When Travis asked me for more information about the first flight of my then 9 month old daughter, I was happy to provide him additional tips. I also asked him to give me some feedback with his own experience. He sent that today, including a nice video. Here is what he wrote about this flight:

”I finally had the chance to take my son flying for the first time. He was 9 weeks and 5 days at the time of the flight. I took him up for 1 hour in a Diamond DA40-180/G. My wife and a friend went as well. We were able to use our rear facing car seat in the plane, it actually fit really well. our son seemed to have no issues with the flight and slept almost the entire time.

As you’ll see in the video, we had him wear a child size Peltor headset. I payed particular attention to my descent rates, keeping them at or below 500fpm, and we saw no signs of discomfort from him.

Overall, he reacted to the plane the same way his does to a car.”

When looking at the video, I was a bit surprised to see that he installed the seat facing backwards. When we flew with our daughter, the seat was installed facing forward. Different types of seats exist, depending of baby’s age. Here’s the answer from Travis on this topic.

”I debated whether to go forward or backwards on the car seat. My preference would be to have him face forward so I could see him, but I went with backwards just because that is what is recommended at his age in a car. I don’t have a strong opinion on which is safer. I guess in the unlikely event of a crash it would really depend on how the plane ultimately stopped. That would be hard to predict so I will probably have him face forward in the future.”

Note the sun protection. This is a superb idea – we did not tought of that, and had to improvise something with a jacket.

I want to warmly thank Travis for this feed-back and for the video. If you also have things you want to share, don’t hesitate to contact me.