Hand luggage, obviously, as Terminal 5's baggage system is up the creek and the Metty family are reasonably adept at travelling light, 10kg each for 2 weeks in South Africa and 5kg for a 1 week family holiday in Majorca spring to mind.
Well I won't be needing many clothes. My usual packing difficulty is the number of electrical and optical devices required.
Bearing in mind the enhanced security and my acceptance that I will end up being the subject of some scrutiny by the immigration staff of one of the nations due to my unusual itinerary, It's probably not worth making me look even more 'interesting' by carrying my SBS (mode-S decoder), aerials, scanner, airfield maps, SLR, image-stabilised binoculars etc.
Over the years, I've never had too much of a problem with security issues in the USA. The locals don't really understand the idea of 'plane spotters' and can over-react, quite understandable, but sod's law is that it tends to happen when you're in a hurry.
Once at Pittsburgh we ended up being interviewed by an FBI guy who was concerned that I'd been seen looking towards the military (Air National Guard?) Hercules. I made the mistake of saying that they were interesting because they were a new model; this caused a delay while they called for backup to find out how I could possibly know such things. When a new guy arrived, I showed him a copy of the Pittsburgh Airport Newsbrief that I'd picked up in the terminal. 'New Hercules fleet for PA ANG' was the headline. I apologised for causing undue grief and was free to go and work out how to get to Newark, having now missed our PeoplExpress flight. 'Why don't you just get a normal hobby like shooting furry animals in the woods?' was the authorities parting question....hmm, well....
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