Here is a rather sad link describing the recent (Sept. 30, 2016) theft of some GA aircraft engines. It included the above depressing photo. Along with avionics theft, and that recent case in Anchorage of all those tires being slashed, it’s scary. I have had cars, boats, and trucks broken into. It is a sickening feeling.

Link:https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/5573ng/awful_discovery_on_my_airfield_several_aircraft/#bottom-comments

Experimental aircraft owners have a lot of flexibility to do things with their aircraft.

For Experimentals, I wonder what special mods or other theft prevention measures are worthwhile?

Likewise, what are certified A/C owners doing about such problems these days?

There was an earlier BCP thread on leaving notes on a temporarily parked airplane.
https://www.backcountrypilot.org/forum/note-to-leave-on-plane-when-parked-somewhere-19339?p=269969#p269969

Another BCP thread touched slightly on vandalism:
https://www.backcountrypilot.org/forum/aircraft-vandalisim-19346

But what to do about deliberate theft for regularly tied down planes? Kind of a depressing topic.

Have good insurance.

"Have good insurance" X2.

Obviously someone who knows what they are doing. You will never stop the professionals with any anti theft device, besides sleeping with the plane or round the clock security. After a second round of vandalism at my local airport i built an airstrip at home, installed lights and am now building a hanger.

+1 about the insurance and the professionals.

But not all thieves will be professionals, and even professionals can be slowed down. Among the things I was wondering about, at least for Experimental folks who don’t have to have everything PMA’d:

Security type fasteners to make removal of plates, covers, avionics, etc. more difficult



Camouflage & using fake deceptive covers to hide expensive avionics like a GTN750.



Improved locks for the doors, windows, cowling, baggage doors, etc.



For long term aircraft storage, removable modularity for expensive avionics.



The use of “stealth” covers to hide expensive car audio equipment has quite a market. OEM Porsche audio panels with their large touch screens apparently are very expensive, so “Kenwood” branded removable fake covers are used to cover up the expensive genuine article. The hope is that the thief might just move onto another Porsche instead. For a GTN-650/750 maybe a nice Narco or Terra stealth cover would do the trick.

There are a lot of really clever builders in the aviation community. Weight of course is always a concern. While there may never be a perfect 100% solution, certainly there must be a few measures which would prove worthwhile. Big bang for the buck stuff. Maybe just making the thieves less interested in your plane and having them move on to another will sometimes be all that is needed.

Put up a few game cameras to try to catch the perps. They seem like a pretty inexpensive security device. Solar powers motion sensor lights might help for/against night time intruders. (Sarcasm intended)

Cordless power tools are making security a lot harder these days. A zip cut disk on a cordless angle grinder will defeat nearly any locking device quickly and quietly these days.

We had a caretaker that lived on site in a mobile home in exchange for his part time airport duties. I really wish he hadn't left.

One caution that may or may not apply to your airplane... A buddy has a Commander 114 that he always locked up tight whenever it was outside of his hangar. He parked overnight at a remote airport (unattended) and returned the next morning to find someone had used a prybar to open his doors (yep - BOTH of them). In the process, they not only rendered the doors themselves unrepairable, they did sufficient damage to the door openings (rear and top, since this is a dual-latching system) that the airframe was deemed unrepairable, so it had to be totalled. The doors themselves would have cost something like $3500 each(!) from a salvage yard (those guys know how rare they are), but the airframe itself was simply not available. It took him 18 months to find a comparable Commander 114 to replace his, and he was basically back to square one in terms of the ongoing refurbishment of the airplane that he had been doing while he owned the first plane. (Which he was incredibly attached to, since he purchased it new from the factory!)

After hearing his story, I made up my mind that the doors on my Commander would remain unlocked, and if someone stole some avionics, I'd let the insurance company handle that... I even spoke to my insurer, to make sure they would not deny the claim if the airplane was unlocked. They said "no problem" as long as there were no loose personal items left in the plane to attract a thief. They recognize that there is just no way to stop a determined professional thief, and minimizing damage to the airframe is probably the better approach.

But DEFINITELY check with your insurer about your policy before you make the same decision...

Drove a tow-truck when I was a kid, got a call to retrieve a pickup out some lonely road and that the driver was waiting there. Got there and was wondering where the guy was when he came stumbling out of the bush, carrying a cocked crossbow. Nobody was going to take his mag wheels.

I lock my plane. You want to get in, you break in, and then both you and I know there is no misunderstanding of what's going on.

I know some electronics can be "bricked" ie rendered inoperative if stolen. The Apple iPad and iPhone come to mind.

Take a 14 grand Garmin GTN-750 for example. Could the manufacturer program that thing so that if it were to be stolen, the victim could notify Garmin and it could eventually be rendered inoperative. I am not saying brick it straight away. Rather, no further updates could be done, or else it would be bricked. I am sure no one wants the liability of a plane coming down possibly due to a bricked GPS navcom.

Maybe the bricking feature could be an option that a buyer could either use or refuse. I know a lot of military hardware goes dumb if not regularly updated with the right codes.

Maybe we have some BCP members here who work for Dynon, Garmin, Grand Rapids Avionics, etc ? and can talk about this a little more.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned as yet is that we should all be on the lookout for stolen parts. Radios, engines, almost anything of much value in an airplane has a serial number. Engines have logbooks. Radios have owners manuals. So, if you see an ad somewhere for an engine or other component without the pertinent logs, or for a suspiciously low price, report it to law enforcement. When you're buying something like this, ALWAYS ask them where they got it, and ask for a bill of sale/invoice. If they don't have one, time to be suspicious.

If someone is determined to get into an airplane, they'll do it, and as noted above, they may do a lot of damage to the airframe in the process.

Dirtbags.

MTV

MTV wrote:

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One thing that hasn't been mentioned as yet is that we should all be on the lookout for stolen parts. Radios, engines, almost anything of much value in an airplane has a serial number.

Rotax has a listing of all its reported stolen engines.
Link: http://legacy.rotaxowner.com/si_tb_info/serviceletter/sl-912-013r7.pdf

Seems only a few Rotax engines reported stolen in the US. It could well be that few people bother to report it or to contact Rotax. I wonder if you were to scribble your name on a lot of stuff with an engraver whether that would male a difference? People could grind or polish that out I suppose, just as they do with certain VIN numbers on cars or on parts.

It's a nasty business. Dirtbags indeed.

Yes, but aircraft engines have logbooks, and serial numbers. With a serial number, you can track an engine. No serial number? It's not going to get installed on a certified aircraft....I hope. No logbooks? Well.....that MAY be okay, just lost paperwork, but if reported, the serial number should still ID it.

MTV

As far as avionics go, I read somewhere about plugging the bolt/screw receptacles with something magnetic. You can just use a magnet to pop the fillers out when you want to unbolt the avionics. The thief might get frustrated and go to the next hangar/plane if he can't get the bolts undone. Just a thought.

If the thief has already broke into the hanger, pried the airplane door open, I doubt he would leave avionics because he can't figure how to get them out. If by some grace he finally gave up and left them, your dash panel is going to at least be destroyed, maybe manage to tear the faceplates off the radios. As much as it is hard, i tend to agree with the earlier post about leaving the door open. Its more the damage usually than what is actually stolen. My biggest worry with that would be the snoopers not closing the door correctly and I would come out to my door bent and flapping in the wind.

They need to make an Airplane baggage compartment Monkey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zin26ezvgO0

Mark Y. wrote: As much as it is hard, i tend to agree with the earlier post about leaving the door open. Its more the damage usually than what is actually stolen..

Yeah you're probably right. There's not much we can do, is there? I guess if someone is scumbag enough to steal they'll do whatever it takes to steal it, even if it means totaling the plane. A guy at one of our local fields had his GPS cards stolen from both of his planes in his hangar. No other damage to the planes, just the cards. His aircraft and hangar doors were unlocked. The airport was gated (not that it helped, obviously). He started locking his hangar from then on (but people can still break in!).

There have been a lot of interesting replies here. It's beginning to sink in that damage to the plane can be worse than having an item or two stolen, even if it's an engine or a Garmin GP$$$$.

I guess the focus maybe should be on wireless cameras that stream to the internet if an intrusion is noted. Silent motion/therma/sound detection alarms can alert the owner via their cell phone of an intrusion.

Here are a few links reporting some actual examples of break ins that were silently detected and where home owners were remotely alerted via cell phone of a home intrusion.

From 2006
Link: http://www.smh.com.au/news/Technology/Brazilian-man-in-Germany-uses-Internet-to-stop-burglary-back-home/2006/12/13/1165685711893.html

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... partial excerpt ...
Home Webcams and a cell-phone alert helped a Brazilian man traveling in Germany foil a burglary from across the Atlantic Ocean, police said Tuesday.
Businessman Joao Pedro Wettlauser was in Cologne, Germany, on Sunday when he received a mobile phone alert informing him someone had entered his vacation house on the Sao Paulo coast.
He quickly turned on his laptop and, thanks to security cameras connected to the Internet, was able to see a tattooed man stuffing goods into trash bags, Sao Paulo state police officer Americo Rodrigues said.

From 2013
Link: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/07/19/app-alerts-homeowner-on-vacation-to-burglary-showing-very-creepy-picture-in-real-time/

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... partial excerpt...
A Washington couple had set up a camera system to help them keep an eye on their dogs while they were out of the house. Instead, they ended up seeing their home being burglarized in real time while they were out of town on vacation.

According to KOMO-TV, Melissa Hasley saw an alert on her husband’s phone in the early morning while vacationing in Idaho. Thinking it was probably the neighbor checking on their dogs, Hasley was stunned when she saw a man — not their neighbor — inside their home.

In < 90 days it will be 2017. I am sure even more sophisticated tech gear is available now. There are now amazing infrared and extremely low light imaging sensors available. Low power consumption means you could put a hidden camera in the plane itself which could trigger an alert and then send images, exact location, time and more to the owner who might be on vacation or have his plane stored for the winter.

Is anyone using any cutting edge high tech security stuff with remote notification to help guard their plane?

Oh yeah..finally @ TCJ : +1 on the Monkey. Very cool !!

We had someone trespass and steal <$500 worth of stuff from some property a few weeks ago. Nothing too serious, but it'll still piss you off. Anyway, we bought a 20mp game camera and put it in a tree looking down at the gate. Checked it yesterday and it's amazing how clear and sharp the pictures are compared to the last cheap game camera I bought several years ago. The pics are clear enough to read the license plate day or night, and be able to get a good idea of the person who's opening/tearing down the gate during the day, a little fuzzy at night. Get an SD card reader for your iPad and you can look at the pics and clear the card while you're on site, should have a 3 month battery life. Not too bad for $200.

A dozen years ago, when I was renting a hangar at Downtown Fort Collins, we had a series of hangar thefts because someone left their hangar walk-through door unlocked. The thief entered there, hopped the dividing walls between the Ts, and took anything that wasn't locked or bolted down. He (I assume "he") didn't break into any locked airplanes or locked cabinets, just took what was convenient.

My airplane was locked, so my headsets, hand-held GPS, etc. weren't touched. My oxygen set, which I had pulled to get it refilled but hadn't yet reinstalled it in the airplane, was sitting out on a locked cabinet, and it was stolen.

Owners of the other hangars hadn't locked their airplanes, because they were, after all, in locked hangars. They lost headsets, GPSs, flight bags, all sorts of miscellaneous small stuff. So far as I'm aware, no one lost any avionics, so either the thief didn't know their value or how to remove them, or he was in a hurry.

When Downtown closed, I rented at a farm strip northeast of Fort Collins for a year; then my name came up on the Greeley-Weld waiting list, so I moved there. The dividing walls in my hangar there go to the roof, so it's much more secure. But I still lock my airplane.

Certainly any really determined thief could get into my hangar and into my airplane. But it wouldn't be easy, and there are plenty of tied down airplanes which are much easier pickings.

That brings up the old story about what to do while walking with a companion in bear country. You don't need to be able to outrun the bear; you do need to be able to outrun your companion.

Other than that, I agree, have good insurance.

Cary

I didn't even know airplane engine theft was a thing until now, though I suspect if they have the means to rip 400+ pounds of dead weight off the front of your plane there is not much you can do about it. At that point they're coming with tools and friends. Makes sense though, and definitely makes me wonder about some of the "deals" I see on barnstormer for logbook-less engines.

Denali wrote:I guess the focus maybe should be on wireless cameras that stream to the internet if an intrusion is noted. Silent motion/therma/sound detection alarms can alert the owner via their cell phone of an intrusion.
...
In < 90 days it will be 2017. I am sure even more sophisticated tech gear is available now. There are now amazing infrared and extremely low light imaging sensors available. Low power consumption means you could put a hidden camera in the plane itself which could trigger an alert and then send images, exact location, time and more to the owner who might be on vacation or have his plane stored for the winter.

Is anyone using any cutting edge high tech security stuff with remote notification to help guard their plane?

Maybe something like a BlackVue could work? They are auto dash cams but also have a cloud service you can use to watch remotely, you'd just need WiFi in the vicinity. They also support multiple cams so you could have one pointed out, and one pointed in towards the door. You may not stop the thief unless you can alert the police fast enough, but hopefully at least get some recompense later on. I also seem to recall that vandalizing or destroying an aircraft is a federal offense (in addition to what are likely numerous state charges), so a couple examples made might cause other thieves to think twice about video recording their activities in small planes.

I think small GA aircraft make easy targets because nobody secures them to this level unless they're in an FBO exec hangar. Even gated airports are usually quite simple to get into after the 9-5 eyes have left for the day. The appearance of items like iPads and other items has also probably increased the rate of theft, you just couldn't hawk 1980's nav/com technology as easily as you can today.