Flight Bag

I'm fortunate enough to have two siblings, both of whom I have relationships with to this day. I'm the youngest of three, one is 8 years my elder, the other 5.

My middle brother and I have had an ongoing "dream" for close to 10 years now. One day, we will live in the same city and co-own an aircraft. We will go flying together. We will go flying together lots. We will hire an instructor so we can obtain our instrument ratings and then go flying together even more. Three things have been holding us back all these years: We don't live in the same city, our disposable income is currently allocated elsewhere, and I don't even have a pilots license. I should also mention a fourth which is that we both have young families and professional careers that don't provide us with a lot of "free" time.

When I first started the training, I didn't call him immediately and let him know about it. He'd probably be pretty busy at work or with the kids and I'd end up blabbing to him on the phone endlessly about it. As it turns out he called me shortly after it started to tell me he was flying YXC YYC YWG and had a 3 hour layover in YYC. Would I be able to come meet him to hang out? The timing was perfect. Within 5 minutes I started telling him about what I was doing. He was speechless. The excitement I sensed in him was hard to describe, he actually appeared to be nearly as excited about it as I was. It was then that he mentioned the flight bag.

Turns out he hasn't flown in over 5 years now and has a flight bag sitting at home. He offered to send it to me since he wasn't using it. Naturally I accepted. I had him send it to my office so that I could open it in relative seclusion. Coming back from lunch today the receptionist told me I had a package in my office - the flight bag had arrived!

I ripped open the package to find a boring black attache case. Inside the case was a treasure trove. A digital stopwatch with a bunch of timers (but I love my watch). A Cessna POH. Some sectionals and TACs - long expired and all for the YVR area. An ICAO ruler. A fuel checker thingee (no clue what it is called). Then things got more exciting - an ASA VFR Tri Fold Kneeboard, well worked in....

I opened the kneeboard and nearly fell on the floor. Pages and Pages of notes in my brother's writing. Something about HASEL, lots of V-Speeds, stuff underlined, circled, and scribbled. A few small checklists, some weight and balance information, and a little Transport Canada publication titled "Meet Your Aircraft". Naturally I emptied all of this stuff out of the kneeboard so it was completely blank and stored it all in a binder so that it was never lost.

Then the coup de grace - a pair of David Clark headsets H10-20 and H10-40 models. I immediately tried them on to see how they felt. They were without question FAR superior to the ones I had been using at the club, at least that's how I felt about it. I hit the Internet immediately for the full specifications on the headsets. At home later that night I took a much closer look. Both of the headsets were well used, and thus they required some maintenance. The H10-40 needs a new gel earpiece and the microphone cover was ripped. I spent 10 minutes or so adjusting the 10-20 until it fit my head perfectly and then tightened all of the bolts. It didn't even have a microphone cover so I swapped in the one from the 10-40. During the cleaning and inspection of the unit I noticed my brother had his first initial and last name embroidered on one of the ears. All I had to do was get that first initial off, or change a P to an I somehow ;)

Seeing how I'm flying tomorrow I decided I'd organize the kneeboard. I refolded my VNC and jammed it into the right pocket, ripped the CYBW aerodrome chart out of an expired cap, highlighted the frequencies at the top and wrote in the practice area frequency. I was excited at the prospect of actually being able to write something down without fumbling around but then realized I had no paper of the correct size to put into the clipboard. At this point I also concluded that if I had paper in the clipboard, it would cover up my Aerodrome chart and all my frequencies. 3COM to the rescue! I grabbed a wad of about 15 lined post it notes and they attached nicely to the chart. Now I could write AND still read my frequencies.

I closed out my kneeboard preparation by creating my own printed copy of the speeds for the DA20 C1. Standard Rotation, 50 ft. obstacle climb, Vy, Vx, recommended app, min app, balked climb speed, max crosswind, Vno, Va, Vfe ldg, Vfe t/o, and Best Glide speed. I've been trying to memorize these numbers and there is never a better way to memorize something than to type it out a few times.

Happy with the setup of the kneeboard and configuration of the headset - I packed up the flightbag with the Kneeboard, Headset, E6B, FTM, POH, some extra pencils, chewing gum, and stowed the bag in my car for the next morning. On my way back inside I realized it was already 1130pm and as a result I'd only get about 6 hours of sleep at max before my flight in the morning. I fell asleep dreaming of how special I'd feel in the morning with my own flightbag, kneeboard, and headset.

No more swapping aviation stuff with my work stuff.
No more microphone boom that doesn't adjust properly and has other people's spit, not to mention the ear jam and headsweat.
No more fumbling around in the cockpit to write something down, pull out a map, or figure out a frequency.

The dream is still alive!