I dropped the Mrs off at Heathrow yesterday - and as I'm going abroad with 
my rig (next week) I asked about taking them as hand luggage. As long as 
they fit into the hand luggage widget that they have at Heathrow (56x45x25 
cms) you can take them.
The exception being the ones with exploding devices in them (sic) - I 
explained that I had a german device called a cypres that worked on air 
pressure and he said that it would be fine then. I did ask him why he 
thought that anyone would want something that exploded to make a parachute 
come out - and he did agree that it was very strange and that he couldn't 
see how it would work.

The worst that can happen is that you have to go back and check it as hold 
baggage. Personally I'm going to tuck the visible bit out of sight and carry 
it through the scanner. I just thought that I'd pass that on.

Happy hunting people.

-- 
Mick Cooper

"He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and 
run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying."