My niece went through collage for Homeland Security and had to work without a paycheck.
She's currently guarding nuclear waste at a power plant.
You got an unusual TSA 'Agent', I always seem to get the ones that are 350 pounds (male & female), and since I set the metal detector off every time (artificial knees, hip, metal in my back & neck) always wind up in my underwear on the (Alice's Restaurant) 'Group W' bench while they decide what to do with me...
You would *Think* the letter from the VA, my VA card, my TWIC biometric card, and the surgical SCARS, in my underwear would be enough... But I always have to wait for some 'Supervisor' to get off their fat butt and waddle down to clear me...
The TWIC card alone gets me into customs secured facilities, military bases, etc.
But then again, customs agents and military know what they are doing...
I missed my flight and got thrown out of an airport because I couldn't understand the 'Agent', the 'Urban Accent' was too thick for me to understand and when I asked for the third time what she said she had me escorted out of the airport...
By two guys I could understand.
Why couldn't one of them translate 'Urban' to English?
She lost her temper and it took me two extra days to get home... (MY TIME out the window)
The petty tyrant comes out in people when you give them a little power...
Anyway, I learned to fly a long time ago, but it's planes that you can smell the glue drying and have to wind up the rubber band...
(Plastic skin always smells like glue drying in the summer)
With engines as small as 40 HP, I'd have to say lift comes from Bernoulli's Principal since top air speed isn't as fast as interstate speed limits, and a stiff breeze over the wings will lift them.
I can't say about jets that take 75,000 pounds of fuel alone, or a jumbo that weighs a million pounds, never flew one... My single engine/prop IFR/VFR rating was as far as I got.
I know the three things that do you no good at all,
1. Altitude above you
2. Runway behind you
3. Fuel left in the tanker
And tend to believe it's true humans have a 100% track record in airplanes, we have never left one stuck in the air, 100% of planes have returned to earth, although I can't prove it to the conspiracy theory bunch...
I don't much worry about crazy, there is a lifetime supply right around here, I don't have to import any from the internet!
The 30 minute dissertation from a bystander on how a 2 cycle engine can't run while I was cutting up a tree with a 2 cycle chain saw that fell across our county road a few years back was enough crazy to last me quite a while...
I can't 'Fix' stupid or crazy, I stopped trying a long time ago...
You can't teach a pig to sing, wastes your time and annoys the pig.
You can lead a horse to water, but the horse will still shit on his heels...