Transporting flashbulbs on airplanes

[Squirrel Girl]

Well, *I* think you look like a suspicious Middle Eastern terrorist type. Six-foot-bunch-of-inches, fair hair, calm, talkative demeanor.

Not all terrorist are of middle-eastern descent.

Absolutely not. But in this one particular case, TB mentioned "Pakistani."

Let's not get into terrorism politics in the flashbulb thread. We can, have, will, and are doing it just fine in the other Fora.

[Ralph E. Powers]

Well, *I* think you look like a suspicious Middle Eastern terrorist type. Six-foot-bunch-of-inches, fair hair, calm, talkative demeanor.

Not all terrorist are of middle-eastern descent.

Absolutely not. But in this one particular case, TB mentioned "Pakistani."

Let's not get into terrorism politics in the flashbulb thread. We can, have, will, and are doing it just fine in the other Fora.

Quite right. I know you were just teasing ... but then again... so was I

[hunter]

Hey Dave did you try this? I'm facing the same issue so I went through the online ask a question form on TSA. Much to my surprise they responded quickly. The response was that it is up to the individual inspectors to make a decision on items like this. Anway, I packed a box with a few M3s and cubes and I'll see if they make it or not.

James

[Dave Bunnell]

Yeah, I did send a question to TSA and got the same sort of response. In the meantime I flew recently to Guatemala with lots of bulbs and cubes in my checked bags and had no problems.

On the other hand, I have an expedition coming up next year where I will have to carry absurd amounts of flashbulbs and plan to ship a bunch over in advance by mail.

Hope you have no problems with TSA but let us know here if you do!

[hunter]

Cool, thanks Dave! That gives me some hope they won't dissapear. I'll let you guys know what happens in a week or so.

James

[hunter]

Hey All, to add to the list, I took about 70 M3/M2 bulbs and 30 or forty magi/flashcubs in a shoebox labled photography. They arrived and TSA had not searched my bag.

James

[wendy]

I just flew from FL to OR with my two flashes in my checked luggage with no problems. On my return flight I had a firefly slave in my carry on with my camera, and again no problem (I was expecting them to question it).

I'm thinking maybe the best way to handle the TSA guys when they are checking checked and carry on luggage is maybe having a printed out info sheet on the items that you are carrying, letting them know they are not hazardous as far as the batteries inside, or in any other way. This is what I did when traveling with my HID cave diving light. If you have every seen the batteries for those things, it looks like a bomb with wires sticking out and the battery canister is a long black tube. So I had info stickers on the batteries stating they were leak free and an info sheet about the light.

[Dave Bunnell]

To bring some closure to this topic, I'm happy to report that I had no problems recently carrying two duffel bags entirely full of flashbulbs of all sizes from large screwbase to M3 all the way to Laos with absolutely no issues from TSA or customs officials. So its clearly no problem to take them on airplanes.

Incidentally, to protect them I put them inside 5-gallon buckets with lids and they held up pretty well...even in the one that arrived cracked. We speculated that was due to the containers being in a cold storage compartment then getting tossed around.

Cheers,
Dave