Flying with Children

There are many thoughts and opinions on flying with children. Just like everyone else, I have my own opinions on this topic. I have two kids, a four year old and a six month old infant. Both have flown a lot with us, all over the country and seem to have loved every minute of it. Flying with children takes a little planning and preparation to make it all work out. There are several issues that need to be worked out for them so that it is safe and fun. The first one is seating.
Most car seats will fit inside an airplane, but you need to test this out before you actually attempt to go someplace. We have several car seats and I have found that one of them works better than the others because it doesn't have a wide base and it is also adjustable for angle. This allows us to strap it in the rear seat and provide a comfortable "perch" for my son to fly. Now that he is four, we have actually purchased him a booster seat and I have put him in the front passenger seat and this seems to work fairly well. You just need to make sure that the child cannot reach anything that could cause and accident, like say the fuel mixture lever or yoke! For my infant, we tried to put him in a car carrier and put it in the back seat, but he didn't like it, so we bought a chest harness and he flew on mommy's chest. Some might frown upon this, but it was the only way that my wife had total access to him. If doing this though, you need to make sure that the passenger's seat belt goes UNDER your child, so that he wouldn't get squished in an accident.

The next important thing to think about is hearing protection. This is extremely important since airplanes are very noisy. When I first son was 2-3 years old, we used some small shooting earmuffs from a sporting goods store. Although he couldn't talk to us, his ears were protected. Now that he is older he wears a set of Bose-X and has learned to only pull the mic down when he needs something. For babies, this is really hard because no one makes earphones small enough for infants. If you google flying earmuffs you will find examples of homemade solutions like winter earmuffs and wrapping gloves over their ears and covering with a hat and all sorts of stuff. We were able to get my shooting ear muffs to work, but then again he was on my wife's chest and she was able to keep his head supported. If he would have been in a car carrier, this probably wouldn't have been possible.
There are also several other tricks that can really help your infant (and wife) enjoy the trip as well. First trick is to have a bottle ready for them as soon as you start your take off roll. The sucking action on the bottle will help them keep the pressures down in their ears and make it a much more enjoyable flight for all. We also did this on descent as well. I also found that if you add "Baby Tyler on board, gradual climbs and descents required" in your remarks box of your flight plan, the controllers will assist you greatly. On several occasions we have actually been asked by ATC "How's Tyler doing?" which is pretty cool! When doing your flight planning, it is important that you stay at or below 8,000 feet. The pressures higher than this is too hard on their little ear drums and at younger ages this can be very painful for them. Normal airlines pressurize their cabins to around 8,000 feet even though they are at 30,000 feet and kids fly on airlines all the time with no issues. If you keep it at 8,000' or less, and climb or descend at 300-500' FPM they will be just fine.

Although as pilots we all love to just fly. Most pilots eat, sleep and breath flying. Kids love to fly too, but after a little while they get bored and antsy. We have found that bringing a portable DVD player or a small game system/iTouch are absolute life savers.
My son will sit and watch movies or play with his iTouch for most of the flight, which makes life much easier on mom and dad. Personally I think the iTouch is perfect because you can put App games, movies or music on it to keep them occupied for hours. Their battery life is also pretty good and they don't take up much room. My wife is also really good about bringing along small snacks. This also helps occupy time and keeps the kids happy.

The last tip on flying with children is to make them go potty just before getting on the airplane. Most of our GA aircraft don't have any kind of potty and there is just no way to relieve themselves once flying. They may feel they don't have to go, but if you don't make them go, then they will have to go about 20 minutes after take-off. When my first son was 2-3, we always just put a pull-up on him, so that if he had an accident it really wasn't going to be an issue.
Overall traveling with children is a lot of fun. If you take the time to plan and prepare for it, the entire event will be fun for everyone. Before trying a long cross country, try a short flight first to work out the bugs in your plan. Something will always pop up and if you do this, you won't mess up an important family vacation or business trip. Last summer I took my wife, toddler son and infant son all the way from Kansas City to Watertown, NY and then on to Maine and the Hamptons and then all the way back to KC. We spent some pretty long legs in the Cirrus, but because of our planning and preparation, it was a great trip for all.