This short piece was originally published by Airliners magazine in Jan/Feb 1995:

Every profession has an accessory tied to its public image: doctors and stethoscopes, politicians and secret lovers, airline pilots and flight cases.

Close your eyes, and picture the classic steely-eyed, chiseled-jawed, gold-braided airline Captain. As central to the image as the dark uniform is a large, well-worn, black flight case. Even in these days of electronic flight management systems and global positioning satellites, airline pilots around the world have to lug around a heavy kitbag. What is trapped inside those four black walls? And why do normally conservative pilots have stupid stickers all over their "brain bags"?

Unlike most office workers, the airline pilot changes desks at least every day. The cockpit (excuse me, "the flight deck") has most everything we need to fly the plane � throttles, yoke, a bunch of switches and gauges � but like any office worker, the pilot needs his or her own "stuff". To accommodate this stuff, airliners have a space at the side of each seat for a top opening crew bag. What stuff? Well, it's best to keep certain documents and checklists in the personal possession of the pilot, since he or she often has to update or refer to them. My airline calls these required documents Flight Manual Part 1, Part 2, and AOM Volume 1.

Flight Manual Part 1 is a thick loose leaf book that could be called How To Be An Airline Pilot: Rules & Procedures. The manual details duties and responsibilities. You are supposed to have the whole thing memorized, but after anything unusual happens, it's a good idea to review the book. Part 1 covers dead passengers (actually considered unconscious until a licensed authority arrives), drunk passengers, weather problems, international procedures, security issues, and all the other minutia of airline operations.

Flight Manual Part 2 consists of several loose leaf books updated seemingly every week with maps and charts of airspace, instrument approaches, and airports. Most of the weight of a flight bag comes from having all these hundreds of charts � just in case Big City International closes, and we have to land at Podunk Municipal.

AOM Volume 1 is the aircraft operating manual for whatever airplane that crew member flies. When little Johnny tours the cockpit, it doesn't look cool to be reading, How to Fly the B-767, but if you have a question (what is that red flashing light?), the AOM Volume 1 will answer it.

Most airlines also require that crew members carry with them flashlights (torches in the King's English), checklists, and some paperwork for computing takeoff/landing speeds. During a recent thunderstorm that closed the airport, a check of several crews' "brain-bags" revealed what the really important stuff is that travels around the world.

The top of most bags contained several cheap pens and mementos of favorite lay-over hotels. Depending on the preference or the hearing of the pilot, bags have sets of earplugs or personal headsets. To clean the cockpit, we carry antiseptic wipes; to clean sticky fingers, a supply of handy wipes is great. When the thin paper of the flight manual breaks, a supply of scotch tape or loose-leaf reinforcements is vital. A must for cockpit tours is some kiddy wings. I don't recommend calling these pins "mile-high-club membership wings" unless the cockpit door is firmly closed!

As the weather outside got worse, we dug deeper; finding some sets of plastic handcuffs for tying up drunks, several electronic calculators, and little notebooks listing the best restaurants in Podunk or the security code at JFK. One First Officer found a pair of sunglasses she had been weeks searching for. Captains who like to use the public address system extensively carried road maps or atlases, to help with geography. The pilot's union gives us forms to rate the quality of hotels, complain of safety lapses and so on. One Captain had a small camera � not for snapshots of Paris but for damage after an accident; his philosophy, "You've got to cover your own a**!"

Finally, we emptied our cases and cleaned out dust and dirt worth millions in frequent flier miles. Amongst the crud at the bottom were dozens of bags of peanuts, what some flight attendants call Pilot Pellets!

These flight bags cost several hundred dollars, and despite many variations (such as hard plastic or flexible webbing) thick cowhide over a steel frame is the favored design. This style can withstand snow or rain, is incredibly strong, and lasts for years, if not decades. The worst thing that ever happened to my bag had nothing to do with the forces of nature, but a lot to do with a cute six-year old during a cockpit visit. He spilt a can of coke into my (then) new bag! The bag itself was just a little sticky, but hundreds of pages of charts and regulations became forever bonded by a dark brown goo. The chief pilot was NOT amused.

Knowing what's inside the flight case doesn't explain why fashion challenged pilots cover them with colorful stickers proclaiming "727 Astrojet", "Louisiana Air National Guard", or "Fred's BBQ". However, going to operations at the hub and trying to find your kitbag amongst hundreds of other black bags is almost impossible without big, bright stickers. Plus, this is about the only part of the uniform that can be personalized. With no stickers on the flight bag, you open yourself to possible public insult. A flight engineer friend, with a shiny new bag, was traveling home in plain clothes. The passenger next to him remarked, "Hey, big briefcase � are you a lawyer?" Ouch!

At the end of the day my trusty flight bag performs one last duty. It's great to sit on while waiting for the hotel van!