Tools are not allowed in carryon luggage, but the officers did not regard the sextant as a tool. Now clearly sextants are fairly heavy metal objects, but, again, they did not appear to regard it as a prohibited object. I could never get a firm answer from the officers that a sextant would be allowed aboard. They said that question would be decided by the supervisor of the watch on duty when I passed through at the time of passage. So no advance assurance was offered that the sextant would be allowed through. Thus one might be able to carry it on board on one leg of a flight but not the return leg. Thus my plan was to arrive extra early at the airport so I would have time to check the sextant if it didn't pass security, and to have a plan for further packaging as checked luggage. I have not yet implemented the plan. Fred