Pilot Toys: BrightLine Bag, two years later

In what I have to consider a testament to the BrightLine Bag's quality, my two year update is going to be quite short. My bag is still going strong and regularly carries my ever-increasing gear collection. I've used it on long trips and short trips - from a quick jaunt to Lunken for dinner to an overnight trip with a stop in Put-In-Bay to our giant, eight day circumnavigation of Lake Michigan this past summer.

The bag still carries everything I listed in the original review along with some new gear:

• McMurdo FastFind 210 PLB
• Kodak Zi8 video camera
• RAM mount for the Zi8
• Cessna 172 POH
• Rayovac Sportsman Xtreme LED headlamp
• 4 packs of earplugs (for the Cub!)
• Sic-Sacs

Needless to say, this bag holds a ridiculous amount of stuff yet still manages to keep it organized and easily accessible. The zippers and fabric have held up very well against what I would consider average use. I definitely toss the bag in my car and in the luggage area of the 150 and 172 without any concern about damaging either the bag or its contents.

The only issue I have had with my bag is that the business card holder disintegrated. I actually spoke with Ross Bishop, the owner and creator of the BrightLine Bag, at the AOPA Summit in Tampa, Florida in 2009 about this very issue. He told me that they had a manufacturing problem with some of the earlier bags; the plastic used to secure the business card holder to the fabric was too brittle. Indeed, the black plastic around the protective clear cover on my bag slowly flaked off beginning about six to nine months after purchase. Today there is no black plastic remaining (only some thread that used to secure the plastic remains) and the business card holder has completely fallen off.

Note the missing business card holder in the middle of the bag

Even with the aforementioned problem, I can't knock the bag's quality. Ross actually offered to send me a new holder without the brittle plastic that I could sew on to the bag; I just never took him up on the offer. More importantly, the bag has held up perfectly in every area that counts - the zippers and fabric look as good as new and it has kept all my stuff safe and secure for nearly two years now. I can't recommend the BrightLine Bag enough for any pilot that's looking for a well-organized bag to carry their flight gear.

If you're interested in purchasing a bag of your own, click here!

Updated Rating: 5/5 Cubs

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When I received my BrightLine Bag for Christmas in 2008, I was a newly minted Private Pilot. Nearly all my cross-country flying had been during my training and I didn't have much to carry with me most of the time. I have since acquired more gadgets (in other words, I'm your average pilot) and tend to keep a few more things with me whenever I go flying.

What I never expected was for my original review of my BrightLine Bag to become so popular. If you search for 'BrightLine Bag' on Google, that blog post is in the Top 5 results listed. In fact, since that post went live nearly two years ago, I have written 108 posts on here but over 6% of the blog's entire traffic count comes directly from my review.

So it should come as no major surprise that I was contacted by the guys at BrightLine Bags a few months ago. It's pretty easy to track statistics on the web (as I just did in the previous paragraph) and they've noticed that a significant amount of traffic comes from my blog. I'll cut right to the chase - I am now an affiliate with them and will receive a small commission if you purchase a bag through a link on this site.

It is clear that my review has had - and is still having - an influence on people who are considering purchasing a BrightLine Bag. I'm glad to help out fellow pilots and am actively working on increasing the number of reviews on this blog. While I do try to keep advertisements on here to a minimum, I realize there is a great opportunity here to work with BrightLine. Neither the original review nor this updated version have been in any way influenced by my affiliation. All the thoughts and opinions on this blog are strictly mine.

All I'm asking of you is this - if you decide to purchase a BrightLine Bag based upon my reviews, I would greatly appreciate it if you do so through one of the links in the posts or on the navigation bar on the right-hand side of the blog. Thanks!

Video from the Fly-In at Stewart last Labor Day

It's been a while since our annual EAA 284 Fly-In, which I wrote about on here last September. Someone who was there put together a great video and posted it on YouTube the other day and I thought it would be nice to share it with you all. Enjoy!

In case you're wondering, I have a brief cameo walking into the hangar at 2:34 where I was helping with the pancake breakfast. ;-)

h/t: EAA 284 blog

Flying with Shaun from Australia

You may remember that I flew with Shaun, a friend I met through this blog who lives in Australia, when he came to Stewart for some tailwheel training last month. He took some photos and video during our flight and I promised that I'd share it on here. It might take a little while for him to edit the video and get it from his computer to me, half way around the world, but I'll post that in the future as well.

Happily putzing along with Shaun in the cozy 150

He's safely back Down Under now after an awesome experience up at Oshkosh. I am still so happy that we were able to meet up and spend some time in the air together. There's nothing better than meeting fellow pilots - it's such a wonderful community of folks worldwide. As he comes to the US every so often, I'm already looking forward to the next time I get to see Shaun and embark on another flying adventure.

About that carb heat

I told you I'd update about the suspicious carburetor heat that caused me to cut my last flight short once I knew more. Today I made it down to Waynesville for some flying, so I asked them and here's the update as promised...

Turns out my suspicions were correct. Something had come loose in the connection between the carb heat knob inside the cockpit and the carburetor itself. In layman's terms, the carb heat was indeed not working. It was a quick fix and 60338's back in service (in fact I flew her tonight) but I was glad to confirm my diagnosis from that last flight.

So my takeaway from this to the many fellow pilots who read this is simple - if anything doesn't seem normal or feels unusual, get the plane on the ground and don't take any unnecessary chances!