And just remembered a once-upon-a-time Australian aviation podcast, Geoff from Sydney’s “Pilot Training Podcast”. Still available at http://www.podcastdirectory.com/podcasts/7012

These new “body imager” systems may not be sufficient to spot the funky underwear bomb and certainly won’t detect a dedicated idiot with the bomb materials already inside them.

If the TSA did a serious assessment of past terrorist methods and an impact analysis of potential ways of causing problems, no-one in the USA would be able to rent a truck.

A real “5 Why’s” analysis of the underwear bomber incident would produce some great results. This is where you ask “But Why?” 5 times to determine the root cause of a situation (eg: he was able to trigger the bomb because he got on the plane because they didn’t think to single him out for examination because their system missed the fact that he was travelling without luggage on a ticket paid for with cash etc etc etc)

Too much like real thinking and too likely to raise some very nasty internal issues for most governments. Also doesn’t look as good as knee-jerk reactions that allow politicians to say “Look, we’re doing stuff to protect you, aren’t we great?”

What, me, jaded? Cynical? *sigh* :)

In terms of airport security, should we in fact be going more towards the American model here? Should we replace the private security guards that they use for outwards screening with a dedicated air security/law enforcement organisation?

To use my 09 trip to LAX for instance, why are we going to the lowest common denominator security guard to basically be the first line of defence for the US? Going the other way, they have Customs & AQIS to check us on the way in. So why not on the way out like the US did to me on the way out?

On my way home at LAX, I was checked by the TSA guys at the screening point and then several hours later on the aerobridge by CBP. Doesn’t the CBP trust the TSA? Why not have the TSA and CBP under the same umbrella? Why have two bodies to do the same thing?

And I will work on some promos for you guys when I don’t sound tired!

Mike: I’m all for AirNZ and am the first to say how good they are, but definitely nobody’s perfect. As I said during the show, I’m holding off on my official verdict until I can see the whole range. The articles so far haven’t shown many items yet so I’m holding out hope. Fingers crossed that you’re right and that crappy pink number is an option :)

As to Mexican heat? Where’d it go? Weather down here has been alternating warm & blue skies with fluffy white clouds then huge grey ugly clouds with massive downpours. Come back 35C – 40C, please – I kinda liked it…

Also, how about that Dave Vanderhoof. He’s apparently taking Steve’s lead and getting really schmick with his production techniques and sound affects. Nice to see… er, hear :-)

As usual gents, nice job this week and good to see you back working the pod than slacking about wallowing in the Mexican heat – Yikes!

Herald Sun had a nice gaff in yesterday with the Jelena incident HBA-MEL, quoted as QF437 (which is actually a SYD-MEL service!). But we’ll save the contents of that article for Ep24!