Contents of the average PPL Flight Case

[PPL-Pilot]

I am 12 hours into my PPL training and will soon be investing in the various components required for the 2nd half of my training (flight computer, charts, protractor etc etc).

I am assuming that at this stage I will want to look at purchasing a flight case, however, they seem rather large for a relatively small number of items being required.

taking into consideration requirements during training and then additional equipment once qualified, what does the average contents of a flight case look like?

[Genghis the Engineer]

Don't purchase a flight case - a carrier bag, or something inexpensive from the local market will work fine.

What you need will probably look something like:

- Chart
- VFR guide / Pooleys / equivalent
- Ruler & protractor
- Whizz wheel
- Calculator
- Collection of pens and pencils
- Sunglasses
- Spare paper / PLOGS / etc
- Checklist
- (Unused) sick bag.
- Handheld GPS
- Torch
- Fuel tester

And leave space for your headset and kneeboard.

G

[BackPacker]

As with any bag, it has the tendency to fill up with useless stuff until it's full or too heavy to carry.

In that respect, you will probably want the smallest bag that can hold:
- Kneeboard
- A minimal set of charts, flight guide, other paperwork
- Logbook
- Headset
- License & ID
- Ruler, protractor, flight computer, pen&pencil
- Fuel tester, some old rags to wipe stuff, dipstick
- Hi-viz jacket (sadly required all too often)
- Bottle of water and a packet of biscuits or something like that
- Sunglasses, spare glasses
- Possibly your GPS, Icom, PCAS, PLB (if you have any of those)

I've got the AFE soft pilot bag and it works just fine. I can even cram in a change of clothes if absolutely necessary.

(Just checked the AFE web site and that particular bag is no longer listed, but a picture is currently under the "Free Competition" header on the right hand side of the page.)

[Johnm]

Charts for wherever you happen to be going
GPS
Kneeboard for plog and plates
Licence
Sickbags if carrying passengers
Sunglasses (spare glasses if required)

After passing test you won't need whizz wheel calculator or ruler, because you'll flight plan on the web with Skydemon and use GPS

Ducks to avoid incoming........

[rkgpilot]

The contents of your bag might depend on whether you are male or female:

Male: Everything you think you'll need. Similar to lists above.

Female: Everything you will need - ever - along with anything anyone else who wants something at some point in the future will ever need .

Funnily enough though, both bags are of the same size. :hmm:

[GeeWhizz]

More or less all of the things listed here go into my flight bag (including spare socks, pants, and toothbrush just in case:}). There are a few extras that were added after further training and ratings but not important to begin with.

I'll disagree with Big G up top. Having a 'Flight Case' keeps things orderly, and easier to lump about as a oner. You don't have to purchase cases that wouldn't look out of place in the over-sized pile of baggage at Heathrow like airline drivers. It's not a willy-waving competition either, it's whatever works for you. I think mine is about the size of gym holdall and costed ~£35 so not expensive. I've also seem some people with a very organised laptop case that was deep enough to fit in a headset.

(Little) G ;)

[S-Works]

Flight case? How very posh.

I only have five or so thousand hours so probably not experienced enough to comment. But all I have is my Bose headset case that contains spare batteries and my sunglasses........

I don't own a kneeboard either......

[2high2fastagain]

Reckon someone will put me in the 'heavy' category for what it's worth, mine is a Sporty's flight bag filled with:

1. Beacon
2. Spare pair of glasses
3. Skydemon GPS
4. Chart(s)
5. Kneeboard
6. Stopwatch
7. POH
8. AFE flight guide
9. HiVis
10. Whizzwheel
11. Pencils and Fine permanent markers
12. Logbook (always try to fill it in same time as the techlog when I land home)
13. Handheld radio (charged)
14. Ruler/protractor combo
15. Lockyears
and finally and embarrassingly 16. Boots nail varnish removing pads - for rubbing out the permanent marker on the chart if required (honest, I don't do my nails when the autopilot is on).

Sickbags, Fuel tester and fuel dipper all live in the aircraft. Though an instructor once advised me to pop a sickbag in your kneeboard during the pre-flight if carrying passengers.

I also have an A4 wallet book for overseas flights which contains all the documents you need, insurance etc, together with a bunch of GA report forms and all the plates of airfields on the Dutch and French coast (in case of weather probs on way home).

Some might consider all this over the top, but what I like about this approach is that when I pick up my flight bag (if I can lift it), I KNOW I've got everything I need. It's a bit of a drive to the airfield and I want to do it once rather than thrice!

[Genghis the Engineer]

Ah, well. The question was about what a new PPL needs. My own flight bag, one of about a dozen free conference bags I've been given but not yet broken contains pretty much the same as 2H2F's above, with the exception of Lockyears, which hasn't been updated for years so I leave it at home. I also usually have a folder of 'just in case' instrument approach plates and a length of emergency loo roll.
G

[2high2fastagain]

Genghis the emergency loo roll is inspired. No wonder you are a moderator!

Respect. 2H2FA

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Genghis the emergency loo roll is inspired.
Depends where you fly I guess. I've always got loo roll in my backpack, because I've several times visited places where it turns out to be necessary, but the loos at most of the local burger run joints are better than that :)

My bag (which is a standard floppy briefcase-type thing without any mark-up due to being called a "flight case") contains

- pens, pencils, rubber etc
- clipboard, PLOG for the flight, pieces of paper with useful magic numbers (performance, W&B etc) for the club aircraft
- nav instruments (ruler, protractor, whizz wheel, gadget for plotting position from VOR/DME fix on IMC tests) (none of which, apart from the last during IMC tests, are used in the aircraft)
- half mil chart, local & diversion approach plates, whatever seems like a good idea printed off from the destination airfield's web site
- Pooleys
- spare glasses

and that's about it apart from

- a bunch of other stuff I've forgotten about and never use

which obviously you don't need.

[BackPacker]

- a bunch of other stuff I've forgotten about and never use

Amen to that.

Somewhere in my bag there's one of those expensive, big cigars that come in its own case. It was a gift at a charity event and somehow ended up in the bag. That was over a year ago. And I don't even smoke...:=

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

I have a headset bag which I got free somehwere containing a headset, GPS, bit of paper with useful frequencies on it, pen-on-a-lanyard (to hand around my neck. I also carry a chart (marked up if I'm going anywhere) and a hand-held radio. In my flying suit pockets go wallet, short chinagraph, sunglasses, camera, licence. My reading glasses hang around my neck as ever.

If I'm taking a passenger, I take in addition another (free!) headset bag containing a headset and a sick bag.

[blagger]

Argos soft pilot case item 285/8542 - £24.99 I keep in car/home office with my instructor and examiner notes / paperwork and Pooleys etc.. I then have a soft USAF style military helment bag with stuff for flight like plates, map, headset, spare specs etc.. Treat those going about carrier bags or why do you need anything at all to go flying with a pinch of salt - it is quite sensible to get something to keep essential kit in, just keep it light and to the minimum needed.

[AfricanEagle]

Flight bags shrink with flight time and experience.

When flying away for a holiday bag is slightly fuller but on one day flights I carry:

- headphones
- kneeboard (to jot down take off and landing times)
- pen (to jot down take off and landing times)
- chart (or piece of chart) for area overflown
- approach plate if available
- time ruler (to give estimates to ATC - don't have gps)
- licence and medical
- sunglasses

[The500man]

Once upon a time I bought a student starter pack with a flight case. I have to this day not used it once because it is far too big. Instead it serves as a place to stick flying stuff I'm not using. What I generally use to carry stuff in is a homo-satchel a.k.a courier bag, which is goldilocks size. I did use the ASA flight case for a while which was fine until the strap broke (it was American so I wasn't surprised it didn't last), but any courier-type bag will do and will work nicely with a fold flat headset. Other headsets tend to come with there own carry cases so that is okay too.

Stuff to take with you:
- map (for the journey)
- flight board (why strap something to your leg if you don't have to?)
- plog and scraps of paper
- photocopies of the flying clubs Pooleys guide or better still print outs of the offiicial charts
- one pen for flight board
- one pen for use on map/ whizz wheel
- whizz wheel
- plotter (protractor and ruler combined)
- license and paper log book
- aircraft checklist
- can of red bull and king size twix (essential)
- some old rags to wipe stuff and a length of emergency loo roll (good ideas from above ;))

Stuff you might need or could rent/ borrow:
- high-viz
- sick bag
- sunglasses
- GPS
- life jackets/ raft
- PLB

Stuff to leave at home:
- torch (unless you are flying at night and are prone to dropping things :))
- stopwatch (wear a watch)
- calculator (you already have a whizz wheel and most likely a mobile phone)
- fuel tester/ dip sticks (normally will be kept in the aircraft anyway)

[AfricanEagle]

Slight thread offshoot

Plog for a 4h30' flight Dijon - Rome

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v708/AfricanEagle/6.jpg

[Genghis the Engineer]

Stuff to leave at home:
- torch (unless you are flying at night and are prone to dropping things )
Checking all the instruments are illuminated is sodding difficult pre-flight if you will be flying through dusk.

I recently was very thankful of my torch after discovering that the compass and ASI illumination didn't work whilst in flight.

Also I fly, occasionally at night, a vintage aeroplane with no useful instrument lighting, and a single dome light behind my head. If that bulb goes, without a torch, I could well be in some discomfort.

And no light aeroplane I've yet to fly has a light that effectively illuminates anything strapped to my right knee.

I take a torch! It's hardly an expensive luxury. A couple of cheap cylumes bought of eBay are no bad thing as well. I have three nice little clip on LED ones which, including batteries, cost me £4.80 the lot from an eBay shop, and double for reading in bed without waking my wife up.

G

[BackPacker]

Stuff you might need or could rent/ borrow:
- sick bag

:confused:

Never seen a place where you could rent sick bags. Furthermore, do you really want to use some elses sick bag?:E

(Me, I bought a packet of zip-lock freezer bags from the supermarket. They inspire a little more confidence than the traditional airliner-style waxed paper ones. Disadvantage is that they're see-through...)

[Grob Queen]

The great thing about Prune is that one leans how other students are taught...Flight bags, what are they?!

Personally I put everything I need (except my chart) into my grow-bag. Chart is stuffed down the side of my seat and I currently use a piece of laminated paper strapped to my knee and a chinagraph pencil to note down ATIS and ATC instructions. Headset case I leave in the clubhouse...

...but there is very little spare room in a Grob...

[The500man]

Ghengis no worries I should have written

Stuff to leave at home:
- torch (unless you are flying through dusk/ or in the night and/ or are prone to dropping things :))

BackPacker,

Never seen a place where you could rent sick bags.Stuff you might need OR could rent/ borrow :)

I do like your zip-lock freezer bag idea assuming they are cheap and don't leak?

[BackPacker]

I have not yet have to use them in anger.

The only airsick passenger I've had so far brought his own bag. A full-sized binliner. And used it extensively. But he knew it beforehand, because he's the type that gets seasick by looking at Titanic (the movie). It was brave of him to get into a light aircraft in the first place. And with me, even...

[Redbird72]

I once was caught unprepared when a passenger felt sick - during a frantic search through my pockets for something suitable I found a (unused!) dog poo bag. Worked perfectly and had a tie top. :ok:

[GeeWhizz]

I once was caught unprepared when a passenger felt sick - during a frantic search through my pockets for something suitable I found a (unused!) dog poo bag. Worked perfectly and had a tie top.

Excellent! I'll be smiling all week about this!

Never had a sicky, or felt sick meself. Still carry a sick bag or two though, mum's cooking is not what it used to be ;)

[Maoraigh1]

Nobody carries anything related to survival?
That torch would be useful if you go down in the late afternoon, and it gets dark before help arrives/you walk out.
Plastic survival bags. Space blanket. Knife suitable for breaking out through perspex/wood if trapped. (eg aircraft is upside down on soft ground)
Camping stove solid fuel pack - to start a fire.

[thing]

Nobody carries anything related to survival?Handy in Scotland, wouldn't matter where I came down locally, I'd be about ten yards from a MacDonalds.

Out of interest I've just had a look in my flight CASE, ahem, (I had it given to me). Bear in mind I use it to keep all of my stuff in whether used or not.

Southern and Northern half mils (unfortunately I'm based right near the join of the two maps)
2xnormal pens
pack of 4 non permanent markers
pack of 4 permanent markers
digital stopwatch
headband LED torch
3xpilot's checklists
logbook
protractor and ruler
sunnies
whizz wheel
kneeboard, in the kneeboard I carry Pooleys pages of the airfields I'm most likely to visit on a whim
camera
high viz vest
12x enormous paperclips for keeping the map folded where I want it.
calculator


In my head set case
A headset (how novel)
GPS and stuff for sticking it on things/hooking it up to the fag lighter

[Genghis the Engineer]

I find it interesting that the experienced aviators polarise into the "everything but the kitchen sink" group, and the "nothing but a scrap of paper and my sunglasses" group. Not quite sure what that says about the two groups' relative psychologies.

G

[Lasiorhinus]

Things I carry in my flight bag.
Two torches - one white, one red
Fuel drainer
ERSA
A couple of maps
License
A couple of pens

Things I carry on my kneeboard
Flight plan
A pen and a pencil

Things I carry in my headset bag
My headset

Things that live in the aircraft and therefore I dont lug around with me
Survival kit and water/food
ELT
Dipstick
Sick bags
Life jackets

[n5296s]

I confess that as far as my flight bag goes, I fall into the "kitchen sink" category, despite being by nature more of a "sunglasses and scrap of paper" type. I'm not at home at the moment so this is a bit of a guess but...

-- POH for the plane (not the definitive one, that lives in the plane and is falling to pieces)
-- California approach plates in binder
-- California airports guide
-- A/FD (official airport info), generally several issues out of date
-- instructions for sundry odds & ends such as handheld GPS
-- E6B, not that I ever use it, AND chinagraph pencil (pauses for admiration to subside)
-- plotter, ditto
-- bag of batteries
-- handheld GPS & radio
-- sick bag
-- emergency pee bag, though it's so old and battered that it'd probably leak if I ever needed to use it
-- VFR charts for half the country, mostly out of date except local ones
-- sundry pens and several flashlights(/torches)

And that's AFTER I tidied it up while looking for something. I have my own plane, so there's a lot more stuff that lives permanently in the plane - headsets, tools, oxygen stuff, and so on and so on.

[airpolice]

Personal Choice is paramount, but I would suggest:

A4 size self sealing bags,

Niceday Grip Seal Plain Bags Clear 224 x 324 mm 1000 Per Pack by Viking (http://www.viking-direct.co.uk/a/pb/Niceday-Grip-Seal-Plain-Bags-Clear-224-x-324-mm-1000-Per-Pack/id=05900A4/)

like large sandwich bags. I use them at work so I have loads spare in the office. Sick Sacks are not just for passengers, you would be very pissed off if your first ever, however unexpected, airpuke soiled the aircraft because you had no "Boak Poke" with you.

I wear a lanyard (currently using a Strongbow promotional item) with my Mini Maglite and Digi Camera clipped to it. I know where to find them, I know they can't get dropped and I know they are not going to fall off the seat and foul anything.

I should also mention that when I started out I wore polo shirts, but now I only wear proper shirts, with pockets. This makes the XDA (IPAQ style GPS) and and my iPhone easier to locate in flight.

My kneeboard, which I couldn't do without, has a piece of string tied firmly to it. The other end of the string is wrapped five times around the end of a bic biro which has been coated in super glue. This ensures my pen is not going to fall on the floor and the string is not long enough for the pen to foul the controls.

My spare specs live in the flight bag on the back seat, in a velcro sealed compartment which I can reach when the big bag is restrained by the rear seatbelts.

AP

[FlyingKiwi_73]

I got:

Kneepad

Two thin line markers
Laminated Cheat sheet with spaces for all ATIS response and fuel calcs etc... notes too (enroute frequencies)
Laminated Chart for the 4 surrounding 'dromes + VFR App/Dept procedures
Charts, pre folded :-)
License
Log book (left in the office when flying)
Whizz wheel - hardly used
POH (If flying the 172)
Backup pens/pencils

And because my medical mandates it
Inhaler (never ever used)
Backup glasses.

[Genghis the Engineer]

Doing a longish nightflight earlier today, I found a long forgotten cylume lurking in the bottom of my flight bag.

Activating it, it still worked, and was absolutely brilliant in flight for charts/kneeboard/compass.... This year I seem to have done more night flying, for some reason, than I've done for years. Good reasons to use these again - I still have a box of them I bought on eBay a few years ago lurking in a cupboard, and could do with transferring a few into my flight bag again.

G

[UV]

2xnormal pens
pack of 4 non permanent markers
pack of 4 permanent markers

Thats 10, yes 10, writing tools. What are you going to do when they introduce the paperless cockpit in GA?!!

My spare specs live in the flight bag on the back seat, in a velcro sealed compartment which I can reach when the big bag is restrained by the rear seatbelts.


You probably haven't yet had a lens fall out shortly after take off and in IMC have you?!

[Genghis the Engineer]

Paperless office?

Anybody else remember that when computers became commonplace, the first thing to happen was that the bookshops filled with books and magazines about computers!

G

[rateone]

Just had a look in my flight bag

- Pens (several of which don't work)
- Set of permanent markers
- Rulers & plotters (several. These get lost so I buy another only for the previous one to turn up again)
- Sportys E6 & spare batteries (rarely used)
- Skydemon (too risky to keep in the aircraft)
- A4 binder of approach plates (don't know why, my a/c is day VFR only)
- Copy of Pilots Atlas (dream on)
- Kneeboard
- Half Mil maps of UK
- Pooleys (must get an up to date one this year)
- Licence
- Log Book
- Aircraft Keys (always keep them in the bag. Used to put them on the key rack in the hall but kept leaving them behind - not good)
- Paper
- Several old met/Notam printouts
- Small vanity mirror (not sure how this got there but it's been in there for ages)
- Sick bags

I always carry a sick bag now. A few years ago I was flying into a farm strip in a Cub when my passenger declared himself to be unwell. Not having anything fit for purpose to hand and being rather occupied with the approach the only thing I had to hand was my carefully folded map - not good but better than redecorating the cockpit :eek:

['India-Mike]

When I did my IR I was perplexed to see my instructor didn't carry everything including the kitchen sink. I thought IFR required a huge stuffed flight bag . But no; headset, half-mil, one of those awful paper IFR charts, relevant plates and mobile phone. Talk about travelling light! But it was really all he needed.

Nobody has mentioned condoms and tampons have they? Only relevant if you're forced-landing over remote terrain but when night flying in Scotland I carry both - tampons to get fuel out of the tanks, condoms to carry water (but bottled water largely replaces the condom requirement nowadays). On the assumption that it's remote enough anyway but at night it'll be at least another 12 hours before they get out to you. And it'll be cold. Carry a poncho too.

[UV]

Beware of the guys with all the pens on their arms, be very aware!

[thing]

Thats 10, yes 10, writing tools. What are you going to do when they introduce the paperless cockpit in GA?!!

But the pens are in their holder/box thing. You're right, I only ever use four of them but why have them rolling around loose in the bottom when I can have them in their holder/box thing clipped to the inside of the case? I suppose I could take the others out to save weight...:)