We're starting to get a lot more short term fly in/fly out jobs.
Any tips on cases to fit our poles in? They're 58" long in their individual cardboard sleeves. We had a hard golf bag we used for the tripod, bipod and a few other accessories but we had to ship the pole separately last time. This time I'll be bringing 3 with, it'd be nice to have a convenient solution, any ideas?
I can find a gun case that long and cant seem to find a pelican case that gets that big either. Closest I've seen so far is a 60" roadie case.
For now plan B is a bag meant for snowboards and put the poles it there and bring the golf bag too for the tripod+bipods.
Bass Pro Shops Fly Rod Tube up to 62.5" long 2.5" diameter
https://www.basspro.com/shop/en/white-river-fly-shop-rod-tube
You might look into some of the cases used for vendor displays:
The fly rod tube looks good. I made some from pvc pipe and spray in foam. We even pop riveted handles. Used clean outs and had pop riveted a small chain to the pipe and screw in clean-out. The spray in foam worked well in the ends as it supported the rods. Was cheap back then and could be painted and made brackets for the humvee they attached to once in country. Of course a C-130 is a little different but they would work for commercial flights as well. A dog tag or a small stamped flat metal plate can be pop riveted in as well. For identification and address if lost or misplaced in flight.
I took a full set of gear to Sierra Leone for a few weeks in 2016 and ended up making my own flight protection. For the legs I used 8" PVC pipe w/ cap and sewer cleanout lid and rope handles. I probably could've used 6" but had 8" and was able to fit bagged up bits and pieces in there with them.
PVC is awesome. Used to make deer and turkey feeders . Potato guns as a kid . Varmint catchers , guard stake’s plumbing . Survey gear protectors. I mean the list goes on and on. Scrap pieces made good air and water tight places for matches and other items. Make your own flashlight out of it . Fish net. Pvc and a few pool noodles and you can float electric fence across a creek or pond to keep cattle out of areas.
When I had to do this for a single day trip to El Paso, Tx, we used a plastic case for a golf bag. It carried everything we needed to do the job and we carried the equipment on as a carry-on. Of course, TSA had a field day with the GNSS head units, LOL.
First thing I did when we went down to San Antonio last month was look for a survey rental company. My partner and I carried on our scanner (small RTC360) and total station. We rented a tripod and another tripod/dolly setup from G4 when we got to town. Great guys! A couple hundred bucks was well worth not having the headache!
I do fly in jobs several times a year. My first recommendation is to get on Canada's version of the TSA's 'Known Shipper List' and ship via air-cargo vs luggage. It is a considerably less expensive and way easier on the kit. Down here, getting on the list is a bit of a pain and needs to be done for each airline that you plan to ship through. I just shipped about 185 lbs of kit on Alaska as gold streak (high priority so it got there when I did) for around $215. Coming how as standard cargo it was less than $100.
I ship the instruments in their regular case. I use Seco's heavy duty tripod bags for the legs, they are lighter and store easily once on site. I use a 54" long shotgun case for the rod, 1 m extension and bi-pod. You may need to re-consider your rod choice if it only collapses to 58". For random kit I have a couple of pelican cases. Remember, you need a way transport and store you shipping containers once you get to your destination. You must also carry on all of you lithium batteries as carryon.
TSA can get worked up over items for sure. I came home by non military flight once. I was armed and so was my team. This was right after 911 and everything was still crazy. Anyway we had a 4 man team. Military rifles and two of us had sidearms in addition. Well I had a P38 that is a can opener that i had had my grandfather had given me. So mostly sentimental value. Had it attached to a key ring. They did nothing want me to board the plane with that. We were in DC trying to get to NC. Already had gone through customs and all. They we’re afraid if someone took that P38 away and used it to take down the plane or harm someone. Remember i was armed no concern about that because we had a letter of authorization on M16 and 9mm but the P38 was a huge issue. Finally was able to talk to someone higher up and able to keep it. I was not about to throw it in the trash for sure.
We travel quite a lot, boats, planes, and wheelers. We have used Golf bags, PVC and ABS tubes, and now snowboard bags. As John-Putnam has suggested for commercial planes ship air freight (known shipper) as the cost of extra baggage has gone up so much in the last few years. One surveyer we occasionally run into on remote jobs has a nice set of hard cases from Seco that seem to survive most baggage monkeys and being left out in bad weather. The golf and snowboard bags do not do well when they get run over or left out in the rain for days. We always TRY to keep the gun in hand. TSA mostly wants to swab the gun for explosive residue with no problems, but occasionally some eager agent wants to turn nobs and manhandle it. We STRONGLY object, let them know we will turn any knobs they want turned and if that is not good enough get your supervisor. Never had a problem with a supervisor. On small aircraft if we cannot hand carry, the pilot always seems to understand our concern and knows of just the spot for the gun. We have always been allowed to have one lithuim battery attached to each device, and the rest hand carried. If I had known how much remote work we would be doing, I would have purchased nice hard cases 30 years ago and been done. Guard your gun and expect that you will run into the disgruntled baggage monkey occasionally. Our worst problem is gear that gets lost in the system and does not appear untill after the job is done. We have taken to sending/bringing two sets of gear for jobs where logistics are especially bad. One set shipped commercial air freight, the other traveling with us. Another trick that works in the U.S. is to put a properly packaged small pistol in each piece of baggage you really need and declare it. They seem to get some priority and arrive when many other folks's bags do not.
I'm not sure I mentioned it in my post, but going air-cargo is much gentler on the kit as the luggage goons don't get to through it on the baggage conveyors.
