My “Perfect” Flight Bag

When I bought my original flight bag, I did what most pilots do when they purchase their first flight bag: bought a huge bag and threw everything I had aviation related into it. I basically ended up with heavy, and quite large, aviation locker.

Now that I’ve “matured” as a pilot, I’ve started my hunt for the perfect flight bag to replace my “locker”.

 

Most of the flight bags that are available appear to be a standard bag (such as one available for luggage, sports, etc) that has been modified slightly to make it fit better for aviators. They seemed to take a duffel bag, add a headset pouch on the end and add a pocket for your radio and call it a flight bag.

That has all changed with the introduction of the Brightline Flight Bag from Brightline Bags.

It is evident that this bag was well thought out and created from the ground up with the aviator in mind.

At first you might be slightly overwhelmed with the amount of pockets and pouches in this bag, but you’ll soon learn how cool these pouches can be when you start to put your gear in them.

Brightline has a great online video where the bags creator shows you all of the features of the bag, but I wanted to share with you some of my personal highlights from my “perfect flight bag”.

• Small and Compact, but still capable of carrying nearly everything that was in my previous “locker” sized bag.
• Remember all those pockets and zippers I mentioned earlier?  Well, and I think this idea is genius, Brightline has color coded the zipper pulls, so you never have to fumble around to figure out which zipper opens which pouch.
• It can easily handle two headsets, and since 99% of the time I only am carrying one passenger this works great.
• The document bag can be removed, but the document bag has three great pockets on the back that go with it.  Brightline realized this and reproduces those three pockets on the back of the Main part of the flight bag, so these are not lost when you remove the document part of the bag.
• I love the sunglass pocket right on the top as I now don’t have to worry about them getting scratched.  Same thing for my cellphone as there is a nice little pocket where it fits nicely and is accessible if needed.
• I always empty my pockets before I fly, and in my old bag, all the coins, wallet, keys, and pocket lint went into a huge pocket which I had to dig all that stuff out from after the flight.  The Brightline Bag has a great pocket in the front with a clip to clip your keyring into and a pocket to drop all of the mess in my pockets into.
• Another beautiful example of the thought they put into this bag is that there are two sets of clips that the handle or strap can be attached to.  If you happen to only be using the Main flight bag, the normal position of the handle can make the bag hang a little funny, so all you have to do is move the handle from one set of clips to the other and you’ve now got a nicely balanced bag again.

You really should check out the Brighline Video as there are a bunch of other great features that you’ll love in this bag.

I did end up purchasing a couple new items so they would fit better in the bag such as new fuel tester as and a slighty shorter plotter.  The fuel tester I previously had was a cup style tester, and I loved the special fuel tester pocket and eagerly spent the $5 to purchase one that fit that pocket.

After showing the bag to Russ, I think he’s showing signs of “Bag Envy”. 

The bag sells for $129 and is now a permanent addition to my aviation gear.  You can find out more information or order the bag from the Brightline Bags Website.