TSA Tells Us Something...

Last November, after near-universal coaching from pilots unions and security experts, Congress figured out that, in the last resort, it might not be a bad idea to let pilots arm themselves, in order to protect the cockpits against September 11-style attacks.

The Transportation Safety Administration -- whose official position (as well as that of the President, Secretary Ridge, and others in the ruling class, going back to the TSA's original capo, John Magaw) was opposition to anyone other than Air Marshals' having a chance for self-defense -- was given the task of prescribing and administering training and tests to those certified airline pilots who would volunteer and train on their own time.

Well, now it's five months later ("Pretty good, for government work," joked TSA spokeswoman Heather Rosenker), and the first class (of 48 pilots) is in training.

The training will last through Saturday, and conclude with comprehensive testing.

It's not the first testing for these pilots, though. Not content with understanding that pilots hold hundreds of lives in their hands all the time, the TSA employed "experts" to conjure up some additional psychological tests. These industrial psychologists are the same folks who made up the tests for screeners, although the criteria were, of course, somewhat different. (One difference, even when this class is compared to future classes, is that these particular 48 were nominated by ALPA and COPA [that's what they said: "COPA" -- we're still checking on that one --ed.]; future classes will be drawn from a more-open applicant pool of active cockpit crew.)

Next, the prospective volunteer had to go through another background check, with generally the same "hoops" to jump through, that regular federal LEOs get. Details were not available from the TSA. (Presumably-similar qualifications are regularly posted in the "employment" sections of the federal Marshals, Secret Service, FBI, BATF, and the myriad other federal police sites.)

After completing the 48-hour course (more hours than a senior Captain might work in several weeks), the volunteers are tested in the basics, and given self-defense training; and rigorous marksmanship testing (although the exact distances at which their shooting skills were to have been tested were not mentioned).

Upon graduation, the volunteers will be deputized as "Federal Flight Deck Officers," and they will be charged with protecting the cockpit (only). Air Marshals, if any, are responsible for the rest of the plane. Everyone outside that new cockpit door is on his/her own, regardless the skill level, training, credentials, and deputization of the front-seaters.

More...

The original funding, to develop the training and get the program started, was $500,000. Part of that money will cover the pilots' approved weapons -- .40 caliber semiautomatic handguns. [Glock 23 pictured; actual make/model of federal issue wasn't known --ed.]

As soon as the pilots graduate, they'll be back in the cockpits -- as soon as next week, depending on their schedules. Retraining is somewhere down the road; we're unsure how often recertification would be required, how much it will cost, who will be eligible -- and just what parameters will be tested.

The TSA told us that they're proud that they've 'met another Congressional deadline;' and they wanted us to pass along that, "TSA is taking every precaution they can, to train folks appropriately, before they let somebody carry a firearm."

[We hope the training is indeed 'appropriate;' yet we wonder just what additional psychological tests would be required of those professionals who already hold the keys to the airplanes. As for 'marksmanship' training, we hope that most of that includes how to hang on to that .40 cal -- distances in a cockpit are so short that any 'range' work would be effectively meaningless --ed.]

Note to front-seat ANN Readers: after your training is complete, we'd love to hear from any pilots who made it through -- or who didn't.

FMI: www.tsa.gov; www.alpa.org