Taking Fire poi on a plane in Oz

Hi, can anyone help, I was thinking of Flying from Melbourne to Sydney (so I don't have to take the bus), does anyone know if they will let me take my fire poi on the plane?

As long as they are not in your on-board luggage they are quite welcome on an aircraft.

Although if your fire heads still have traces of Kerosene on them......
You might get taken to "The Room" for a little chat.
i would suggest buying new fire heads before you come

I have flown from brisbane to melbourne with my fire gear. Put the poi in a ziplock bag and then put them into an airtight container and stuff em into your luggage and you will be fine.

Yeah i ahd a similar exeperience and ended up not taking them for fear of getting in trouble.
Zip lock back with instructions to as what they're for, NO KERO TRACES!!!!! You should be fine!

Ow used to unwrap his kevlar and wash it before each plane trip but that seems a pain. If you declare them you prob wont be allowed to take them unless they can get the explosives guys in. Thats what happened to a german girl and so I got to keep her poi. It says no firesticks on the flights I have been on but so far I havent had any problems flying Sydney to Perth but always take the heads off my chains, ziplock then tupperware the heads and have a screwdriver packed with them so I can take the kevlar off and not loose the whole head. I usually take unburnt kevlar in case I need to throw the old stuff.

I have been questioned on them coming into Australia as they check baggage quite carefully but no real problems.

Thanks everyone for your help.

Still not sure if I'm flying at the mo, but if I do I will have a go at taking the wicks off, doing the zip - lock bag etc.

I do have to fly to New Zealand but think it would probably be best to just take the wicks off completely, hopefully I'll find somewhere cheap to buy wicks in Christchurch

A friend of mine has taken fire sticks and other toys overseas a few times now. We wash them thoroughly, in washing up liquid and water, dry them in the sun, wrap them in glad wrap (or as an English friend calls it, happy plastic....) The bag needs to be cleaned too. It attracts extra attention as it is larger than usual, to fit the sticks, like a ski or boogie board bag, and has to go through the oversize luggage section. The airport guys wave their 'explosive residue ' testing wands over the bag ) but it has passed every time. We still get a bit paranoid at the airport though!

Thanks sweety. I took my poi to New Zealand no problems at all Well apart from assembling them the other end.

I just took off the wicks and washed them.

Cool glad it worked for you. We don't unwrap cos there's so much gear. I'm alsways a bit surprised when the residue sniffing wand doesn't go off! Feel like we got away with something!

You don't unwrap. Doh!

Would have been so much simpler, because it was so much work to get them back on.

Oh well, at least now I can spin

Yay! Have fun spinning in a different country.

Dont forget to sample our country's womens either.

Aw man....... Was gonna take my Fire Poi down to Glastonbury on the Plane..... ( It's my only real available mode of Transport...) but can't afford new heads....might have to bit of Jiggery pokery and cleaning.....


Good advice though Cheers....

Seriously, the washing thing (and wrapping in Happy Plastic) works fine. Mind you we get to dry them out in the sun...not had actually wet stuff to pack. If you're only talking a set of poi it should be easy. We've been doing a whole ski bag size of stuff and have been fine. I would suggest though don't tell them that you've packed used gear cos then they may feel obliged to make a fuss. And put stuff in your checked in luggage rather than hand luggage cos if they see something they don't like in the scanner ( metal bits or whatever) they can take it straight off you and you can't really argue without missing the plane. (That's in Oz anyway, don';t know what sort of security UK domestic airports have)

Im going to France on the plane next month... im not taking fire poi... just my practise ones.... my socks have got juggling balls in... that wont be allowed will it??

My fluffy poi... well im not quite sure whats in the middle... would it be safer not to take them? xxx

We too have had no issues taking bucket loads of used gear on planes, though when it really matters we don't take chances and always make new gear to take with us, as each experience is slightly different and it's usually up to a whim or the wheather as to weather airport security will make a fuss about such things.

I think most of it's been said, but again, kero traces are a bad, bad thing. The argument here is that if a fire were to break out, fuel residues act as an accellerant. I don't think they actually expect it to combust by itself (well, most don't anyway).

We use only "odourless" fuels, which I think helps in the first place. Secondly, our fuel is classed as a "non flammable" and "non dangerous good" by Airport DGM (dangerous goods management). We have our MSDS on hand. This helps a lot.

We have even been cleared to take 20L of performance fuel in jerricans in our checked luggage overseas -- twice!!

With used gear, we always wash the wicks as best we can, to clean off soot and as much fuel residue as possible. We use whatever detergent we can (washing detergent, shampoo, etc!) We don't unwrap our wicks. After washing them (usually in a bathtub!) we wrap all wicked ends of our equipment with clingwrap, then fasten with packing tape. We usually don't have time to dry them out, so just pack them wet.

Staffs are usually wrapped in towels or clothes and packed in long postpacks and checked as oversized luggage. Poi and other odds and ends can be wrapped up in whatever and checked in regular luggage.

Having said this, I know of people who have had unused equipment confiscated at the airport!!! Don't make a fuss, and if you can, have someone come to the airport with you. That way, at least they can take it for you and it won't get thrown into the airport bin of no-return...

You could always try doing what I do, if they give you any hassle just try saying 'do you know who i am'? then its up to luck if they go yes sorry go on your way sir, or they'll get angry and you'll go see the man!

Written by: Vixen

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Im going to France on the plane next month... im not taking fire poi... just my practise ones.... my socks have got juggling balls in... that wont be allowed will it??

My fluffy poi... well im not quite sure whats in the middle... would it be safer not to take them? xxx

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I cant see why you cant take juggling balls and socks hun, maybe separate them, but cant see any reason why you couldnt, and you fluffy poi should ebc ool, unless they think your smuggling coke in them or something

Recent experience of taking the following through two lots of airport security, that would be london heathrow then to athens onto salmos (olympic airways) for the student cultural week for which I was invited to perform,

all new kit build, mind you fully assembled

fire fingers
stilts
staff five foot
three sets of fire poi
rope dart,
several Fire Breathing stick sets
several contact fire sets
and fire nun chucks (ok these got stopped)

the obligatory sock poi and stuff


There was no problem with any of the kit, although I did have a load of related paperwork to go with the kit, msds sheets, risk assesment stuff, site inspection, and control of risk(s) for the performances I was involved in setting up,

All the performance kit was installed in a metal flight case, i was simply asked to hand over the fire nunchucks and everything else went on it's merry way, the staff was packed in a plastic drain pipe tube, sealed at both ends,

As for returning, the fire poi, staff, rope dart and fingers were given over to the salmos univeristy fire arts club, so I wouldn't really know about that, but the Fire Breathing sticks and contact fire stuff came back with me.

treatments as follows

Fuel thouroughly burnt off,
Once extinguished, wicks doused with running water
Wicks shaken off thouroughly
Wicks loaded with washing up liquid
Wicks thouroughly shaken off

tested for combustion

Double sealed and packed,

No difficulties, there wouldn't have been a problem getting the rest of the kit back, though.

maybe olympic airways are just more broad minded, wouldn't know about others

mark

flying round new zealand is no problem at all, i just wrapped my poi up in some old towels and into plastic bag they went, but then, our domestic airport security is virtually non-existent. going international might be more of a problem tho, would suggest being pretty thorough.

i have flown from sydney into lax (los angeles international) with juggling torches fire staff (three piece) and fire poi and there new terrorism laws and all i did was dip the wicks into kero burn them then dip into water spin off excess water and let dry in airtight container with a couple of air fresheners then put into ziplock bags and into airtight container and into underdeck luggage did not even stop me about them