Flight bags
 

Not had the glorious flying day planned... FZFG OVC000 said it all http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/frown.gif

So not being blessed with a Cat 3b Pup I sat having a coffe and sorted out the contents of my bag much to everyboby's merriment (it is Christmas afterall)...

Apart from the numerous rules and protractors (not one having a receipt), masses of fuel dockets and 2 whizz wheels there were things that others don't carry...

swiss army knife
super glue
hand held compass
string
single RAF glove (for when checking engine)
wooly hat
Mars bar....

and so on

Question... do you all carry bags and what do you have in them and am I some kind of survivalist freak? :confused

Bags: I'm always amused by these headset bags - the ones which are just a sack with a draw string. All the masses of money that ALL pilots have (remember: they must be rich, they fly!), and they parade around trying to look good with their headsets in what my mother would call a 'pump bag'.
ps: in your bag, you didn't find the 11 pairs of sunglasses I've lost this year? It's been a great year for me - because I haven't really flown much this month due weather, I've only misplaced 11 pairs rather than the usual 12. I'm on a roll.

Interesting timing on this one, Beagler. I very recently managed to find a flight bag that would fit under the seat of an R22. I bought it in delight, and transferred everything from the old one. Apart from the usual stuff, I found I had:

Empty plastic water bottle that I obviously thought I might refill some day.
Crystalised ginger, left over from my early days of flying when I used to get airsick.
Ginger tablets - as above.
Woolly gloves
Toothbrush, toothpaste, and spare underwear - added the day after I got stranded overnight in Blackpool, in case it ever happened again.
More spare GPS batteries than anyone could ever need unless they were flying to Australia.
Oversized plastic paperclips - no idea why.
Two pocket torches
Plastic stopwatch that I never use
Bits of rubber tubing - I use them for attaching to R22 instrument knobs so that I can reach them when flying (but why do I carry six of them?)

Did I clear any of them out? Nah, they might be useful some day.


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Whirly

To fly is human, to hover, divine.

[This message has been edited by Whirlybird (edited 17 December 2000).]

LOL!!!

I muck out the old flight bag occassionally.

So often reunited with long lost bits of paper and nefarious items.

It's covered in stickers from nearly ten years of flying -I'll be sorry when it falls apart.

whats a flight bag,head set in one hand and kneeboard in other thats me.

It gets me though see some people get in an aircraft big flight case in one hand keys in other then go and do 1 Hr in circuit do you really need all that for touch and go's

After the charts, whizzwheel, ruler, protractor, steam age GPS (with lots of spare batteries), handheld + spare battery I was too afraid to check any further so I weighed it instead. 7lbs. My Pooleys must have put on weight......

Do you figure the weight of your flight bag into your weight & balance?????

Sensible item: leatherman multi tool (used quite often to unscrew the oil filler cap after A Schwarzenegger has popped by and tightened it up).

Silly item: "lucky" pen.

The lucky pen does not write anymore, but it is the pen I had dangling off my kneepad when I had a fer-real fanstop during training. I know, I know, I know: lucky charms are b******. There's a nice scene in Len Deighton's "Bomber" when the CO finds that his walking stick (which his crew think is an affectation but which is in fact his lucky stick) has been sliced in two by flak whilst parked under his seat. He vows never to take a lucky charm flying with him again (having said that he does buy it 10 mins later falling off a motorbike).
As for me and my silly pen: every time I sort out the bag, I take it out, think "don't be so stupid, chuck it away", then put it back in again.

Other stupid and pointless contents: world's largest collection of dried up map markers (from leaving the tops off: average life expectancy one flight), and packet of those stick-it-on-yer-map compass roses which are all stuck to one another instead.

[This message has been edited by FNG (edited 18 December 2000).]

Pointless items in my Flight Case.... mmm... where can I start!!!

Yes those stick on Compass roses seem to decorate the bottom of the case. When will I ever use them??

Pens... especially those Map felt-tip ones. They seem to grow legs and find another home. Somehow these pens have all gone!!!!

To also add to the problem.. where I fly we are booked out on the Ops computer and are given a Computer Generated Flight Log so that we can record Tacho reading and times etc and hand it in when we have finished. Only problem is that in no time at all you have bits of white, yellow and pink pieces of paper which decorate every pocket and pouch in the case.

I have a normal sized case but I just take the relevant bits out when I am flying and lock the case and leave it behind. The easy option!!!!

All good fun!!!!

Regards

Mister Geezer

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Out of Calcutta...
Happiness is a dry fart

Clearly there is a parallel dimension somewhere where all the coloured pens go and flight bags must act as portals to this dimension. It's presumably the same place where the teaspoons at the bottom of washing up bowls originate from.

Flight bags: brilliant! Wannabe an airline pilot? Don't bother with all that forty thousand-quid-frozen-ATPL-psychometric-test babble-interview-questions-crib stuff: just sit in that nice restaurant at Le Touquet (first one you come to near the hotels after 20 min stroll from the field). Last time I was there (with another PPL) we got a lift back to the airfield from the owner's charming daughter, who appeared convinced that we were pro pilots on a tight schedule, apparently on the strength of our rather naff flying bags with dogeared maps and broken wizz wheels sticking out of them. We must have been working for "Air Scruffy" judging by our elegant "uniforms". Glad I concealed the PilotsRUs logo on my cheapo mega-bargain numptie stude bag which, rather embarassingly, I still use.

Talking of losing stuff in your bag: try wearing what those laughing military types call a gro-bag. I borrow a horrid unwashed green one when I occasionaly go Tiger Mothing, and lose my keys, pen, wallet, flying licence and everything else in the 47,000 pockets within minutes of putting it on. Do all you nice Yak people out there have this problem?

FNG - I brought an old green flying suit with me when I left the RAF. I still use it mainly because it has all the pockets (gloves, specs, pens, torch, cloth, fuel-receipts, chinagraphs) but especially because it has two knee-boards which are ideal for scribbling on when ATC start sending me all those bl**dy numbers I have to remember. Oh, and it keeps me clean when Im pushing props, hangar doors etc.

I'm entirely the wrong shape and age to worry any more about street cred.

In fact, I might start a thread on the topic.........

Went to le Touquet on Saturday to stock up with Christmas cheer, so the weight and balance was crucial. Checked the weight of the flight bag - 16 lbs! Had to leave it behind.

The Pooleys is a heavy beast, but I also have a folder for all my old Plogs, which I use to look up the en route frequencies of places I've been to before. This now weighs almost as much as the Pooleys as it is also stuffed with landing fee and fuel receipts etc. Might just take the Pooleys on its own in future, its got lots more frequencies listed out and they're in alphabetical order.

One extra bit of kit which has just wheedled its way into the bag is an ice scraper/squeegee to get all the frost off the wings and elevators - certainly needed that on Saturday! Oh, and there's the Maglite to help find one's way across the quagmire where we have to park our aircraft when we've been night flying. And a plotter I never use, plus those dinky little edging strips for holding a map folded, which fall off as soon as you settle down in the cockpit. I feel a New Year's Resolution coming on!

Personally I blame it all on Transair for sending out those glossy catalogues in the flying magazines with all those wonderful gadgets... have you seen the one that works out the circuit pattern compass bearings for you?

Contents of flight bag:

2 granola bars with multicoloured fuzz
1 pack gum
1 empty bottle
2 whizz wheels
1 protractor
1 Flight Supplement
1 VNC local
1 Lo En route chart
approach plates
Knee board
4 pencils
2 Black & Decker snake lights
1 mag lite
4 AA batteries
1 cell phone (now Kosher here if comms failure)
1 hand held GPS
1 plastic yellow compass with wrist strap that #2 daughter won't let me leave behind "so I can find my way home"

....and that's just to do circuits!! :)


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have been recommended to carry a condom in flightsuit/ bag.

so if you need the loo......

There was a "What do you keep in your flightbag?" thread some few months ago. You really don't want to know what Slasher keeps in his...


{I just found the old thread started on 10.12.99. Couldn't resist repeating what Slash listed at the time:

Wallet (including bribe money)
Porn
Packets of peanuts that fell off last years dinner tray
Silverwear cutlery stolen from same tray
Condoms (assorted new and used)
Pens
Notepad
Handphone
Knuckledusters
Flicknife
Last years notams
A pair of smelly undies I thought I lost
Somebodys laced panties from whenever
A bunch of TAFs 5 years old
Small bits of cheese
A Bangkok roadmap
An old floppy disk
Wizzwheel
Torch
A dead cockroach
Spare house keys
Last months telephone bill
This months roster ]



[This message has been edited by ********* (edited 19 December 2000).]

Pooleys
Lockyears
NATO North Atlantic Supplement
RAF Minor Airfields Guide
(well you can't be too careful!)

Loo Roll (vital when using farmstrips)

Spare Chinagraph

Cap

Gash cheap logbook (good one is kept at home)

Charts (goes without saying really)

Cheque book.

(and usually)
Pair of Ground spikes
Spare radio battery
torch

Except that the ground spikes are supplementing my tie-downs until the weather stops, the battery is on charge, and I can't find my flying torch anywhere - anybody seen it?

G

Meslag wrote:
>have been recommended to carry a condom in flightsuit/ bag.
so if you need the loo......


We were told on survival course to carry unflavoured, spermicide free condoms, allegedly for use as water carrier.

....different sort of water ;)

This also led to serious competition to establish the definitive volume of the average condom. :)

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[This message has been edited by Code Blue (edited 20 December 2000).]

why can't you have flavoured ones?
those tangerine ones are so nice ;)

hmmm guess i should head back to jet blast :)

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'Veni, Vidi, Velcro' - I came, I saw, I stuck around!

What are you supposed to do with the jonny when it's full of wee?

A good supply of sandwich bags with handles that tie up. Much better.

Depending where you are, the handles can be left lose and the bag emptied through the window, or they can be tied tightly to produce very effective biological ordinance.

I caught a thermal over my old school last summer. :) :) :)

And before anyone starts: "...except water or fine sand carried for the purpodse of ballast..."!

Sorry - thought this thread on Flight Bags was a dig at the old bats working as stews on a certain Big Airline....
Only joking, dear!

[This message has been edited by BEagle (edited 20 December 2000).]

What brings you across to this humble forum Dingducky? Has Danny been wielding the big stick on JB again?

Microlight flight bag contains freezer-suit, helmet (in bag) headset (in bag), GPS, gloves, knee-board, neck-warmer, tie-downs, some spare batteries for GPS, penlight torch, combination screwdriver and still has room for more. It's a Caribee 15-litre model in basic black, available at most outdoors stores. Make sure your flight-bag has decent zip-fasteners! Minimise velcro, the loop section of it wears out in 12-18 months.

Separate flight case (ATPL style, usually kept hidden in car) has charts, 2 X Icom A-20 radios, calculator, nav instruments, logbook etc. Does not go on flights, just used to hold stuff needed before flight.

Hi Beagler not sure about the flight bag thing,map, plog stuck to the back of map, pen,torch if night and thats about it.Anyway I only responded to this to wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY FLYING IN THE NEW YEAR BYE4NOW

And a very merry Christmas to you Fallen Eagle... and the others of course!

To all you Flight Bag junkies out there, here's hoping that Transair has had a good Christmas :)

B

I've got my old school bag for the bulk stuff, headset bag for the flight items, which includes:

whizz wheel
Arrow pilot's notes
sunglasses
pocket Maglite with red filter
square of notepaper with aero entry speeds and power settings
camera and two spare films
old Airport ID name tag from University days
headset
yuck! I didn't know I had food, old muesli bar half eaten
a spare earseal
some spare earseal gel from the one I split trying to put it back on

That's all

chicken6
u carry around the id tag? yuck
i have mine somewhere, look hideous in the photo!
always wonder if they they thought that we would forget who we were and have to refer to the id tag and the name tag! :)

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Follow your dream! Unless it's the one where you're at work in your underwear during a fire drill!

dingducky

it's to remind me of the absurdities that some places will go to to make you feel like an airline pilot when you don't know any better (or possibly worse). While I do appreciate the discipline they instilled I don't think name tags helped any. I know who I am, ask me! Although I admit they are good for identifying people-who-are-allowed-to-be-here from a distance, and excellent ice removers on cold mornings!

just found some old load sheets from years ago too

a question, do you all keep flight plans in case you want to revise the flight? I found it quite useful when reconstructing scenarios.

Talking of ID Badges: a Merry Christmas to ugly-AOPA-bloke. One reason why I haven't joined AOPA is my fear of receiving one of those tacky "aircrew" cards bearing a photo similar to that of the moustachioed geezer who appears in their classy membership ads. Does anyone actually have one of those cards? If so, how many [supermodels/Jude Laws] (select according to gender or preference) have you pulled since you got it? I think we should be told.

Chicken6:

I have kept all my x/c flight plans/nav logs along with fuel chits etc (oops beware anorak). I have used these to work out some specific fuel figures for the planes I fly (I rent usually 1 of 3 or 4).

I spent some time preparing 'master' (unsure of gender-neutral PC term) nav logs for the trips I make regularly. I find them very handy tho' I seem to be revising them more than I anticipated originally.

The students at the neighbouring flying school like them too :)

FNG:
COPA (canadian) don't put photos on their 'aircrew' cards - they could be the control group for a scientific experiment on 'pulling index'.

Happy new One to all from the Great White Snowdrift.

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I have absolutely no idea why the PPRuNe gods have caused this thread to show up at the top of the thread-list, since it hasn't been posted on for over a year. But since that was well before I found PPRuNe, it was great to read a really good thread for the first time! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="smile.gif" /> . .. .I have never managed to work out why my flight case weighs so much more than anyone else's I know of, especially considering there's nothing in it which I wouldn't consider "essential":. .. .</font><ul type="square">[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Charts</font></li>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Pooleys</font></li>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Knee-board</font></li>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Headset</font></li>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Assorted pens+pencils</font></li>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Permanent markers in various colours</font></li>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Whiz-wheel, and non-permanent marker</font></li>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Combined protractor/ruler</font></li>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Notebook</font></li>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Checklists</font></li>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Post-its, used for "bookmarking" pages in Pooleys, etc.</font></li>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">License, log-book, passport</font></li>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Several blank flight-log sheets. .</font></li>[/list]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">And probably a load of other stuff I can't remember off the top of my head.... .I take this on every flight, unless I'm planning on doing aerobatics. Even circuit-bashing. If someone manages to land gear-up and close the airport, for example, I'd like to be able to get somewhere else, find the frequencies, and get home again once the airport has re-opened.. .. .I've owned the flight case for less than a year, and the handle is starting to break already! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> . .. .FFF. .----------

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">. .I have absolutely no idea why the PPRuNe gods have caused this thread to show up at the top of the thread-list. .</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica"><img border="0" title="" alt="[Embarrassed]" src="redface.gif" /> . .. .Was me. I was doing a search for "Whizz Wheel" (I was struggling with it at lunchtime, and was looking for tips...) and a bit of finger trouble resulted in a blank post to an old thread. Deleted it again - but discovered that the thread still remains at the top afterwards.... . . . <small>[ 25 March 2002, 16:21: Message edited by: Evo7 ]</small>

Ok, the last 5 posts here have been way off topic. Have either of you heard about this E-Mail thingy....... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

Evo. The subject of the thread is Flight Bags not How to use a whiz wheel......... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> . .You can start a new thread by all means about whizz-wheels if you want to..?

hmmmm let's see.... .. .2 nutri-grain wrappers. .1 nutri-grain bar (severely squashed). .1 kneeboard. .1 notepad. .latest book that I'm reading. .pair of sunglasses.. .1 squashed & melted snickers bar. .protractor. .1:500,000 map of Southern England. .checklist for C152. .Pooleys flight guide. .couple of pens. .maglight + 4 AAA baterries. .. .I think that's it <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="biggrin.gif" />

Hey, Captain L, is it fun to moderate posts made over a year before this forum had a moderator? Please let us know how you get on working through the backlog. As all digressions are now banned, you ought to have a look at some of those naughty ones back in the irrelevant days of 99.

Why is my Flight bag SO HEAVY!!!! . .. .2 Headsets, Flight Guide, Kneeboard, 3 maps, Logbook, and thats just about it. . .. .Apart from fuel dipstick tube thingy, gloves, chamois leather in bag ( to wipe the windshield), sick bag, blank paper, spare bats, and nav kit.

cheque book <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="frown.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="frown.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="frown.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="frown.gif" />

FNG.. .For your information, the posts were made over the last 2 days. All of them were between 2 of our better posters about how to use a whizz-wheel. Totally off topic on this thread i am sure even you would agree to that, see the name of the thread.. .As for posts before i started here, well, i have decided to leave them as they are.. .Evo done a search for whizz-wheels as he has a problem with his and came up with this thread, hence the re-invention of it.

It is true, we had got a little off-topic. Only a little, though, because many of us do have a whiz-wheel in our flight-bags! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="biggrin.gif" /> But I do think the way conversations meander from one topic to the next is often one of the best things about PPRuNe!. .. .To get back (almost) on topic, I wonder how many of us take an overnight bag (change of underwear, toothbrush, etc.) with us? I personally don't - the only time I've had to make an un-scheduled landing, I got the train home. But I noticed several people discovered underwear they'd forgotten about when emptying their flight-cases.. .. .FFF. .-------

Also, if you're going to delete stuff for being off topic can you let me know first - I'll repost it under a different thread (which you told me was OK). Bit hard to do that if you've already deleted it... <img border="0" title="" alt="[Roll Eyes]" src="rolleyes.gif" /> . .. .Fancy telling us all how you plan to moderate? It all seems a bit random at the moment - and stricter than I'd expect most of us would have thought necessary. Private Flying survived unmoderated for a long time after all, with only the odd intervention from WWW et al. when a flamefest got out of hand.. .. .Oh, and "better posters" is a compliment, right...? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="smile.gif" />

Big Red L,. .. .Although I am a regular visitor here, I generally dont post on pprune unless I think I have something worthwhile to contribute, but I have to say that Im with FFF/Evo/FNG here and feel compelled to say so. The really good thing about the private flying forum (unlike a lot of the other forums I know) is that we are civilised and polite to each other dispite any differences. Hence I dont think we need a great deal of moderating, in fact it seems on this forum everyone moderates themselves before they post. Also, so what if the threads diverge a little (or even a lot!!) if its what we want to talk about? . .Please dont take any of the above personally, I just dont want this forum to go the way of some of the others on pprune, which have topics get closed or moved all the time, sometimes before I get to read them!! Its just Ive noticed the tweaking in the last few weeks and am not entirely convinced its really needed when everyone is so friendly here on private flying. So really only want to say....Take it easy!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="biggrin.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="biggrin.gif" /> . .. .Regards, SD... .. .BTW Thanks for the accidental posting of this thread Evo, its rather good....and I will now get right back to it..... .. .I generally have the following in my flight bag whenever I fly anywhere:. .. .Passport & pilots licence . .Personal Logbook. .Kneeboard with current & blank flight log/plans. .Map attatched to A4 clipboard. .Southwest France VAC. .Checklist. .Headset. .Fuel tester. .Whizzwheel. .Ruler & protractor. .Various pens, pencils & markers. .. . Im about to add Chamois leather & maglight after reading the above posts..... and I always have my leatherman on my belt too.. . . . <small>[ 26 March 2002, 20:52: Message edited by: skydriller ]</small>