Thinktank Airport Accelerator
Here are some pictures of a Thinktank Airport Accelerator (version 1) camera
bag, with camera and lenses.
(Click here to see the Thinktank Speed Racer,
a smaller bag that holds just a few lenses in comfort.)
The Airport Accelerator bag is relatively comfortable as a backpack, but not
as comfortable as my Tamrac Expedition 8x. However, the AA carries about as
much gear as the significantly larger Tamrac, and it still fits easily under a
single seat or in most airliner overhead compartments. The Tamrac 8x took 1.5
seats underneath, and it only fit in the largest airliner overheads after I
removed flash cards from the external pockets! The Thinktank's big claim to
fame (for me) is the incredible usefulness for fitting so much gear into a
package you can fly with.
That said, when you stuff as much gear as possible in to this bag, it does
weigh a pretty fair amount, and that is without a (small) laptop tucked into
the outside pockets. My bag wears in at 31 pounds or so, without laptop. It
balances well on the back, until a laptop is added, after which it feels like
it wants to pull me backwards.
You can tuck away the backpack straps behind a pad if you want to turn the bag
into a small rectangular piece of luggage. This is useful for packing purposes,
and it can be useful when putting the bag into an airliner overhead compartment.
The bag is extremely well made, and durable. Like all Thinktank bags I've seen,
it comes with a rain cover. The newer version 2 of the same bag has a security
cable that you can use to lock the bag to something (very useful!), and it has
a flap that holds in a laptop in the outside pocket. It you want to carry a
laptop inside the bag, you can get a shortened set of dividers that leaves
room on top, but you lose two inches or so of divider space.
Photo #1 - Airport Accelerator, side view. Click image for larger size.
Photo #2 - Airport Accelerator, back view, straps tucked in. Click image for larger size.
Photo #3 - Airport Accelerator, back view, backpack straps exposed. Click image for larger size.
Photo #4 - Airport Accelerator, front view - fully loaded with gear. Click image for larger size.
Photo #5 - Airport Accelerator, opened up with camera gear exposed. (Correction
on one of the lenses - the 12-24dx is f4, not f2.0). Click image for larger size.
Photo #5 - Airport Accelerator, fully loaded, ready to zip closed. Click image for larger size.
