And that’s sad. We really enjoyed our American road trips. Almost everyone we met was pleasant and hospitable and the scenery is awesome. But as a family we represent 3 different nationalities and passports, one of which guarantees a TSA 3rd degree interrogation. So we’ll just patiently wait in hope.
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Not to be a debbie downer, but I’m pretty sure that thermite would qualify as an “incendiary material” and be banned.
Count on it being sloppy landfill disposal for anything containing toxic metals.
Oh, I’m sure that in principle thermite is technically in the class that could be banned. Along with metallic aluminum and magnesium. Possibly even calcium carbide – I mean, add water and you get acetylene.
None of which makes them any harder to take on board an airplane. After all, thermite is just powdered aluminum and powdered iron oxide. Mix them together, possibly add a small amount of binder, and there you are – a lovely greyish material quite suitable for commemorative plaques, ashtrays, and who knows what.
On the contrary, the TSA is doing a very good job of what it’s intended to do: keep the people of the USA believing that Something Is Being Done to keep us safe from Those Horrible Terrorists. If they weren’t irritating, making us stand in long (and packed, thus excellent targets) lines, etc. we’d stop being so anxious to pay them lots of money and do as we’re told.
None of this, please note, has anything to do with preventing actual attacks.
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The Rapiscans have been retired from airports. (Apparently, those are showing up in other venues.) The millimeter-wave machines are what should be at airports now.
And, yeah, as the other banana says, you can opt for the grope instead.
It’s the only time I get human contact.
Not sure if good thing or bad thing. If bad thing, ::internet hugs::.
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When the security pat-down starts actually feeling good, it is a bad sign… Loneliness sucks.
…don’t ask how I know.
Yeah, no thanks. You are correct - it’s not rape scan… it’s mm wave… I try to suck in my junk as much as possible up into my body to give the guys on the other side as big a laugh as possible.
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I’m not sure that’s true. For example, you don’t have to take off your shoes going through security in Toronto, unless you are flying to the US (and in that case, you go through US security/customs in Toronto any way).
Well, yeah. I’m sure you could mush C4 into various shapes, paint it with a little acrylic paint, and smuggle it aboard. The point isn’t that one can conceivably sneak something past the uber-competent TSA (I think that ship has already left the harbor), it’s that thermite as well as the other mentioned substances are in fact already banned as “incendiary materials”. I suspect that getting these substances aboard a plane would involve some subterfuge, and wouldn’t be a situation where “you can carry aboard as much thermite, magnesium tape, and calcium carbide as will fit in your carryon bag.”
Toronto and a few other Canadian airports are interesting because once you pass US customs you are basically on American soil, so the passengers are separated based on their level of “sterility”. Customs and Border Patrol officers also fly back to the US at the end of their day, which is also very uncommon.
It’s a weird thing, the US-Canada border, filled with a lot of discrepancies and “we’ve just always done it this way.”
There was a… I want to say Stephen King? short story about exactly that, but for interstellar warp-drive travel. One kid fakes out the cabin staff by palming the sedative, just to experience the trip while conscious. Unfortunately for him, there’s a very good reason they knock everyone out, as warping through dimensions exposes him to the equivalent of millennia of unknowable eldritch mind-fuckery, leaving him a drooling vegetable upon arrival.
EDIT: Sort of like flying United!
Man, I cannot believe I didn’t think of that right away.
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Seriously?
Yes, it’s theoretically banned. If all it takes is a declaration that something is “banned” then we can skip the inspections.
What matters is whether they’re actually looking for the stuff – and they aren’t.
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Very true… Ok then, Cancun and Dublin are both airports that fly to the US, but I was not required to remove my shoes at either of those airports when passing through security recently either. 
Edit - unless “remove your shoes” is no longer a US security requirement… But the last time I flew through the US, the late winter/early spring, I definitely had to.
Shoes are a “it depends” thing. Global Entry has removed that aspect and sometimes when the lines are long they shuttle regular people through Global Entry and people look at each other very confused when they are yelled at to keep their shoes on.
So it’s a sometimes requirement that has been less of a concern as of late. Now we just want your electronics.
Same un Argentine when you go to a neighbor country, the security is way different.
I really hope we earn a visit from you in my lifetime.
Completely seriously.
Yeah, if you had a small bag of say thermite, you could probably pass it off as something else; “oh that, I bought a pigment to paint with that I can’t find at home”. But if you literally filled a carry on (ridiculous weight notwithstanding) with s radioopaque metallic powder, I’m betting you’re getting the 3rd degree. Add to that that your now scrutinized powder turns out to be thermite… I’m betting you’re making national news and having a fun trip to guantanamo.
The statement that you could just fill a carry on with thermite and casually hike it on board an aircraft is ridiculous. I get that the TSA are a bunch of incompetents that primarily exist for theater, but I’m going to have to guess that even they could figure out that a carry on full of metal powders isn’t there for innocuous reasons.
