On Mon, 22 Sep 2003 10:00:00 +0100, "Miss L. Toe"
wrote:

[ Snip ]

Got to arrivals to be greeted with with what must have been a queue of
more
than 100 people waiting for immigration control. I very boring hour of
queueing (sorry, waiting in line!) followed before I got the desk, handed
in
my form, they stamped my passport, answered the questions, and I was on my
way.

Has anyone here tried that ipass thing ? (I've propably got the name wrong)

INSPASS. I have one; It's expired (although you wouldn't know it to
look at it) and it has the wrong passport on it.

It worked fine, but only saved a few minutes.

Next I had to go through security again, my first experience of the
infamous
TSA! The only thing different from UK security is that I had to remove my
laptop from my bag and put it through the scanner seperately, whereas in
the
UK they were happy for it to remain inside its bag.

They also seem to strongly suggest you remove your shoes and belt at most
airports in the US.

http://www.tsa.gov/public/display?theme=1&content=583

It strongly suggests that you will be subject to secondary screening
*if* you alert (gosh! what a concept!) but also *if* your footware is
"suspicious" -- which as far as I can tell means that you refrained
from removing it!

[ Snip ]

Good job you didnt go Delta - they pour your drink from a can into your
glass which is already full of ice, so you end up with about a quater of a
can.

And the problem with that is...?

We boarded but were told about 10 minutes after we were due to take off
that
there was going to be a delay. There warning lights illuminated in the
cockpit apparently. The pilot informed us that he was 100% confident there
was nothing wrong with the aircraft,

Does that mean he doesnt believe his own warning lights ?

How *do* you come up with this stuff?

Warning lights are just that, warnings. You want the warning system
to fail safe, so if a sensor fails you get a warning, rather than a
lack of warning when whatever the sensor is for triggers.

Pilots, being not very stupid, know which sensors are most likely to
fail (thus triggering the warning light), even when there's nothing
wrong... and moreover (again, being not very stupid) they know how to
read the rest of the instruments to see if the warning looks
plausible.

So if the pilot stated he was 100% confident, the instruments were
saying everything is OK, but the warning light was saying something
was out of range. Conclusion: the warning sensor is faulty.

Malc.