TSA to step up training of armed pilots.

The Transportation Security Administration, starting this month, plans to double the number of pilots that it trains each week to provide armed security on airline flights, TSA Administrator James M. Loy told a recent congressional hearing.

TSA's Federal Flight Deck Officer program, which began last April, trains volunteer pilots to use firearms, if necessary, to defend their aircrafts' cockpits from hijackers.

To prepare for this responsibility, the pilots are trained, deputized, equipped and supervised by TSA. They attend weeklong classes, which until September had been held at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center at Glynco, Ga.

However, Glynco has been "operating over capacity" in an effort to train a major influx of new federal security personnel, Loy said. For this reason, the flight deck officer training has been moved to a new facility at Artesia, N.M., which also is the boot camp for the federal air marshal program.

"Artesia has three environmentally controlled commercial passenger jets on hardstands available for use as tactical training simulators and ample indoor and outdoor shooting ranges," Loy said.

The pilots are being trained with .40 caliber Heckler & Koch USP40 Compact LEM pistols. TSA awarded H&K a contract worth up to $3.3 million, if all three one-year options are exercised.

Pilots, however, have some concerns about of the program's requirements. Before being accepted into the program, participating pilots, for example, must be screened psychologically, and firearms must be placed in lockboxes, rather than worn openly in holsters. During transit flights, pilots are separated from their weapons. Also, pilots complained, it is not clear how re-qualification procedures will work.

Nevertheless, the program is growing quickly. Federal flight deck officers already have flown more than 10,000 flights, Loy said. "As more FFDOs are deputized, this number will rise quickly into the hundreds of thousands of flights."