I got my son a RC airplane for his 10th birthday and it got me thinking.
If I were to walk around town in D.C. carrying this plane (four foot wingspan) would I be stopped? What if I flew the plane toward the whitehouse?
I would think that I would be stopped from doing this, but I have not been in D.C. in many years. Are there police/secret service agents everywhere? What law would I be breaking (besides being stupid).
BTW, I am just curious and would never attempt anything like this.
hehehe…there is a great D.C. tourism thread going on; I missed seeing it earlier. It does not, however deal with my question, but it is awesome:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=253455&highlight=security+washington
The secret service guard people, not buildings. The only time you would see them is in the near presense of the President or one of the other small number of people they guard. You might not be sure even then which of the people around the President are the secret service. They wear nice suits, not uniforms.
There are no more police visible in most of Washington than in most big cities. The only annoying thing is that there are barricades around some of the monuments and such and a few more uniformed people guarding them than before 9/11. (And some of the stepped-up security started before 9/11.)
No one would care about you carrying a four-foot wingspan plane (although they might assume that you’re a little weird). You couldn’t fit any more explosives into such a plane than you could wrap around your torso under your clothes. The chances of a suicide bomber are greater than the chances of someone flying an explosive toy plane.
It sounds from the OP that the kid would be flying a full-sized RC plane on the Mall. Forget concerns about terrorism, the US Park Police would undoubtedly stop you for the risk of knocking someone in the head with that thing.
I know nothing about RC planes, but I expect that one can’t just go into any public area and fly the things around .
(and the Secret Service is positioned all around the White House, both in planclothes and in uniforms.)
Park police might stop you on the Mall for fear of you braining someone. And how close are you to the White House when you are flying it toward it? If you fly it over the fence, then I guarantee you Secret Service will have a little chat with you. Not that they’ll arrest you necessarily, but they’ll definitely tell you to go away.
I should have considered that danger. My son nearly did a crash landing into my head last weekend. 
The more I think about it tho the more it seems like something Tom Clancy might have somebody doing.