Pony bottles and air travel

[JBRES1]

I took my pony on the plane last week from Chicago to Ft Lauderdale and back last week.
I carried a 19 and my daughter carried a 13 in our carry on bags without a problem.
TSA had a tough time with my regs, they took everything out of the reg bag to inspect. They had a tough time getting everything back in, so I helped.
Jim Breslin

 

[Narcd_dvr]

I've taken both my 19 and 13cf pony bottles without any problems. I remove the valve and put a plug on the bottle. I then tell the TSA agent that there's a pony bottle in the luggage and I usually wait until they finish scanning the luggage or the agent tells me its alright.
However, I've had an incident when I went to the Philippines a few years back, where the TSA removed the bottle from my luggage, because I wasn't around when they inspected the bottle. They gave the bottle to the airline agent for storage, while I continued my trip.

Hope this helps.

 

[ClayJar]

Next time I plan to put electrical tape over all the threads on the valve in several layers, than pack in a padded mask bag with some socks or something.

Another possible idea is picking up a small PVC cap just the right size to slip over the valve threads. Drill through it (two holes, 180° apart), and attach a drawstring (or elastic, or whatever) that you can pull tight over the valve to hold the cap in place. The plastic cap should protect the threads quite well. It's strong and thick enough to take abuse, while still soft enough to protect the threads.

If the dip tube is left on, you can either use a third hole in the cap or else just use a short length of PVC pipe instead of a cap. It slides over the dip tube and threads, and the drawstring, elastic, or whatever holds it in place.

(Personally, I wouldn't want to use electrical tape or other such things on my valve threads. If I *did* tape the threads, I'd wrap a few wraps of teflon tape first, just to keep the tape adhesives off the valve threads. I'm a stickler for clean threads. :biggrin