Hey it's Tom, the founder of Pack Hacker, and in this video we're going to be taking
a look at the Aer Flight Pack. It is the baby brother of the Aer Travel Pack
which we can see right there. At Pack Hacker we test and review travel gear
all the time. We're all about optimizing for travel
experience. So if you're new here, consider subscribing. So without further
ado let's hop into the 23 litre Aer Flight Pack, which is great for
work and travel. Let's check it out.
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So here is how Aer advertises the flight pack on their website: "The flight pack is a
convertible carry-on backpack designed for work travel. Its versatile design
allows you to comfortably carry it as a backpack, a shoulder bag, or a brief with
handles. Multiple pockets for your work and tech essentials keep you organized
and ready to work on the go." So how does it stack up to that description?
Let's check it out.
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So Aer is not new to the carry game. Their founder, Allen, has been
at it for about four years. And before that he was one of the lead product
designers at Incase. So everything from Aer kind of has a bit of an Incase vibe,
but in my opinion it looks a little less elementary. So Aer is a little bit more
polished, a little bit more refined and it really shows in this flight pack. The
clean black look, the low profile and the considered placement of some of the
design features make this for a really great-looking carry. And I traveled around
with the Aer Travel Pack quite a bit for about a month and a half and got a ton
of compliments on the aesthetic of it. People were like "Man, that's a huge
backpack but it actually looks great!" The flight pack is no different. It also has
a clean, polished look and we'll get the occasional compliment on the street as
well. As far as the material goes we've got a strong 1680D Cordura, a ballistic
nylon on the exterior of this thing. The straps and handles are pretty low profile.
Of course the zippers are YKK which are,
you know, some of the best zippers that you can put onto bags.
And also some Duraflex plastic hardware to kind of wrap it all up.
Overall this pack has a strong and clean look. We're definitely a fan of the aesthetic.
So getting into the external components of this pack. About half way
down we have a water-resistant YKK zipper that sort of splits the bag in
half. And we'll get into what's in here in a second. One side has some tasteful
minimalistic branding, and the other side has a handle here for carrying the pack.
One thing we have found with the handle on the side is -- it isn't quite ideal for
briefcase carry and we feel like it's a tad bit imbalanced. So if you think about
the way the pack is laid out, basically you have this main clamshell zipper
coming down at about the center of the bag. And this handle is offset a little
bit, so if you do have a lot of weight in here it can carry at a bit of an angle.
Now we realize it's kind of tough to get the center of gravity and the weight
completely centered and they do have some, like, diagonal angled attachment
here which does help a bit. But for those wanting to carry this as a briefcase for
long distances, you may run into some issues. It's better for just grabbing it
out of the overhead compartment, grabbing it out of a car and generally carrying it for short distances.
On the top of the pack right here we do have a very nicely
padded handle that feels great to carry. It's always great when bag companies put
a little bit of extra padding in these top areas because as you do load it up,
as you do put things that are heavier inside of it, it's good to have that
extra layer of comfort when you're carrying around a bunch of weight. So the
straps on the flight pack are a lot less robust than they are on the travel pack.
And a lot of that is due to the space that each of these bags hold. So you've
got 33 litres in the travel pack and 23 in the flight pack. So you can clearly
feel that the plastic in here is separate from the rest of the straps so
it sort of feels like it slides around, and I'm not really loving that quite as
much. So if you are using a roller bag and using the flight pack as kind of a
supplemental piece, you can easily slide this over the handle;
kind of keep it secure as you're rolling that thing around through the
airport or wherever you end up being. The straps are also hide-away on this thing,
allowing you to tuck them away and wear this in a messenger bag mode. There are
these D-rings that you can attach the messenger bag strap to, which are
patent-pending (apparently). Normally we don't feel like this works very well
with a backpack if you put it into briefcase mode, but the Aer Flight Pack
does have a slick enough look to where we think you can kind of get away with
it as a messenger bag. You know you're not having like a blaze-orange hiking
backpack hanging off the side of you. It's a little bit more of a slick look
and polished feel with the Aer Flight Pack.
So starting with this top pocket
here, this is perfect for quick grabs and kind of just chucking stuff in as you're
going through security. And then on the front we do have a bunch of different
organizational pockets here - good for pens, other various items that you want
to kind of keep organized in there. And one of the things that I do like about
Aer and what they do is they always have kind of strongly considered inner design
pockets. Moving on to the main clamshell - it opens right up and it folds down
almost all the way. So there is a little bit of space that's going to be where the
clamshell is. So here we've got the Aer logo, of course the Cordura registered
trademark. So in this main clamshell we've got a
bunch of different cascading kind of divider pockets here. And the first one
is going to be for the laptop. You kind of have a thinner pocket here - we'd
recommend grabbing a separate laptop case if you do want an additional
protection on that laptop. However there is a bunch of padding on the backside
that will kind of help with that. It's just the inside of the pack there's a
little bit less padding. And at first when we were looking at this thing we
thought it might be a little bit annoying to have that laptop compartment
inside of the bag versus the outside. Like I'm kind of wondering if they kind
of 'foregoed' this little strap hider here, if they could have made this
its own separate laptop compartment. But actually the more we used
this bag, the more we talked about it, the more we didn't mind that the main laptop
compartment was inside of the bag itself and ended up making sense the more we
used it. So usually the bags we're reviewing are a lot bigger and you know
having that separate area for the laptop is good.
Moving on to these other pockets here - there is going to be a kind of cascade
down right? So this one also goes to the very bottom. The second one maybe it's
good for like a tablet, a notebook, could maybe even fit some documents in there
although the tops might get a little bit crumpled. And then you kind of have these
two half divider pockets here. So if you want to put a laptop charger in one of
these, you know, any number of items. But the organization is totally there with
the backside of the clamshell of this pack. And one additional note on the
frame sheet - it's a tad bit curved. So I'm a taller person, I'm 6' 2", and I
definitely felt this bottom part kind of in my lower back as I was using it. Now
if you're a shorter person, you know if you have a different body type than me,
then you're probably not going to notice it quite as much. So back on to the last
organizational piece of the interior of the pack - we do have this kind of mesh
pocket going on up here. It's a smaller YKK zipper; it's nice that it's mesh so
you can see what's going on inside of it. So if you do have a lot of little items
kind of floating around in here, you can easily see through that mesh and kind of
sort through and grab what you need. So to wrap up with some pros and cons -
everything with the Aer Flight Pack is really thought out and the design is all
considered making it great for organization and carry, in general.
There's an excellent versatile look going on with this pack that leans more
towards professional so that's pretty hard to pull off with a backpack, and Aer
has done a great job with that. Between the Cordura, the Duraflex
plastic and the YKK zippers, this is made of some pretty great materials that will
last quite a while. For some of the cons - the liners, and the straps and the frame
sheet can be a tad bit flimsy feeling if you kind of smoosh them around a bit.
We'd be curious to see if they ditch the hideaway straps feature and put a
dedicated laptop compartment in there, but that would kind of take away from
the messenger bag look that some folks may really like.
And again, if you're a taller person you're definitely going to feel that
slightly curved frame sheet in the small of your back when you're first testing
this thing out. If you're still around and you're looking to find the perfect
travel backpack for you, we just made a pretty great guide on it. So head over to
packhacker.com and check it out. It will kind of guide you through what's
important to look for when you are trying to consider a backpack for travel.
So thanks for taking a look at this review; we'll see you in the next one!
Am I looking at myself? It's me! I'm looking at myself.