Infant Aviators....??

Phil · #1 05-23-2010, 06:52 PM

Today Landon turned 4 weeks old and Sara and I both are itching to get up in the air and go somewhere. We're looking for July 4th events to fly to and even a few local hops to get the baby used to being in the air and dealing with the noise.

Thanks to a tip by Bill Repucci, we picked up a pair of these.

For those of you who have flown with infants, what's been your experience? Has the noise and motion helped keep them to sleep? What about climbs and descents - have you had success with a bottle or pacifier? How early did you start flying and how many hours were your trips/legs?

As we put together our plans, you're experience with babies in the backseat might help provide some guidance.

Thanks,
Phil

vmirv8bldr · #2 05-23-2010, 07:45 PM

Great Pics! I bought the same outfit for my daughter. Her nursery theme is elephants, and when I saw the elephant flying the airplane, I couldn't pass it up. Not the most girly colors, but I'll figure out how to make it work!

szicree · #3 05-23-2010, 08:08 PM

My wife, a speech/language pathologist, has suggested you consult a pediatrician or a pediatric audiologist before exposing your baby to such loud noises. I've got a 6 month old myself and know how fun it is to have the kid participate, but their little ears are super delicate. Even a mild hearing loss now could cause serious problem with language development.

TSwezey · #4 05-23-2010, 08:11 PM

My friend started flying his daughter at two weeks old. She just turned six months and she has over 50 hours logged! I know they generally stay around 6,000' and come down at about 200-300 fpm. I will check what they do for ear protection.

GTWreck · #5 05-23-2010, 08:42 PM

I took my daughter for her first ride at just under 2 years. My son, I took him up at 11 months.

I used to fly one or the other down to grandmas house fairly often. I would time the flights to be around nap time. On most trips, they would be asleep 5 minutes after takeoff and would sleep for the whole hour flight.

Under 3 years, I would always carry a sippy cup for the kids. If they ever had trouble with decents, I would get them to drink from it, and it would usually clear them.

One warning... never fly them when they're sick or has a snotty nose. It makes it difficult for them to clear their ears. Not a pleasant experience for either of us.

-Aaron

aturner · #6 05-23-2010, 09:05 PM

Peltor makes ear muffs for kids:

This photo above was taken when the twins were 16 months, but we flew them across the country for the first time when they were four months old. Long legs, long days, high altitudes, they handled it all very well. It was really not any more difficult than anything else with twins, except that we had a hard time keeping the hearing protection on them at that age.

Our airplane is on the quiet side, but I worried about the noise anyways. The kids enjoy wearing the hearing protectors now.

engineerorange · #7 05-23-2010, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vmirv8bldr

Great Pics! I bought the same outfit for my daughter. Her nursery theme is elephants, and when I saw the elephant flying the airplane, I couldn't pass it up. Not the most girly colors, but I'll figure out how to make it work!

Hey Bart, is V gonna let you do a photo shoot like that with Dee?
Awesome pictures Phil!

gvouga · #8 05-24-2010, 03:50 PM

We took my son up for his first RV flight on Friday. He's 5 months old. I'm no expert on the picture posting, but here goes...

http://lh6.ggpht.com/__rnx4whmvlw/S_...%205-21-10.jpg

I was surprised how well he did. He squinted a little with the sun, but the noise didn't seem to bother him a bit. He also didn't seem to mind the earmuffs. This was just a test flight close to the airport. We didn't get above 1500 AGL.

Greg
RV-7A

Sig600 · #9 05-24-2010, 05:20 PM

Your question reminded me of a story.

I was a human powered avgas installer when I was in high school back when Destin FL was still known as 81J.

A guy landed in his C-210 with his wife and 2 young kids. Curious I asked him how his kids took to the noise and long flights (they frequented down from Iowa). His words to me were "they're great! Once we get up to cruise they go right to sleep!" When I asked, and found out he was frequently cruising up between 12-15K' I had to ask if he was sure his kids weren't passing out from hypoxia. He got this quizzical look on his face and asked me what I meant. I almost fell off the ladder while I was pumping gas in his plane.

Working as a ramp rat there gave me scarey insight into some othe the individuals out there flying airplanes.

In my next installment of "Stupid people and planes", I'll tell you all about the story of the twin cessna (C340 I think) that landed with the weather at 300 and 1/2, back when all we had was an NDB approach and the mins were 600+' and 1-1.5nm. He took 138.8 gallons. TOTAL capacity was 140.

rvbuilder2002 · #10 05-24-2010, 11:46 PM

Ok, I can't resist adding my own story. In 1995 we had the very first 3 seat RV as far as I know. My son started flying in it when he was about 15 months old.

Here is my airplane loving son (I kid you not, airplane was the first word he said) at the Arlington Fly-in 1996, preflighting our RV-6A. Age - 20 months

Almost 15 years later. Different airplane, different seat, still loves to fly.

He is making his first ever trip to OSH with me this year. We have come a long way, my how time fly's.

Phil, take lots of pictures and video, it will seem like a blink of an eye and he will be asking to borrow the airplane keys.