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Comment by meelash | Hacker News Reader

How far out to sea does one have to be for the TSA to not have jurisdiction? Has anyone thought of an airline that ferrys passengers out to a ship off the coast and the airplanes take off from there?

How much does an aircraft carrier cost? It seems this would be extremely expensive, but then, airplanes themselves are extremely expensive so it kind of comes with the territory. But I wonder if we're talking orders of magnitude higher costs.

Not sure how crazy of an idea this is; it came to mind and I figured I'd throw it out there. :)

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Ordinary aircraft aren't compatible with carriers--you need a tailhook to land, at the very least. You need significantly more talented pilots to land on carriers. You need billions of dollars in aircraft carriers. (The most extravagant navy in the world has about 12. How many carriers do you need to make an airline out of it?) The shock of catapult-assisted takeoff is not for everyone; the passengers would need to be in decent health. Add all of this to the fact that airlines are only marginally profitable in the first place, and it's just completely infeasible.

If you just don't fly commercial, it's a non-issue, even at regular airports (see recent news blurb about Steve Jobs in Japan with throwing stars).

Nobody goes through TSA to get on a private plane. It makes me wonder how many members of Congress and senior TSA leadership actually have to go through the same processes us plebes do...

I think the length of runway required to get a 747 off the ground would make this prohibitive (as if the cost of an aircraft carrier didn't already). Nimitz class carriers are just over 1,000 ft in length. A quick Google search reveals that a 747 needs about 6x that for safe takeoff/landing.

Yeah, turns out the cost is also more than an order of magnitude- an aircraft carrier is somewhere in the high single digit billions of dollars, where as your jumbo jet is in the hundreds of millions....

An aircraft carrier would be extremely expensive, and as other commenters point out, has logistical issues. For your money, you might do better to build a pontoon raft out of some of the Ghost Fleet freighter ships: http://tinyurl.com/lof685

It's been proposed and is probably feasible: http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/10/22/crazy-or-brillian...

I think it might be possible. For an Aircraft carrier most of the cost is in the nuclear reactor, weapons, radar, and all the fighting stuff.

If you made a static rig that's only purpose was being a runway, I think it might be possible.

International waters start 12 miles from shore, so I'm pretty sure (but not positive) there would be no jurisdiction there.

One of many problems is that a lot of places are not near an ocean, so that rules out an aircraft carrier :)

Presumably someone (Coast Guard/border patrol/TSA/etc.) would have the authority to inspect the ferries and passengers headed to these offshore airports even if they didn't have jurisdiction over the airport itself.

Instead of an aircraft carrier (which is nowhere near big enough for an airliner) I suggest Bermuda.

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