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[Airbus340]

Theres allot of savvy people here it seems, here is a question that I am extremely interested in hearing your answer to.

#1 Do you feel we should have firearms in the cockpit with us, as professional commercial airline pilots?

#2 If no do you feel we should have any weapons? If so what?

[B]#3 If answer to question #1 is No, please explain as detailed as possible, why you believe that?Thanks guy for your help with this, it's a question that i always wondered what majority of people thought, regarding this issue.[/B]

God Bless
Rob L

[crashdive123]

My answer to #1 is YES!

A while back I was involved in a discussion about this. One person in the room had stayed out of the discussion for quite a while before stating. "I don't think pilots should be armed. What if one of them has a bad day and shoots somebody?" My response? You're probably right - they should just put the plane in a steep dive and kill everybody - more efficient that way. They refrained from continuing in the discussion after that.

[2dumb2kwit]

My answer to number 1.....Abso-friggin'-lutely!

I'm with crash....I can't think of any good reason for him/her not to be armed.

[canid]

i feel that if anybody on an airplane should be allowed a firearm it should be the pilot, assuming there would be similar regulation of firearm training/qualification as law enforcement first.

[Rick]

Sorry. I'm a no kind of guy on this one. I trust the crew completely. Otherwise I wouldn't be on the plane. But the last place that a gunfight needs to take place is inside a pressurized tube at 37,000 feet. Can you say rapid decompression? There's "probably" a sky marshal on board. He's in a position to see what's going on and trained to handle exactly that situation. I would prefer to have my pilot doing what he does best and the let the sky marshal do his thing...repeatedly if necessary. I might be completely wrong but I just think there's less of a chance one of the little bullet thingies will go sailing through the skin of the aircraft and out into space with me right behind it.

[glockcop]

Airbus, Yes you should be armed but also well trained. You should be every bit as proficient with your firearm as you are at operating the aircraft. If there were more well trained armed personell on the 9-11 planes they may not have gone down. As you know aircraft "raipid decompression" from a firearm is a mythological beast. IT DOES NOT EXIST! The tiny holes from a pistol are not large enough to "rapidly" do anything but ventilate a potential terrorist. I recommend MAG SAFE ammo for this mission by the way. It has very low overpenetration characteristics. Here is one other issue to ponder. There ARE NOT Air Marshals on the majority of flights inside the U.S.A. I happen to know a few of them. Don't count on them to be there to save your butt. In fact I wouldn't count on anybody to save my prescious solid gold, diamond studded a$$. The moral of the story: GET WELL TRAINED AND PACK A LEAD SPEWING TERRORIST SHREDDER! Hundreds may depend on you one day. Take care brother.

[Rick]

But....I......Are you sure?


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[crashdive123]

I was in Hawaii when that happened. Saw the plane up close - or as close as we could get. The pilots and aircrew in that one did an amazing job.

[glockcop]

Rick, That sure ain't from no pistol brother. That you can take to the bank! The old oriental lady in the middle there just had some HOT Louisiana red beans before the flight......LADY: Riiiiiiiiiippp, Did I do that,...Sorry.

[crashdive123]

Actually it was an Aloha Airlines flight - 737 if I remember correctly. Metal fatigue and corrosion were determined to be the cause. Happened in 1988.

[Ole WV Coot]

Well I don't remember the ride from the house to the airport but, Yes the pilot and anyone in the cockpit should be trained and armed. I mean not only how to use a firearm but the psychological, darn that's a long word! implications as not opening the cabin or surrendering if one of the crew or a passenger is threatened with death if they don't open the door or surrender their weapons. Now I have doubts if a firearm could be brought on to begin with. I've said it before, I am decent in combat but my favorite weapon is a good cane or walking stick. Only thing I know that can be carried anywhere and I don't need one but I have had some training, enough to take out anything but a firearm. I have never been questioned anywhere with it. Before you laugh best do a little research, I never train for fun.

[glockcop]

Ole coot, I can attest to the usefulness of a walking cane to protect your parts. Years ago as a Patrolman I responded to a call of a thwarted armed robbery with the perp still on scene. Well, this dirt bag decided to rob an old man at knife point. Things did not go so well for the perp. The old man handed this yougster his a$$ on a platter and held him at bay (perp on the ground) until officers arrived. I asked Mr. Sh*t bag why he didn't run. He responded, "Cause that old bastard would have hit me sumore, Vatto. Isn't irony cool.

[SARKY]

I'm a Mossy 500 kinda guy, loaded with Aqilla shorty shot shells, a mix of bird and buck. Where my Mossy normally holds 8 shells, with the shorty shells, it holds 12. Backup is a Ruger SP101 in .357

[kx250kev]

Pilots armed, yes, but I'd hope that they use special fragmentation bullets for use inside an airplane? Powdered core or something that won't breech the hull..anyone..?

[mccaw69]

12 ga. mossburg defender,20" bbl.,6 shot tube,loaded with 00 buck,shoved in between the mattress and box springs,my side of the bed.

[Airbus340]

I'd like to laugh at that CrashDive but a very good friend of mine was killed on Egypt Air 990 in 1999, my friend was the pilot PF, he got up to use the restroom, when he got back ,the F/O did just that. the F/O put plane into a dive after shutting off the A/P , started yelling Allah Akbar over and over and crashed by Nantucket It was incredibly sad. All souls were lost. But you are absolutely right, have an aircraft traveling at Mach .81 no gun necessary. Sad but fact. They actually said it was mecanical failure yet the CVR said the whole story word for word. You can read the transcript.
http://aviation-safety.net/database/...?id=19991031-0

Rob L

My answer to #1 is YES!

A while back I was involved in a discussion about this. One person in the room had stayed out of the discussion for quite a while before stating. "I don't think pilots should be armed. What if one of them has a bad day and shoots somebody?" My response? You're probably right - they should just put the plane in a steep dive and kill everybody - more efficient that way. They refrained from continuing in the discussion after that.

[COWBOYSURVIVAL]

I don't beleive you have demonstrated the mental competency to even own a firearm.

[SARKY]

Hell yes they should be armed! But then I think that any lawabiding US citizen with a CCW should be able to be armed on the flight as well.

[Airbus340]

I don't beleive you have demonstrated the mental competency to even own a firearm.

And you have? It's prejudicial, remarks like that without having much to go on but a persons basic eyebrow raising at an event that occurred. I didn't say anything happened or didn't happen exactly as stated. But you have the audacity to say, I don't have the mental competency to own a firearm. Well I have a ****load of people far more competent than you to say I do, so are you saying your more qualified than them?

If so then you got bigger problems than you think and you may want to look inward first. I hold people you have loved and cared about your whole life everyday I go to work in my hands, and I might add deliver them back to you the same way as they left. Hell its people like you that say, oh look all them purdy lights, can I come into your shiny cockpit Capt and take a look see? You can put me on ignore any time. And if you boot me for this your all hypocritical, because I have seen people here with 1,000 plus posts say what the hell they want, and people 3 get stepped on. Well I'm not one to step on, you want thick skin you got it. OK so you don't like my eyebrow raising at the 911 Thing Big %$&$& deal! Thats all it is is eyebrow raising not advocation, I was just curious to see where this group stood.

But to start insulting me in other posts is absolute BS. So understand the western world was based on opinions that differ from one another, not the suppression of it. You all want to be patriotic people stand up for whats right, use the constitution etc and yes I am Dual citizen US and Canadian then respect peoples right to have opposing views and defend that right.
I have many friends that are LEO federal, local, airport, customs, US Dept HS, as well as fire fighters and rescue. I respect every job as a link in the chain, please have some respect on a human level. If someone differs slightly from your opinion or greatly to respect that and appreciate that difference, sets us apart from the animals that you trap. So get back to the topics you created for this forum and stop acting like the bully on the block.Cause your not getting my lunch money but you may get a kick in the nuts and a busted nose for your trouble.And Cowboy you may want to put a screen over your mouth, to catch the stupid **** that falls out of it.


The rest of you who offered constructive ideas and suggestions, thank you for those points
upon discussing this at length with my fellow pilots and staff, I'll be sure to inject your thoughts as part of that discussion. You have certainly made some excellent suggestions. Much appreciated ,I assure you. As far as my opinion, I'm still up in the air about it, because I feel many things could go wrong. I believe the new cockpit door systems we have are the absolute best deterent, for now.And believe me the system is extremely good. We have had professionally trained FBI and RCMP tactical teams do breaching tests and couldn't enter.


And yes Explosive decompression will not occur because of a bullet breaching the fuselage. You would need to have an explosion to do that. A bullet hole could literally be sealed with chewing gum (No Joke) As far as Aloha, it was metal fatigue along a riveted section , that should have been doubled rowed and wasn't. This caused stress fractures along that fault line. When continually, pressurized and depressurized, the continual stress put on the metal, caused it to completely fail. This could never been caused by anything short of an explosion of significant size.
Rob L

[Ken]

WARNING! Colorful Brooklyn language:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA8x_YypfjA