Flight Bag

An instructor turned me on to BrightLine bags; I picked up the B-4 Swift. It’s modular, so I also have an additional Center Section 3 I can add when I need more storage. Love this bag. Very intelligently laid out, with dedicated pockets for things like an ASA fuel tester, radio pocket with separate antenna holder, etc.

Currently taking up space in mine:
  • Medical certificate and PPL card in the back pocket
  • VFR kneeboard
  • Headset, in its original case
  • GoPro camera and accessories, including
    • Camera itself with suction cup and quick release mounts, filters, battery, etc., in the CamKix case;
    • PowerAdd Slim2 battery and mini USB cable;
    • Nflightcam audio/power hookup cable (kept in the Sennheiser headset bag); and
    • A couple of GoPole mounts
  • Smith & Wesson Galaxy 6 LED Flashlight (3 Red + 3 White LEDs) (just the thing for night flying
  • A small backup flashlight / pen combo that I got from my flight school when I first soloed, kind of like one of these, and other assorted pens and pencils (I keep meaning to add something like this or this, as a backup ‘red’ flashlight for in-cockpit night use)
  • A Camelbak Eddy full of water (the straw design is nice, there’s no chance of spilling the contents all over the cockpit no matter how turbulent)
  • Los Angeles sectional and terminal area charts, just in case (I have redundant digital copies on the iPad (ForeFlight + FAA TIFFs), plus ForeFlight on the iPhone, and will likely eliminate paper charts sooner than later; the FAA is okay with that1)
  • ASA E6B computer and an ASA CP-1 plotter and a few blank ASA-FP-2 flight planning sheets2
  • Fuel Tester
  • Spare AA batteries (for flashlight, etc)
  • A pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses (RB 3176 FLIGHT 006 60-17s) in a rigid case
  • G-Shock Men's G100-1BV (inexpensive dual-time watch; I keep one timezone set to Zulu time, with a 24-hour clock)
  • A Gerber Suspension multitool
  • Either an iPad Air 2 or an iPad mini (the former in a Moshi Muse case left over from my first-gen iPad; the latter protected by an also useful Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for iPad mini), together with a Dual GPS module
  • Frequently, a 13" MacBook Air (fits perfectly in the interior pocket of either ‘red zipper’ compartments)
  • A micro USB / Lightning retractable cable, a spare mini USB cable, and dual port 2+ amp 12V and 110V USB chargers, for backup in-flight power and recharging when I get where I’m going (I’ve also carried a 11,200 mAh battery unit, but not always; two is one, one is none)
  • iPhone 6 while flying, in a dedicated pocket (though maybe some day I’ll listen to music using it, via my headset’s interface)
I’m sure I’m missing something, but that’s the gist of it. Next acquisition will be a radio, though I’m trying to decide between the Sporty’s SP-400 (perhaps-spotty-reliability but easy UX) and the Yaesu FTA-750L (crappy UX, only programmable via Windows or, clumsily, on the handset itself, but smaller and reportedly more durable than the SP-400).

1Advisory Circular 91-78: “It is suggested that a secondary or back up source of aeronautical information necessary for the flight be available to the pilot in the aircraft. The secondary or backup information may be either traditional paper-based material or displayed electronically.” 
2 And really, those are gonna go away soon; as one reddit user answered the ‘which E6B is best’ question: “The cheapest one that will last your training. After that it will sit in your flight bag for a while till you realize you haven’t touched it in months becuase you’ve been using a calculator.” 

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