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The Sporty’s Original Flight Gear bag is probably the largest bag in the Flight Gear line and, according to Sporty’s, it is based on their original bag design from over 30 years ago. It is quite a large bag, which is important for those of us who need or like to carry a lot of things when we go flying, but it is pretty well laid out and offers a fair number of pockets to organize gear. I’ll briefly discuss the layout of the bag and how I use it, and then discuss some things that I like and some things that I don’t like, or would change. For clarity, I purchased this bag myself in January 2023, and have been flying with it through the date of this review.
The front of the bag offers a medium sized zipper pocket with an administrative organizer layout. There are slots for pens and pencils, a key hanger, some slightly larger tubular type pockets, and an additional small zippered pocket. In this pocket I keep my writing utensils, a small glasses cleaning kit, my certificates, and a penlight.
To the left of the main zippered pocket is a small slash pocket which beautifully accommodates the Flight Gear Red/White flashlight for easy access in the dark.
The front pocket flap is also where Sporty’s will embroider this bag, should you choose that option during checkout. I added my name and a small Cherokee silhouette to make it my own.
On the right side are two pockets. One pocket is a radio pocket and the other is a zipper pocket that runs nearly the height of the bag. The radio pocket easily accommodates my IcomA25N handheld radio with the rechargeable battery pack and the belt clip attached. There is a small sleeve down the inside of the pocket to store the antenna if you wish to remove it from the radio, but leaving it attached has not been an issue as the flap over the pouch is hourglass shaped, and allows the antenna to extend easily up and out of the pocket. One drawback of the radio pocket is it offers no additional place for the headset plug adapter, so I drop it in the bottom of the pocket so that I can grab it easily if I should need it.
The tall zippered pocket has been great for my Sentry ADS-B receiver and the RAM suction cup that holds the Sentry. Both fit easily inside with room to spare. This pocket is pretty versatile, though, and could probably hold a number of different types of items, depending on how you choose to use it.
The back of the bag has a pass-through design to accommodate a handle from rolling luggage. To each side of that loop are two smaller slash type pockets, but they are open at the bottom and anything not clipped to them will fall through. As of this writing, I don’t have a need for the passthrough and it is a disappointment with regard to this bag. It feels like wasted space that have could have been used for an additional pocket (even if it had a zipper at the bottom to turn it into a pass-through on demand).
On the left side is a headset pocket. It’s decently padded and lined with a soft material. It accommodates my Bose A20 without difficulty but it seems to be a snug fit depending on how you orient the headset. There is no headset hanger to keep the headset suspended off of the control box and off the bottom of the bag. Sporty’s also says that the pocket will accommodate the headset in its original case but I have not found that to be true (the Bose A20 headset bag doesn’t fit in this pocket even without the headset in it).
The main compartment is substantial and great for larger items. The top flap is dual zippered, with a large zipper pull connecting the two zippers, and has a hook and loop strip on the end of the flap for extra security.
Within the main compartment are 3 additional slash type pockets. A large slash pocket runs down the long side of the bag behind the front admin pocket. This pocket is great for backup paper charts ,a pad of paper, the airplane checklist, and my iPad Mini 6. On either end of the main compartment is a small slash pocket in which I store my headlamp, a small first aid kit, my sunglasses in their case, and some portable backup batteries.
The back wall of the bag is what Sporty’s calls its “Gear Mod” wall. I personally don’t care for this and have found that every pouch I attach on it either wants to pull off when something leans on it, and it seems to cause the back wall of the bag to sag inward in a strange way.
In the main compartment itself, I am currently carrying my RAM Mount for my iPad Mini 6, an electronics organizer (for cables ,spare alkaline batteries, etc.), my foggles in a hardshell case, my GoPro in its original case, and a largish size water bottle.
The top flap of the main compartment has a zippered sunglasses pocket, which is a bit of a disappointment because it only accommodates sunglasses without their case, and even then it will only hold certain types of glasses (you can’t fit your foggles in it). For me it doesn’t work for its intended purpose so I have used that pocket to store my Icom radio’s backup alkaline battery case.
The whole main compartment (except the hook and loop “Gear Mod” wall) is lined with a light blue nylon liner, which provides a nice contrast for your items (maybe it’s also meant to subliminally remind us to keep the blue side up while we’re flying).
The bottom of the bag is a rubber type material and there are several small studded plastic feet for traction. The bottom, unfortunately, has no “structure” to it and so it flexes under the weight of whatever is in the main compartment. I’m not sure if this was by design so that the bag better adapts to what it is sitting on.
Two carry handles come together at the top of the bag and are held together by a hook and look neoprene wrap. The carry handle wrap is pretty nice and makes it comfortable to hold the bag in your hand, even when it has some weight to it.
A shoulder strap is mounted at each end of the bag near the headset pocket and the Radio/ADS-B pockets. The shoulder strap leaves something to be desired, because the padding on it is quite thin and the attachment points are plastic. To address the thinness issue, I wrapped a sheepskin seatbelt cover around the shoulder strap which has worked pretty well. I am concerned that the plastic attachment points are failure points, given prior experience with other bags using a similar set up.
-Spacious – This bag really is quite large. It’s not so large that it’s cumbersome, but it offers a lot of space, important for student pilots who carry books, airplane renters who can’t store anything in the airplane, or even just pilots who like to carry a lot of things with them.
-Organizer/Slash Pockets – The pockets are pretty well suited for the equipment I carry when I fly. There are enough of them to be useful but not so many that you have wasted space.
-Blue Hi-Vis Lining – A nice touch for a flight bag and helps you see things against a lighter colored background.
-Bottom Sag – I’m neutral on this because it could be by design. It would be nice to see the bag have a firmer bottom, but it may have been designed like this on purpose so it could be placed on a wing or seat and sort of adapt to what it is sitting on.
-Sunglass Pouch – Basically useless as designed. It’s too small and the fact that you can only use it with your glasses out of their case means your lenses drag against the zipper teeth when you put them in and out.
-No Water Bottle Pocket – Kind of surprising to see this overlooked. I can keep my water bottle in the main compartment but for ease of access while in flight, it would have been nice to see a place to keep water on the outside.
-Shoulder Strap – Not great and the plastic attachment points don’t inspire a lot of confidence. I’ve had too many bags with plastic strap attachment points fail, and this bag is designed to carry some weight.
-Back of Bag/Pass-Through – To me, this is wasted space. I would have preferred this area be a large pocket that could accommodate charts, checklists, a kneeboard, an iPad, or whatever else you could think to put in there, but instead it is lost real estate. You also can’t use the pockets to either side of the pass through unless that item can be clipped to the bag, because otherwise it will fall through.
-Gear Mod Wall – More of a gimmick to me, than anything, I have found that attaching any pouch to this wall just makes the bag sink inward, and the pouches have a tendency to catch on other items and become detached from the wall.
Overall, the Original Flight Gear bag has worked well for what I needed. The stitching feels pretty robust, the size is substantial enough to accommodate a lot of gear, and the overall structure of the bag is pretty well thought out. The bag I was using before, while great, was just too small and left me carrying a lot of items in my hands. Since buying this bag, I have not felt like I didn’t have enough space to carry what I needed when I go flying. This bag currently retails for $89.95 at Sporty’s with an extra fee for embroidery.
