REVOC Custom’s Double Glider Backpack
Premium quality equipment perfect for your hiking and soaring adventures.
Introduction
Slope soaring is a wonderful hobby that enables you to discover beautiful scenery. It has one drawback, however, which is that you sometimes need to walk to reach the slope with all your equipment. REVOC Custom, based in Poland, is now well known for tailor-made plane and glider wing covers, with the possibility to customise them with additional accessories or even to decorate them with your own logo. They recently introduced two universal backpacks, the Glider Backpack able to carry one glider, but provided in two sizes, and a Double Glider Backpack capable to carry two 3m gliders (F3x type or similar). This is model which is reviewed here.
A Well-Made Online Ordering System
I have to say that the REVOC ordering and follow up procedure looks very professional. Once you have completed your order, selected options and paid, you receive an automatic email to summarise your order. OK, up to know you will tell me this is the same everywhere. The difference is that when your order is ready a few days later, you receive a notification email with professional, studio quality picture(s) of your order. As I said earlier, because of the highly customisable product, this allows you to see and have a good idea of what you are going to receive. Then you receive a second notification mail for the shipment. The bag, protected in a thick transparent plastic, arrives in a second black plastic-wrapped bag parcel, which is fine considering it is not fragile like a glider kit.
Let’s Have a Closer Look
I found it interesting to look at the different bag features because it gives you a good idea about what is possible to carry, and how.
First the bag size: the bag is proposed only in one size with the dimension 157cm x 36cm x 16cm. It is suitable for transporting 3m planes but can adapt to larger planes too. Up to 157cm half wing, you can close the upper bag with the Velcro®.
But the pleasant surprise is that you can also carry a 4m plane in it by letting the upper side of the bag open. An additional Velcro® strap allows maintaining the wings tight in the bag.
The bag is available in three colours which are red, grey and black. Remember, however, that dark colour will easily become warm under the sun and so everything which is inside. This is the reason why I choose red. That, and it is highly visible.
The entire bag is made of a durable fabric which is used on other wing bags or fuselage bags. This gives a robust bag, but the downside is that the weight of the empty bag is 2.5kg, which is at the upper end if you compare it with usual mountain rucksack weight which starts less than 2kg for the lightest ones.
The only option available is to add more inner pad(s). But the bag comes already with three inner pads so unless you don’t have wing covers at all, the provided pads are more than enough. For two gliders with wing covers you’ll need in fact only one pad.
On both sides of the bag there are two adjustable pockets for fuselages. These are interesting because by default they can host easily two F3x fuselages per pocket, but in addition, they can expand by releasing the strap and receive a much larger fuselage like an Alpina or an equivalent 4m semi-scale fuselage. An upper strap secures the fuselage boom along the bag. F3x fuselages can be carried with tails in place.
The bag is also equipped with three pockets closed with a zipper on the front. The objective is that you don’t need any additional bags.
The first and upper pocket is a flat pocket that covers the entire width of the bag. It is perfect for storing a mobile phone, small tools, your wallet.
The middle pocket is mainly designed for the RC transmitter and has the following dimensions: 30x23x11cm. It easily host any thumbs RC transmitter. For tray transmitters however, you will need to check the size, and possibly move it to the bottom and largest pocket which is 30x36x11cm.
The bottom pocket is the largest one and is perfect to host a rain jacket, or a softshell, a cap and why not your lunch bag.
Let’s now look at the straps: First the back straps as it is for what the bag has been primarily designed. They are large and well positioned. They can adjust in length. There is also a waist belt to maintain the bag laterally during the walk.
On one side of the bag there is an adjustable shoulder strap to be used occasionally when for example loading your bag in and out of your car, of if you need to walk under some trees, or open a gate to access the slope.
To finish the description, I need to mention the hook and handle: the hook, placed at the top is perfect to hang the bag on a wall to store it: this is convenient. A second hook or more a handle is located at the middle of the height and which can be used to lift the bag when placing it on your back.
Overall the manufacturing quality is superb, with only high quality materials and zips. Seams, cuts, adjustments, finish, every detail is nicely done.
Using the Bag
Loading the wings in the ‘tube’ bag is easy. The inside of the bag is made of a slippery and soft fabric that eases the insertion.
The size of the bag allows to put up to three F3x gliders including three or even four fuselages on the side pockets. However this load means heavy weight on your back which will be fine for a very short walk distance, but will be too much for a longer distance, especially in mountains.
Replacing the F3x gliders by one 4m glider by expanding one side pocket and letting the upper side of the bag opened and you obtain a great bag to carry your Alpina, Excel or any other 4m class gliders given that the fuselage is not too big/large.
During the walk, I found the bag comfortable on the back but I was missing a chest strap to avoid the shoulder straps moving. I reported it to REVOC who acknowledged the point, so I guess this is now added.
Also I found the waist belt too large for me, even at its minimum size. This is easy to shorten so not critical.
Later, REVOC contacted me back to tell me that they took my feedback into account. First of all, a belt was added between the shoulder pads that is adjustable in length and can be moved up or down for a better fit. The hip pads are now attached to the belt to improve comfort and transfer the weight when walking. The side pockets have been revised and are now partly made of neoprene fabric so that they can deform slightly and fit better to the front of the fuselage.
Conclusion
Overall, the REVOC Double Glider Backpack is a high quality and convenient bag to use, which keeps its promise to be flexible enough and adapt to different needs by offering a high loading volume, multiple pockets. A good addition to your equipment list if, like me, you often hike in the mountains. And the later improvements makes the REVOC Double Glider Backpack even more comfortable and convenient to use.
Thank you for reading and happy landings to all !
©2022 Pierre RONDEL
Resources
- REVOC Custom’s Double Glider Backpack — From the website: “The backpack makes it easier to travel with the model on the slopes of the mountains, protects it from damage during transport…”
- Planet-Soaring — Author Pierre Rondel’s most excellent website dedicated to RC soaring. Well worth checking out.
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