bakerocb
Joined: 15 Jan 2006
Posts: 727
Location: FAIRFAX VA
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 Posted: Tue Mar 21, 2006 8:40 am Post subject: Securing Your Airplane |
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Responding to an AeroElectric-List message previously posted by: "Bill
Denton" <bdenton(at)bdenton.com>
<<.....skip......But in the interests of learning something here, how would
you secure your
airplane other than with a keyed ignition switch?>>
Fair question Bill, but first each aircraft owner / builder needs to answer
some other questions:
A) Security under what aircraft conditions?
B) What kind of security?
I won't try to give complete answers to those two questions, but I will list
some items to think of:
Aircraft Conditions:
A1) Aircraft at home field inside a locked hangar with 24/7 FBO operations
nearby on the ramp.
A2) Aircraft at home field inside locked hangar.
A3) Aircraft at home field tied down outside on ramp with padlocks on tie
downs.
A4) Aircraft at home field tied down outside on ramp.
A5) Aircraft at away field tied down or chocked for a few hours in the day
time with frequent foot traffic on the ramp.
A6) Aircraft at away field tied down on ramp for one or more overnight stays
with airport basically deserted at night.
Kind of security:
B1) Only access to interior is to remove / rip / cut off cloth airplane
cover (which prevents seeing interior of aircraft) and then physically break
door locks or smash through a window.
B2) Only access to interior is to physically break door locks or smash
through a window.
B3) Access to interior is through unlocked door. (Rather have thief open
door and remove avionics or whatever than have thief damage aircraft and
then remove avionics or whatever.)
B4) After access to interior, hidden or trick engine cranking / ignition
switches would prevent any normal thief from starting engine and flying
airplane.
B5) After access to interior, padlocked control locks would prevent any
normal theif from flying the airplane even if he got the engine started.
B6) After access to interior, a padded chain or cable padlocked around the
propeller would prevent normal engine operation.
B7) After access to interior, only figuring out the ignition and start
switchology prevents flying the airplane.
B After removing standard (unlocked tiedowns), gaining access to interior,
and removing easily removed control stops, only getting past a standard
keyed ignition switch prevents flying the airplane.
There are probably situations in addition to those above. Each owner,
builder, pilot needs to go through a litany or hierarchy of scenarios, which
can change from from time to time, before he can best answer the question: "
How to secure my airplane?" I am not saying that a keyed ignition switch is
an absolutely unacceptable item to have in your amateur built experimental
aircraft, but it sure is very low on my list and not just for security
reasons.
OC
PS: A couple of comments:
I spent some time a few years back standing around a beautiful Lancair IV at
Sun 'n Fun. The builder would ask interested spectators to figure out how to
open his door which had a hidden handle / latch system. I did not see
anybody succeed.
I am intimately familiar with an airplane that has the door latches secured
by a socket head cap screw threaded in to a recessed hole in the door
handle. Not really hidden, but it is not obvious that the hole is providing
the locking mechanism and unless the thief is carrying the right sized Allen
wrench he cannot unlock and then open the doors in a normal fashion.
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