On a thread over on SSW, Brett Buck made a comment on the new FAA rules about carrying Lipo batteries on commercial flights in the US. I made a response using the info from a newspaper article that you can carry lipo's on carry-on luggage (as do a lot of people who carry laptop computers--including myself), but NOT in checked luggage. It is simply a safety issue (I won't argue right now as I fly a reasonable amount and like to get to my destination!).

I just saw another followup article, this time in the NY Times, and there it claimed that you can carry a single battery with up the 8g of lithium, or a number of batteries as long as the total amount of lithium is less than 25g in aggregate. It was said that most laptops are less than 8g (probably what sets this limit!). Of course I have no idea how much lithium is actually in one of our lipo cells or conversely, how lithium tends to scale with cell capacity. Now I really don't plan to fly to contests, but some may have these ideas.

Hi Alan,

Thanks for posting this info. I plan on flying to some contests in 2008, so your info. is helpful.

I just shipped 6 of my 4S 4,200 mAh batteries via UPS with no problems. I even brought them into the UPS store to have them package the batteries for me. They said there was no problem shipping them via UPS.

This is the way I would get them to the contest. I plan to ship them to a friend, or the CD, or to the local UPS store. I think this will be much easier than dealing with the airlines. I don't blame the AL for being cautious on this, even a small fire at 40,000' could spoil your whole day. I think in the future more and more people will start using the UPS/FedEx, etc., service to ship everything and just let the ALs transport our butts in a seat to the destination.  This method has served me well in the past (RC TX, batteries, art, etc), and has always been worth the few extra $$.

I don't know the UPS "official" policy on our Lipo batteries, and I am afraid to ask  , but my guess is that if you bring them into a UPS store already packaged and just say they are batteries, you should not have any problems?

I would be interested in hearing from others that have had experience shipping their Lipo batteries. 

Hi Alan,

I'm not sure if our batteries can be shipped by air. My guess is that the rules in the AirFreight industry RE: our ECL batteries are in flux and no one is really sure. The Gov. regs are also trying to keep up with the changing technologies. This may be beyond our govs. ability to cope in a rational manner on this subject. I do not mean this as any disrespect for all those in the gov. working hard on this issue, only that we are dealing with a very sensitive subject (airline safety, terrorism, etc.) with very little test data to work with RE the actual probability of a LiPo battery fire.

Here is the link to the actual gov. regs:

http://safetravel.dot.gov/whats_new_batteries.html

RE: UPS, surprisingly they are one of the top 10 airlines in the USA.  (they are so large that the FAA made them an airline for regulation purposes.) They fly everything from small turboprops to 747s. They are also the largest package delivery system on spaceship Earth.

I agree, we can hope that our batteries do not get on their "H" list!  For now it seems we can still ship them by UPS ground. I always specify UPS ground when I ship them, or my RC gear, just to be safe. BTW: the UPS store still asks me if I want it sent over night, so I guess at the store level they don't have any problems with our batteries? I now have 12 batteries for practice, and take 6 with me to a contest. I think this is well beyond the airlines 25 gram total wt. for spare batteries? ... Thanks again for all your info. on this. :-)

Regards, 

One issue of course is that all current batteries that we use (to my knowledge) are not marked with their lithium content, which of course would make carrying them problematic I bet.
I think the other part about only 2 spares would make it difficult to actually go to a contest--this doesn't leave much room for battery problems--which I am sure will wait for a contest to rear their ugly head! Make sure your charger is ready to go for sure! It would be tough if you only had a single battery, and were the last flyer in round 1 and the first flyer in round 2! You would really need to get the judges to drag out their lunches.

Looks like time to go to A123 fixed in fuselage ... chargeable in 15 minutes, no need to replace, no spar packs