>For those concerned about bullets bringing down an >airliner, don't worry about it. A single bullet, or >even several, will not cause the aircraft to violently >decompress and explode. Look at fighter and bomber >aircraft. They get shot with cannons and yet survive to >land. Look at Aloha Airlines'737 that lost part of its >fuselage roof. It landed safely. Aloha 737s don't fly at FL350 where the pressure differential is much higher. Most of the fighter and bomber aircraft are NOT pressurized as this would cause more damage and there will be a weight and cost penalty. If you were an engineer at General Dynamics and suggested to put pressurisation in F16 when they were designed you'd see yourself being transfered to Genitorial Dept. :)) >I say allow the pilots to be armed with handguns. In >the 40 plus years that they were allowed to be carried, >not a single incident ever occured that a gun was >discharged wrongly. Maybe.. But it didn't help in the hijacking of US Airliners in 80s and 70s right? Guess what? Those terrorists had bigger guns.. Oh, I know.. Let's arm the pilots with AK47s or M16s then :) >If you can't trust a pilot with a gun, then don't fly. I am a pilot. Hopefuly in not so distance future I will be an airline pilot also.. I don't like the idea of carrying a gun because at the first place I don't trust myself with a gun. I never got an education on it, and a crash course in pistol waving won't cut it. >If you trust the pilot with your life and that of 100's >of others and with the safe operation of a piece of >machinery that costs millions of dollars, why don't you >trust him with a tool that can save lives? Apples and oranges.. Do you trust a policeman with an operation of an aircraft? I rest my case.. :) BAHA Fan of wathing too many episodes of Law & Order :)