All you need to steal Army vehicles, from HMMWVs to tanks, is bolt cutters. They don’t lock from the outside and they start with a toggle switch. The bolt cutters are to get into the motor pool and to cut any cord that might be securing the steering wheel. I’ve driven many a vehicle, however, without cutting that cord off. You just have to make wide, slow turns.
I seem to recall an apocryphal story of a disgruntled soldier getting drunk and driving the HMMWV to some remote spot and leaving it there. They didn’t find it for weeks and he didn’t remember doing it.
On our small corporate jet, we have two means of access into the airplane: the main cabin door and the over wing emergency exit. The emergency exit can be opened from the inside or outside, so when the airplane is left unattended we insert a pin into the latching mechanism that prevents it from being opened from outside. The main cabin door latch has a cylinder lock built into it, and it’s pretty much always locked if the airplane is unattended. However, the lock isn’t anything special and I’m sure a motivated individual could pick it given some time and the proper training. Once opened, the door swings downward and doubles as the staircase leading up into the cabin. Once one gains access to the inside of the airplane, it would in theory only take five switches and three button presses to get the engines started, and I’m not even sure all five switches are ABSOLUTELY necessary. Release the control locks (which is not complicated), and you’re ready to taxi. If you know what you’re doing, you could probably go from lock picked to rolling toward the runway in under two minutes, especially if you started the second engine on the roll. Because of this, when we are at remote airports with little or no security we disable the nose wheel steering mechanism and take a small but critical component with us. It would be nearly impossible to steal the airplane in this condition unless a tug was used to tow the airplane onto the runway and align it perfectly with the centerline. Even then, the chances of a successful takeoff are… limited.
There is such a thing as an ocean liner repo man as well. I read an article on one this year based out of New Orleans. People steal them and have them re-registered in a corrupt country. It is his job to steal them back and make it into international waters. It is the same idea and no keys are necessary. Those are pretty cool jobs.
Popovich was featured on the Discovery Channel show “Airplane Repo” (real original title, that). It was listed as a series but apparently only a pilot episode was shot. He needs not to attract attention during a repo, so maybe that was it.
Fascinating to watch, though. It showed him snatching a couple of bizjets, one of which was being shuffled around by its owner just to evade him.
FWIW, on a light airplane, anybody who paid enough attention in ground training to pass the written test would know how to hotwire the magneto switch anyway. You could pop the door locks with a screwdriver, too. The key only gives you the image of security, not its reality.
BTW, menmosyne, you’re right about the CRJ pressure bulkhead.
Yup. It’s been a while since I flew but as I recall, one could easily reach behind the sheet metal the mag switch was mounted to get at the wires (on a Cessna 172). And there was nothing resembling a steering lock on a car.
As for airport security, it amounted to a waist-high cyclone fence at the airport I learned at. There’s really nothing they could do to stop you from taking off short of several beefy guys grabbing the wing struts (or doing something which damages the plane).
I seem to remember a civilian helicopter pilot playing a prank on a visiting military Iroquois crew in Queenstown, NZ, by jumping into the chopper late at night and moving it.
Don’t know about the key thing, but I was once on a plane that wouldn’t start.
They taxied another (exactly the same) plane up to it, got out some cables and jump started it.
That’s right. I didn’t even know you could do such a thing.
We were in the thin air of the high Himalayas and in India too boot, so there were bigger things to be worry about. But I remember asking my husband, “Are they jump starting this plane? Seriously? And you’re not even a little worried?”
His response was, “This runway is barely long enough, the air is frighteningly thin, and there’s a good chance we’ll clip that monastery on our take off, don’t sweat the small stuff!” That man is always so circumspect!
Back in the day, my older sister helped a dealer repo several planes. One was a Bonanza and she had never even been in one much less flown one. Back then she was about as crazy as I was.
That’s right. And the doors have been strengthened. Pilots still need to take toilet breaks though and you’d probably find a way of getting through the door anyway if you knew where to look. It makes things more difficult for the terrorist, but not impossible.
