My worry with carrying on lots of stuff as hand luggage is that if it's deemed too large or too much, they'll take it and check it in. Happened to my camera bag once because the bag was deemed too big on a small commuter plane. Fortunately it survived.
So if you carry on, it has to be packed for solo check in anyway.
I prefer to pack it myself in a suitcase in a form where I'm confident of it's survival and once done, I'm not burdened by too much hand luggage. Once I discovered that I could safely check in optics, I never looked back.
Whichever way you decide to carry, I agree with Terry that I wouldn't dream of leaving good optics behind when going to an eclipse. Both of us are however driving to Cairns this time with a carload of gear so for once, neither of us have to scrimp. We've organized spacious accommodation with car parking right next to the apartments so we have space to store the gear during the week when we are not using it and it's easy to load and unload the cars.
One trick I use to minimize gear to pack when flying is to do a complete setup on the lounge room floor. The suitcase or a box is on standby next to the setup. Once set up parts are transferred to the packing box as the set up is disassembled. Only parts from the set up and tools used during the assemble/ disassemble are packed and nothing else. Any contingency tools are carefully considered before inclusion. I carry one small 100mm shift spanner and I even went to the extent of filing out my own spanner from aluminium for one larger nut on my mount.
Flying to Tatakoto for the 2010 eclipse, we were warned we had strict limits of 3kg hand luggage and 20kg checked. We were flying in smallish 40 seat planes landing on short airstrips. The cabins had small overhead luggage holds for carry on. The above prep technique kept me under these limits. All this may sound pedantic but it adds up to kilograms in the long run. Since 2001, I've worked at reducing my check in baggage from 30kg to 20kg without transferring weight to carry on. My current setup has more functionality than the much heavier gear I hauled and paid excess baggage fees on in 1999, 2001 and 2006. Of course going by car this time - all bets are off
!
Joe