Latest Co-Pilot design - pockets in main compartment

[Walker]

My Co-Pilot is from the Portable Culture era. The 2 pockets in the main compartment are located on the back wall:



My Pilot is from the newer crop with the inverted zipper. The pockets are located on the middle wall that separates the main compartment from the front pockets.



I prefer the location of the Pilot's pocket.

My question is: where are the pockets located on the current Co-Pilot? Of course, I can call the awesome folks at TB to ask, but for certain questions, this forum is FAST!

Thank you very much!

[bchaplin]

The pockets of the Co-Pilot I have, with the reversed zippers, are still on the back

[Ilkyway]

As far as I know they changed the location on the Pilot because so you can use a rail-system with your laptop in the Pilot. The Co-Pilot is to small for the most laptops: no need for rails.

I think on the Co-Pilot the placing of the pockets make sense for if you stuff the outer zipper pockets and have the inner pockets stuffed and use the main compartment for a light jacket or other sort of layer you get a more balanced bag than if the inner pockets where on the same side as the outer zipper pockets.
But that is just me thinking.

Ilkyway

[moriond]

As far as I know they changed the location on the Pilot because so you can use a rail-system with your laptop in the Pilot. The Co-Pilot is to small for the most laptops: no need for rails.

I think on the Co-Pilot the placing of the pockets make sense for if you stuff the outer zipper pockets and have the inner pockets stuffed and use the main compartment for a light jacket or other sort of layer you get a more balanced bag than if the inner pockets where on the same side as the outer zipper pockets.
But that is just me thinking.

Ilkyway

This is correct; the change in placement in the Pilot pocket location is dictated by its intended use with the cache with rails system, because of designing it for use with laptops. On the Co-Pilot the location of the pockets on the back wall offers more balanced load carrying if you insert items into the front compartments and water bottle, and use the main compartment pockets for storing items in SIde Effects or 3D organizer cubes.

moriond

[Walker]

Thanks for the quick reply, bchaplin, ilkyway and moriond. LOVE this forum and its members. This means I keep my CP.

I much prefer the placement of the pockets on the middle wall in the Pilot. I carry small, loose bits that are generallu hefty weight-wise in those pockets. So, for me, the balance is better with the pockets in the middle.

I vote for moving the pockets in the main compartment of the CP to the middle wall .

[moriond]

Thanks for the quick reply, bchaplin, ilkyway and moriond. LOVE this forum and its members. This means I keep my CP.

I much prefer the placement of the pockets on the middle wall in the Pilot. I carry small, loose bits that are generallu hefty weight-wise in those pockets. So, for me, the balance is better with the pockets in the middle.

I vote for moving the pockets in the main compartment of the CP to the middle wall .

I can see why you might want this arrangement, but the other aspect is that there's a bit more flexibility to let that middle wall adjust and flex if you have something large in the water bottle pocket (like a camera lens) that presses against the other side of that center wall, if you keep the present design. With the shorter pocket widths set by the width of the Co-Pilot, pushing against the center wall would cause those pockets located there to angle and be less usable.

There are some other instances in which your preferred design would make things easier: I can carry letter size paper in Poly folders inserted in the Co-Pilot, but I'd usually put the near the back wall where the pockets are, as @maverick does in his video. I know that some forum members, like @JennyGoat, are trying to decide how to use the Co-Pilot for papers, and an 11" MacBook Air and organized pouches in the pockets all at the same time. I think the question is figuring out the best combination of usage for the items one needs, for the design of the bag (i.e.., usually people decide to prioritize what they most want if we're pressing on the basic design to do more than it was optimized for).

HTH. Just my 2 cents. YMMV (Your mileage may vary)

moriond

[jennygoat]

For me, in order to be able to consider the CP as an EDC, I had to re-prioritize my daily kit. Since my EDC doubles as a work and college student bag, I literally sat down with pen and paper and wrote a list of my necessities versus things I "might" need. Another thing I did was thought about the various pockets and what fit in each section (thanks to all the helpful folks here and on Ravelry!). Since carrying my MBA 11 is an exception and not a rule, I didn't give it much thought about how it would work on a daily basis with a CP. I was more focused on carrying a drink bottle, letter sized papers, random textbooks, a Kindle and a FJN, along with 2 FOCs and a SYS.

So, for me the placement of those back pockets won't necessarily matter one way or the other. My only thought about them is more so for the Dyneema bags....since those seem to have more flex, having the pockets on the back of the bag might allow it to hug your hip more (much like a control joint allows concrete to flex, lol) whereas a laptop against the backwall would create a sort of plank that would maybe bounce off your hip more. Not entirely sure since I don't have a Dyneema CP.

[Walker]

I agree. It takes some thought to decide on what to put in those pockets.

I have not paid attention to the location of the pockets until I loaded 2 binoculars in those pockets. The back of my CP hit my hips hard and the back of my CP collapsed from the weight of the bins.

Same 2 bins loaded in the pockets if the Pilot - perfect!

The size of the pockets did not matter - pockets in the Pilot and the CP swallowed the bins, no shoulder straps on them. I did not install the shoulder straps that came with them.

I had a pair or eyeglasses and pair of sunglasses in the water bottle pocket in both trials. I did not think of putting a water bottle, simply because my weekend adventure did not require me to lug my water around. I kept my water in a cooler in the trunk of my car and drank when I got back to my car.

I used the Pilot to carry the bins around. Later in the day, I left one of them in the car trunk. I took my camera and one of the bins with me. I carried one or the other in my Synapse 19 - the one not being used went into the S19 pocket.

A pair of bins and a camera inside the S19 was not great. I put one in the big main compartment pocket, the other in the main compartment. The bag bulged out. Eventually I just hang both on my neck.