trevhut

I usually try to get a musician friendly airline, though they move the goalposts around and avoid the ones that charge by weight, got hit up for €350 on a flight from Tokyo on Air France a while back. Maybe a topic for a thread here if it hasn't been covered yet! Almost always end up paying for an extra bag or for sports equipment (Aer lingus). The weight of the Chadwick is 23kg including the case which is the limit on USA flights.

My tuppence on the Chadwick bass. I've had mine now for nearly 3 years, probably done close to 100 flights without incident. As far as string life goes it's been fine with spirocores and settles in tune pretty quickly. I had my luthier do some setup work that helped the playability, mainly the bridge which was very thick and dampened the sound too much. Also it's worth mentioning that Charlie Chadwick is more than helpful with updating any improvements, a real gent to deal with. Having used a heap of EUB's over the years this bass has been a revelation, ok it's not as responsive as my old flatback but it feels similar enough. The flight case seemed a bit flimsy at first but it's held together pretty well, I tacked on a few strips of carpet to the edges to prolong its life, also I've got away with telling the airlines that it's a cello...doesn't seem to freak them out so much.