I've not had any problems as to personal testing, and eventually got thru any issues involving models or things in luggage.
BTW - I always try to take one or two copies of Sport Rocketry magazine with me. Especially when going on trips to the World Space Modeling Championships (WSMC) overseas. So if there is an issue about the rocket models in the luggage, it will help to show that they are "hobby models".
I know you are mainly talking about just flying on non-rocket trips, where you have no models involved. I do not know of any cases where anyone in the hobby has had a problem and was prevented from flying. I've certainly had at least a couple of times in recent years when I flew rockets within 48 hours of leaving.
My 1987 wooden model box, which has been used for dozens of plane trips almost always has models stored in it in between trips that has burned out BP and Composite engines in it, with rocket gliders that had engine exhaust residue all over them, has sometimes been opened up to check the contents (I always try to hang around when I drop it off to see it it makes it through or if they open it up. I want to be there when they open it, to make sure they do not break anything coming out or cram it back in the wrong way after taking things out)
But as far as I could tell, it's been opened up because of how strange the contents looked in X-ray, like the electronics for the R/C gear. They have sometimes have wiped it with the cloth swab and run it thru the scanner, never a problem.
The only time I ever had a problem with my luggage, I was called to the ticket counter and was told there were banned items that had been confiscated from my luggage. Oh…..crap….
But it wasn't that bad. A box of matches, CA De-Bonder, and CA Accelerator. Wow, so the rocket box made it thru but my suitcase had been opened (had a range box full of things that must look weird in X-ray). The matches….. my roommate had left a zipper bag of items, so I was bringing it back to mail to him, I didn't know there were matches in it. The CA De-bonder, yeah, that's Acetone. The CA Accelerator…… tI was surprised to see the bottle said the contents were flammable. Years before they had briefly changed to a nasty chemical that attacked plastic and I'm sure THAT would have been flammable. But they changed the formula to something a lot more benign and I didn't expect it would be (I have wondered if the flammable label was a legacy out of date label, I've never tried to light that accelerator on fire to prove one way or another).
Anyway, those three banned items weren't a big deal. They handed them to me and told me to dispose of them…. but not inside of the terminal. They did not exactly wink and nod, but, they simply stressed not INSIDE of the terminal. So I took the implied hint, went 20 feet outside and dumped them into an outdoor trash can. Problem solved, trip went fine from there.
BTW, the only problem I know of when taking rockets happened to someone who competed in a US Team trials, and I was at the security line with him when it happened. He had his rockets in a cardboard box that he carried onboard for the trip coming in. That was a sure thing to get swabbed. And it failed the test… or….passed if you look at it as testing positive for…. something. One of the models he flew was a Scale Altitude 2-stage model. Second stage with a composite B7 motor, a "staging fuse" thru the length of the 14-16" long first stage using Thermalite and perhaps a special pyrogen at the top to help make the B7 light, and first stage of a Black Power motor. Something about the leftover residues of that combination, the tester didn't like. And oh yeah, he still had the burned out engine casings in the model too, providing a strong source which helped contaminate the insides of the box a lot more before swabbing.
He could fly, but the box could not. He could not have it as checked luggage, since it had tested positive (If he had checked it to begin with, it probably would NOT have been tested). He had to leave the airport, go to the Post Office to mail the Box, and missed his flight. This was late October 2001.
The most recent hassle I know of was during last year's WSMC trip, changing planes in Germany, one of the team members had an R/C (model plane type) Transmitter in a carry-on which took a ridiculous amount of time for that particular security agent to allow through. Finally a supervisor had to get in involved to wave him thru. Meanwhile I was standing there next to him, with an R/C transmitter in my carry-on, but I was in a different line that he had been and the security people understood easily what it was, he got bad luck of the draw. Unfortunately I had forgotten to pack a copy of Sport Rocketry mag with a previous WSMC article in it, which might have helped speed things along (His picture would have been in the issue I intended to bring)
- George Gassaway
