I am now looking for a “flight bag”…
The requirement seems to be different from many in that I keep all the junk in the plane, so don’t need a bag for headsets etc. That immediately rules out most of the products on the market, which are massive and have a load of pockets all over the place.
What I need is something with a compartment for A4 sheets (printouts of approach plates etc), about 2cm thick, so that would define the overall size of the bag. Then I need another compartment with about 8cm thickness, next to that. That would be used for a 10" tablet, and silica gel bags which I change every time I go to the plane. So the bag would be about 10-15cm thick.
And a handle on top, maybe with a shoulder strap.
It needs to hold it’s shape well otherwise the paperwork will get crumbled up.
I can think of a load of ladies’ handbags which will do the job but that might draw some comments, especially in Brighton 
I went for the Brightline modular range as recommended by Chris and Peter.
I chose the B7 combination which has two centre sections of 3" and 4" width, but there are narrow and wider sections that can be added to cater for just a tablet or paperwork on their own.
The carrying handle and shoulder strap are robust.
Something like this? http://www.shop4pilots.com/PILOTENAUSSTATTUNG/Koffer-Taschen/Pilot-Pilotentasche-Daily-schwarz::375.html
You could place a TB20 or EuroGA Patch over the silly “Pilot”-stitching.
I really like the Lightspeed line of bags. They are about the only ones which I would call “fashionable” (of course this is an extremely subjective view) and I can attest to their quality. I have the “Antoine”, which is just a bit too small for A4 but that doesn’t matter for me any more in the iPad age.
The Antoine looks like it might just take A4…
It also has the optional internal insert with two compartments.
Peter, why not just a type of laptop briefcase? I think unless you need to carry a headset or Jeppesen binders, a Pilot’s bag is the same as any other bag with a laptop or tablet section that also needs to carry other stuff like chargers and papers.
Ah, the bags thing…. Interesting. I have had some cheap pilots’ bags over the years – a false economy. The zips broke and the fabric frayed after not very long. I then went for a Brightline bag -I had an early bag and had three problems : (1) the main compartment was slightly smaller than an A4 kneeboard (was it US letter size?) and so my A4 kneeboard had to fit in at an angle which used up too much useable space (I think they later produced a proper ‘bigger than A4 kneeboard size’ main compartment for the UK market) (2) the individual zipped compartments were a certain size and each was too small for my Garmin 795 and (3) I did have a zip fail. Perhaps I put too much stuff in. Who knows.
A female friend asked me to take her to Bicester Outlet Village last year. She has a Tumi Luggage addiction and dragged me to the Tumi shop there. She then convinced me to get a Tumi bag to act as my flight bag. It was expensive but it is truly excellent- their luggage is very very tough (although soft – not a hard case ) and has many compartments and zips, and they say that their Tumi Trace service will get a bag back to its owner if it is lost and found (not stolen! ). The bag takes all my gear and keeps it safe. Its size dictates what I take to the plane and that’s only a little more than I would otherwise choose to shlep around with me if the bag were smaller. Tumi don’t market a bag as a pilot case or bag, but they really hit the spot. (What you can’t see in the pics below is that there are lots of hidden and zipped internal compartments which are useful for keeping things where you know where you can find them. There are for instance three compartments on the front face in the first picture- two zipped one and one held by magnets next to the fabric handles.)
Highly recommended :-)
The Antoine looks like it might just take A4…
It takes A4 papers if you don’t mind them getting a bit crinkled. It doesn’t take files for A4 papers.
I am currently using one of these lightweight notebook attaché case with shoulder straps.
Peter, maybe you need an attache case like this
