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Looper's Delight
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Daniel enquired:
"k pasa. does airline security freak out on electronics?is there
stuff
you cant carry on?any horror stories? "you may ask yourself"
(water
flowing under rock)... scary."
I've toured in 13 countries in the past couple of years including North
America, Great Britain, Europe and Japan.
What I've found is that you should prepare for a very long security check
(always leaving the US, but oddly enough, not coming back in).
It is extremely helpful to have a written manifest of every piece of
electronic gear that you have to give to the security agents. It can
really expedite things.
Give yourself a full two hours if you are leaving the country...........an
hour and a half if you are travelling in country before departure.
If you have a favorite expensive instrument : CARRY IT ON!!!!!!
Airline insurance will not cover any breakage accrued by insensitive
baggage
handlers.
You'll definitely need to get to the plane early.
Tell the steward/ess at the gate that you need to board early so that you
can store your axe in the oversized luggage containers that they have at
the
very front of the aircraft. They have very limited space in these
oversized storage units and if you get on later, there may , literally ,
be
no place to store your gear.
The largest rack case you can have is a 6 space rack (I know, I know,
this
sucks horribly)
and your largest case has to be no larger than 63 linear inches in
diameter.
You have typically been able to have two 70 lb backs without going over
weight limits but a lot of airlines and probably all of them will reduce
that to 50 lbs soon. With weighty cables,
this is not very much gear to take on and is the singular reason why I'm
considering switching
to laptop looping configurations for the future.
One solution is to get those huge luggage bags with very sturdy wheels and
handles and
just put your gear inside of clothing (probably safer than a typical
flight
case anyway unless it
is sprung).
I'm about to buy an enormous one for my next trip to Europe. Just
cutting
down on the racking eliminates a lot of weight.
Here's a trick I use for getting more gear on board. I just invested
in
several black
drawstring bags that are large and can be thrown over my shoulder. You
can
fill a couple of those and sling them over your back and it's hard for the
airport people to see how much you are carrying.
*************
For getting around Europe and England I highly recommend Gator cases that
have retractable handles and wheels. You can wheel one of those puppies
and a huge suitcase on wheels by yourself and it is infinitely cheaper to
tour on trains than by either plane or car in Europe at least.
Oh, one last thought: get those really wide nylon belts and put two of
them around each rack case. Rack cases WILL OPEN when thrown around
enough. No matter how many fragile
stickers I put on a case, they get thrown around and I break latches off
periodically.
I sometimes wonder if some baggage handlers perversely throw the bags that
are marked fragile. I get more wear and tear from my cases merely
having
them loaded on and off planes than in any other travelling I do with them.
It's a good thing to take a couple of extra latches, some bolts and a
small
powered screwdriver (with some drill bits the size of your latch rivets)
with you to replace them.
Good luck and let me know if you need more info.
yours,
Rick Walker
ps Another thing to consider is ask your hosts if they have any of the
gear that you use.
Sometimes it's better to borrow an EDP, Repeater, DL 4, Boss RC20,
Boomerang
or what have you and quickly reprogram it when you get there
than taking it along. Cables, certainly, are universal and are
extremely heavy
(when you use as many as I do. It takes more planning, but each venue
can
almost always provide you with enough cabling to put your rig together if
you need to lose weight in your carry on luggage.