At CP they give you leather Jepp binders, but it's nice to have a 1" binder for a "trip book". I just used a plain 3-ring Avery binder for a while, but found a brand-new leather 1" Jepp on Ebay for $10 (they're normally $50ish!!!) You can use a binder clip to clip it onto the chart holder below the DV (side) window, and it holds it where you can easily see it and makes it easy to flip between the charts you need.

The 175 has a recessed area behind your seat that you strap your luggage into; any 22" rollaboard should be fine. PurdyNeat, Travelpro, Luggageworks, etc... you'll find people who like each, so it'd be best to just go by the Stopovertore in MSP while in training and look/decide for yourself.

Any "normal" size kit bag should be fine; it just sits on the floor next to you and straps against the side wall. There's plenty of room. You can either go cheap now and plan on replacing it a few years down the road, or you can spend the $$$ on a Scott and keep it for your career. Keep in mind too that our EFB's are starting to come online this month, so we'll only be carrying Jepps for about another 6 months or so.

Good luck and welcome aboard!

 

He wasnt talking about the pay, super duper 135 guy. He was talking about the fact that you have to go through basic indoc, ground, sim before you even need to think about it. AFTER IOE and while you are waiting to consolidate you should have ALOT of time to find what you need. By then you should have a good basic understanding of what you will need.

 

That must be a subliminal hint to welcome you to the airline game.

 

Just currious, what 135 are you leaving for the airlines.

 

Scott Leather all the way. Be an Aviator, not an Airplane driver!

 

1" binder from staples. Why waste money on a status item. It will be twenty years before I have bought enough cheap binders from staples to equal the cost of a jepp leather item.

My current trip binder is an old 1" eastern airlines pilot benefits handbook which was given to me because it was no longer of use to him. I even kept the old dividers that say things like "income for your retirement years" and put new tabs on them for the various airports. 8 months and still going strong. How much abuse does a binder really get from taking it carefully out of my flight case for the flight and putting it back at the end of the day?

 

The Bose X headset is a TSO'd (technical standard order) product. It will continue to work, even if the batteries die. It will not, however, provide Active Noise Reduction (ANR), which in the CRJ's is no big deal. In a noisy turboprop, you're gunna have a bad day until you either get batteries or add ear plugs.

The microphone kits that are added to the Bose consumer ANR headset will cease to function without batteries.

 

Best advise yet...

 

took the words right out of my mouth.

 

I'd definitely wait until you're out of training and starting IOE before you invest money in anything.

I'm a cheap-butt. So here's my plan for saving money.

But you are going to need very soon:
1. Good rollaboard luggage. Get the metal frame Luggage Works or PurdyNeat. It is by far superior to any of that plastic crap. My Luggage Works bag rolls like a dream and has a heavy metal bottom plate to counter balance it. I can roll it fully loaded with 1 finger. It will withstand the abuse you're going to give it.
2. Flight kit. A cheap-o Solo bag from Staples ($75) will probably get you through a year or until you're ready to drop the $300 for the Scott bag.
3. Use whatever headsets you can for awhile, then decide based on what others are using at your airline and what you like.
4. Binders...I believe someone stated you'd be provided with those. We got cheap plastic ones at Eagle, which work just fine. No need to drop big bucks on Jepp products if you can avoid it.

The LUGGAGE is the absolute most important thing you're going to need. Everything else is trivial. If a wheel pops off your bag on the 2nd leg of a 4 day trip you're going to be lugging that thing everywhere. If you get one with crappy wheel bearings it'll be like dragging a cement block behind you everywhere. There is no room for failure of your luggage. So drop the $300 on that and you will have spent wisely on a very important investment.