Has anyone ever been hassled by Airport Security when boarding a plane with tin whistles in their carry on?
I’ll pack them if I have to but I would prefer to carry them on so they don’t leave my sight (nice Sindt set).
Patrick
Last summer I went to Switzerland and had a homemade ‘Low Tech’ whistle from PVC with me, wich had some sharp edges, but no one ever asked me what it was.
Have you already seen this… http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=56689 ?
Only once…and I just had to plat a few notes…no big deal.
Philo
On a domestic flight airport security was very interested in my Hohner C-whistle, but showed no interest in a bag of food-supplement powder packed in plastic. The food supplement really looked like a pound of heroin.
What the whistle must have looked like to the airport security people is anybodys guess. 
If security gets too nosy with your whistle, just clobber them with your low D. 
Even though I haven’t had a single “issue” in the countless domestic flights where I’ve had the rollbag packed in the carryon, I nevertheless worry each time I approach the TSA counter. “Will they confiscate them? Will I be escorted to a room full large ugly men wearing $70 J.C. Penny polyester suits?” No problems – so far, so good.
However, I did get a request at O’Hare to play for the agents (it was “0-dark-thirty” on a slow day). I gave them a quick sample of “Tar Road to Sligo” and offered to drink beer if they would buy!
Hey Patrick,
You don’t say where you hang your hat but, if you’re US-based, all I can say to you is to fly Continental Airlines whenever you can. I flew from the US to Ireland last May with a half-set of uileann pipes in a gym bag and the TSA people thought it was plumbing supplies as the bag was going through the machine. When I told them what it was, an African-American security guard said that I wasn’t getting them back until I played him a tune because his name was Tyrone (get it?). What a hoot. I then stowed the pipes in the overhead bin.
On my return flight, I had an octave mandolin in a cheapo hard case and a brand-new bouzouki in a Calton case (I got the Calton case figuring I would have to check the zouk, at least). I was allowed to waltz on the plane with both instruments and a carry-on bag and (amazingly) stow both the instruments in an overhead bin (the Calton case is a jumbo-sized guitar case). I’ve flown to Florida with guitars in hard cases and never once had to check them (always carried them on). And no, I don’t work for Continental:-]. But I use them exclusively for air travel because of this.
The airlines to stay away from, in my opinion only, are American and Air Canada. Both gave me aggro when I tried to board with a smallish bouzouki. And I lost the arguments, BOTH TIMES.
So whistles are not that big a deal. But I would NEVER put the whistles in my checked luggage. Once that bag hits the conveyor you don’t know who’s handling it and John Sindt has a (well-deserved) waiting list.
If you send me your e-mail to <saoirse1@embarqmail.com> I’ll turn you onto a letter from the TSA that exempts musical instruments from being checked. In other words, you’re allowed to carry them on.
Good luck,
Paul
I brought a bunch to Mexico several times - along with my trumpet, sax and flute. I put them all in my carry-on and had someone else carry the sax as carry-on. Continental and no problems.
The 1st time I had 300 Clarke Sweetones in my checked luggage. (give-aways for missions work with kids) Again no problemo!
My opinion here agrees with what’s been said so far - probably no big deal but always be ready to play a tune.
i take my whistles everywhere, and have them on carry on with me. just let security know that you have them and let them check them out. i never have a problem with that.
So, it’s better tu carry them in a bag with us than putting them in the luggage?
I’ll move to another country in a few months and I was thinking in putting some inside my bag and some inside my luggage.
Back when I traveled weekly, I carried whistles and a recorder in my carry-on all the time with no problems. Once, the x-ray operator looked up at me and said “I see you have a D whistle and a soprano recorder.” Turns out he grew up in the Boston Irish community and his parents hosted the weekly neighborhood session in their kitchen when he was lad.
I went to Mexico from the US last year and brought a whistle and my highland pipes. On the way there I packed the pipes in my luggage. On the way home I exceeded the weight for my checked bags and I had to carry the pipes onto the plane in a plastic bag.
Then when I was boarding the security guard tried to grab them out of my hands. Of course English was limited, but luckily I knew what bagpipes are in Spanish.
I traveled through the States and Canada and then through to Ireland in June/July last year, with two whistles in my bag and no problems, no one blinked an eye.
I got a job in October and was sent to France, flying from Shannon via Heathrow, at short notice (ticket booked only a few days before the flight, but still through the multi-national company I’m on-site for). At Heathrow, my carry-on was flagged as having a problem due to a long metal object. No explanation would suffice: an agent had to go through the entire thing with a detector wand: I had to open every single zip, she had to pull out every single item and scan it. This was quite challenging: my carry on bag had a laptop and handbag and a gazillion other things, spread over a very large number of pockets. They pulled out every single item individually, even the tampons!
I believe that this was 0% due to the whistle, which was just an excuse, and 100% due to my passport suddenly having appeared up on a ticket bought on the internet at short notice for a vastly different sort of flight to the ones I’d been on earlier.
I took a lot of pleasure from being calm and courteous to the agent the whole way through. At the end of the day, they’re doing a horrible job to keep the bad/mad people off the aeroplanes, and really, how can I have a problem with that
On the trip back, a week later, same bag, same contents … not a problem.
i would, because i only trust myself with my whistles, not people swinging the bags around, or maybe even stealing.
The last time I flew with a whistle (I think) was in spring 2006 when security was relatively relaxed, by post-9/11 standards. I had a whistle (and on the way back, two whistles) stuffed in teh front pocket of my carryon suitcase and no-one seemed to care. That might have been the trip where they searched my suitcase, but they were interested in the main body, not where the whistles were stored. And anyway, my SLR always seems to command more attention.
I have to agree about the SLR. My Sindt cost me just under $100. My entry level SLR cost me $600. I tend to worry more about the camera 
I flew with a whistle on New Year’s Eve to New York City. I quickly learned I get through faster if I take it out of my purse and put it in my shoe.
I haven’t flown with my new SLR yet, but when I flew with my old (film) one, I drove them crazy by not letting them put it through the x-ray machine. It seems they took more interest when I had hte lens separated from the body–then they’d go into the body with a swab, though the only time it really worried me was when a security person told me she thought something was wrong because she couldn’t see anything through hte viewfinder. Luckily, it was simply because hte lense wasn’t attached, otherwise I would have freaked.
I don’t blame you, I’m touchy about my camera’s too. Luckily I’ve never had to worry about film. I brought my 35mm SLR to Mexico last year but I dropped it in the condo and the mirror for the viewfinder broke 
I had the digi with me so it wasn’t that bad, but I was still upset 