Re: Armed Aircraft

	Not that it has any significant bearing on Traveller,
but I thought I ought to properly explain the why behind the FAA's
"take it all off" ruling about ex-soviet warplanes in civilian hands.

	The Federal Bureau of Alcohol and Firearms (BATF) regulates
among other things weapons sales and import/export in the US,
from handguns to nuclear missiles (though nobody's ever asked for that
particular permit... it does exist on paper, tho 8-).
	A normal civilian simply cannot within the US own what's
term a Weapon of Mass Destruction.  You have to be registered as
an Arms Dealer to have one, not an impossible (or even all that
expensive; I spend more many years on Gaming stuff than the permit
would cost for that level...) task, but one that few people do.
	If you're not a dealer, then you can't have a Weapon of
Mass Destruction.  Aircraft and Tanks (and ships and missiles and...)
all fall under the Weapons of Mass Destruction category.  Any aircraft
that was origionally a combat aircraft is a weapon.
	To "de-weaponify" one, you have to honest to god make it impossible
to put weapons back in without making serious modifications... i.e. take
the weapons and mounts both out, remove weapons pylons from the
outside, etc.  The FAA isn't the one making this rule; it's the BATF.
I don't know about the Ejection Seat, but civilians in the US have
owned them before (a civil-owned F-104 set a new speed-at-height record
at one point, then went out of control.  The pilot ejected and
survived).  I would guess that either these are the ejection seats
that use a cannon shell as the ejection charge (ouch), or that
the FAA will grant specific exemptions later (perhaps) to people who
prove they'll treat and maintain the (dangerous) ejection seats right.

- -george william herbert
[email removed] [email removed]