Let’s be honest: drone people are gear people. With each drone we drool over and eventually buy comes a host of little odds and ends that need to be carried around every time we go out and fly.
There are lots of backpacks and cases that are great for transporting the serious gear, protecting the drone, getting us from here to there. But once we’re out in the field, there are still all those odds and ends that we want right at our fingertips, without having to traipse all the way back to wherever we left the case. I’m thinking extra batteries, extra props, cables, memory cards, sunglasses, etc., etc. You know what I’m talking about.
I recently came across a genius solution – the QUEST Vest. This thing was designed with gear people in mind. Claiming to have 42 pockets (I’m taking their word for it, since I tried counting and got lost – seriously, I need a road map for all the pockets!), there’s a place for everything in this vest. It’s an organization enthusiast’s dream come true. There are even little image labels near many of the pockets with suggestions on what that pocket is best suited for. You just better have a good memory to remember what you put where!
There’s a video out there showing how to fit a DJI Mavic into the pockets of this vest (the men’s version). I didn’t have a Mavic on hand to test out whether the women’s version will also fit the Mavic, but I do believe it could. And it certainly does fit every variety of battery, prop and cable you could want while out there for a few hours of flying. Plus your tablet, phone, sunglasses, fpv goggles, waterbottle, hat and gloves…
I was a bit skeptical before I actually had the vest in my hands as to how something so practical would hold up in the aesthetic department. I must say I was pleasantly surprised with the fit and look of the vest. It feels nice, fits well, and looks good. Probably not going to qualify as high fashion, but very nice looking, and eminently useful! It is heavier than you’d expect, though, and then once you start adding in gear, you could easily start packing on the pounds. Even fully loaded however, it still looks nice, if a little bulky.
The makers of the QUEST Vest, SCOTTeVEST, also carry a full line of other gear toting coats, jackets and pants, and the usefulness is not just limited to drone pilots. Travelers, photographers, mothers of small children, anyone who just never seems to have enough pockets…