Children in the cockpit...

[RDRickster]

For those of you that have kids of your own, I'm curious to know at what age they were when you first took them flying?  Obviously, it depends on a lot of factors (maturity, discipline, ability to understand and follow instructions, etc).  I have a 3.5 year old son, but I plan on waiting until he is at LEAST five years of age before taking him flying with me.

 

I've talked with a few other pilots about this, and they said that I don't have to wait that long.  I know that one pilot's son has been in the cockpit since he was two years old!  To me, even if you have perfectly behaved children, it seems too young to expose them to the risks.  Maybe I'm an overprotective parent, but it is too easy to open a door, unlatch a safety belt, or to accidently jam something into the controls (small shoe, small hand, etc).

 

In my house, we have a simple rule.  Nobody in the family is allowed to fly with any pilot that doesn't have at least 200 hours in type and the factory course (even if with parents).  This includes fixed-wing and helicopters (wifey is fixed-wing).  Now, I will take friends (not family members) up with me... but I thoroughly brief them that many accidents occur with low-time pilots with distractions in the cockpit (friends), and I am a low-time pilot.

 

Anyway, what do you think about children in the cockpit?  I want to get them exposed to aviation at an early age, but when is it too early?  Comments from those that had pilot parents are greatly appreciated.

[Guest]

Another thing to think about is their hearing. My youngest is 15 months old and I don't like him to be close to the helicopter even when we are taking off.

 

As far as how old a child is before you allow them to fly has a lot to do with the child and the parent. My oldest flew in airliners at a year old. We kept giving him food and water so he would swallow and clear his ears on climb and descent. He did great although his diaper weighed another 10 pounds when we landed in Oregon. I did see many parents on that plane though who did not give their child anything to help him/her clear their ears. They were screaming at altitude and most were probably in pain because of their ears.

 

As far as safety in the cockpit I would handle a child under 10 as a wild animal (take an attendant along). This can be your spouse, mom, older brother... My idea on this is: if your kid is old enough to be in a car then he is old enough to be in a helicopter. Cars are much more dangerous. People just don't think this as a general rule. A child could just as easily throw a toy under your brake pedal as you near a traffic jam on the interstate.

 

I would have no problem taking up my youngest son when he is 2 years old (and he has hearing protection that will fit). Most of that is because I wouldn't want to scare him. He'll be strapped into a car seat and my great wife would have watch over him if he did fly. My older boy is only 3 and a half and he would do fine in a helicopter. He knows how to follow directions very well. I bring them out to helicopters as much as I can and show them things they can touch and not touch. Even 1 year olds understand this. (On another note: teach your young ones sign language and they will be better able to communicate to you even when you think they couldn't.)

 

So in a nutshell I think any age kid that the parent thinks is safe can be put into an aircraft as long as someone is along and dedicated to watching the child. My only concern would be hearing and scaring the poor kid with the noise.

[Guest]

As a side note: I have flown infants who are weeks old in the helicopter with their parents. Granted it was an EMS call and not just for fun but the babies do great even from our 5,300 feet base down to Phoenix (around 1135 MSL).

 

...and most infants fall asleep because of the vibration and noise in the helicopters.

[RDRickster]

Good stuff... what about two-place helicopters?

[Guest]

I'd wait until your child knows what he/she can touch and what not to touch. I'm pretty sure my 3 year old would be fine flying next to me as long as I briefed him good enough and made sure he understood everything I told him.

 

I'm like you though, I'm overly protective so I wouldn't take my son if I couldn't have me wife or someone else very competent watching him while we were flying. So, I don't think I would take him up in a 22 unless I was 100 percent sure he would be fine with all the noise, motion, not touching "bad" things, and heights. What I would do is fit the carseat in the Robbie and test it really, really well on the ground before ever going up but my advice would be to get a 3 place or larger helicopter to take him in.

 

But what do I know...

 

I do have a funny story about my nephew who always wanted to fly in airplanes ever since he knew I flew. He was about 5 I think when he finally got a chance to fly with a friend of his dad's. He was very excited the night before and the morning of. He climbed into the Cessna with my brother-in-law's friend and started his first airplane ride. When the wheels left the ground he promptly fell asleep.

 

He doesn't remember much about that airplane ride. I'm hoping to take him up in the helicopter when I'm in Alaska. Hope he stays awake this time.

[yzchopper]

I have a 4.5 year old and a 2 year old, both boys. I would take Tre (4.5 yr old) but not Tye (2 yr old). Tye is still too outgoing, real curious, has to touch and grab things. He is still a little boy that is learning lots. Tre on the other hand is real patient. I will wait til Tye is close to 4 before I take him unless I'm in the 300. I could do the carseat thing but not real sure how that would turn out. I would hate to see how that would turn out in mid flight.  :oops:

 

Steve

[DesertRacer]

I took my 8 yr old son up in a R44 and he loved the heck out of it.  That is the perfect age because they are old enough to understand the rules and to be able to enjoy it.  He can't wait to get another chance to do it again.

[Eric Hunt]

It also depends on the aircraft. In an S-76 the rugrat could flick the hydraulic switch on the collective, and the RHS pilot cannot reach it to turn it back on. There are too many things a kid can touch or get his clothes caught on, and I feel that by the age of 10 they will actually obey an order not to touch anything.

 

Before that, the switches and controls look too much like the computer games they play, and temptation is too much. Boredom and curiosity are also a worry.

 

A little kid barfing on the centre console would really impress the maintenance people, assuming you recovered from the autopilot malfunction!

[RDRickster]

Eric Hunt, is it just me, or has your Avatar increase it's speed of motion?  Something about FASTER, FASTER, F-A-S-T-E-R comes to mind, for some reason.   :laugh:

 

Oh, uh... back to reality... I've decided to wait until my son is five.  He's a little over four and is already a very obedient kid, but I've decided to give it another year for many of the reasons you mentioned.

[yzchopper]

RDRickster,

    I waited until my oldest was five and he did very well. I think he would have been fine at the age of four but I was not ready yet to take him as I did not have very many flight hours. My youngest will be three at the end of Oct. and he is still not ready to go flying as he still wants to grab at stuff, and when told not to grab he has learned to be sneaky about what he is doing. Anyway good decision. :cool:

 

 Steve  ::rotorhead::

[bear tooth]

Both of my kids started flying in helicopters when still inside of their mom. Both had been on an airline flight by three weeks. They rode regularly in Astars and Jet Rangers while in car seats. Now preteens they continue to ride along whenever they can. I always had hearing protection for them and after they had words they got the briefing and get regular reminders. Being around a helicopter is just another part of life. I think helicopters are as safe as any other mode of transport. I would not take them logging or doing ag work predator contol etc. But I have flown them from Sitka to Ketchican  and helped a bear or two down the trail with them onboard. I guess my only fear is they might not want to fly them for a living. Girls by the way.  Having said all of that I have seen 10 year olds who did not want to get in when it was shut down. Follow your feelings and make it fun. Good luck

[Dean]

Im not a father but I used to take my cousin who was nearly 4 years old at the time flying with me often in the R22, He was my first passenger, He has flown with me quite often since. He was always well behaved but that is in his nature, I explained safety to him and taught him what to do if we had an accident and how to evacuate the heli even if I was still inside (This may sound a bit hard but if somthing happened and I did not survive but he did Id want him to get out) I even had a emergency with him as pax when I had to make an autorotation to the ground through a drive system failure he was about 6 years old at that time.

 

But most of the time when he was younger (4 years old) when we flew together after 20 minutes he fell asleep and didnt wake up till we landed.

 

The final thing I would say is you know your own children family members etc use your own judgement. With other peoples children (Under 5 years old) I find it normal that an adult from there family would be on board.

[GLSNightPilot]

I took my son flying, in a fixed-wing, when he was a few months old, riding in his mother's arms.  IIRC the next time was when he was in high school.  My daughter first flew when she was in elementary school, in the back.  She has actually flown with me more often than my son, who isn't that thrilled with flying, but neither has had a chance to do it often.  I can't afford to pay to fly, and the boss doesn't let us fly family all that often.  

[matador]

Children in cockpit .... it reminds me of a story.

My kids at that time (5 and 10 years old) came to visit me while on duty at the base. At that time I had a 212 that just arrived the day before from offshore work, so it had the bottle for the floats charged and floats dismounted. I put the 10 year old in my seat and said "DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING ON RED OR BLACK AND YELLOW STRIPES", I was walking around talking with my wife.... next thing I hear a big explotion and I get thrown by a hard push a couple of meters in the air and to the ground ::confused::

At the beginning I didn't know what happened, my wife came to pick me up thinking I was badly hurt and I started to think ... ::jumpfire::  went to the front seat and my son had grabbed the emergency pull handle for the floats (RED) that due to a bad procedure while taking them off had the safe wire on but the safety pin on the bottle was not in ::devil:: It could have cost a serious accident if my other kid would have been in the way of the outlet for the gas since it is at his head hight.

The younger kid went on telling everybody "My brother has tried to kill my father" ???

Very lucky I only got my elbow out of place and inmobilized for a couple of weeks ::armsup::

So watch out for kids, if you tell them don't do that...  well you know, we say around here "Curiosity killed the cat"

Buen vuelo

P.D. After that they have come to fly with me but allways under supervision of a grown up and in the back.

[RDRickster]

I'm sure it was serious at the time, but I have to say that IS pretty darn funny! :laugh:

[matador]

::bowdown::  ::dancing1finger::

It makes me very happy and think of myself as a very lucky person when I imagine how bad it could have turned out ::lost::

Buen vuelo

[helidoc]

In thinking about this question I am not sure age is always the critical issue. Since I didn't fly until later in life my kids were teenagers by the time I first took them flying. Since both of my parents were fixed wing pilots my brother and I were flying with them at around the age of 3 or so and I only rember how boring it was on those cross country trips and how figidty I got. More recently I took my son and daughter up together and had to calm my son down due to his excited discussions with his sister to the point it was distracting. So I guess my thought would be that  it depends more on how long the flight is, whether the kid can sit still and I would be cautious of how many I took up at the same time. For really young ones an attentive older person should probably be there.

[taff]

I have done sight seeing tours in the past but have allways taken out all of the controls including pedals then there is very little for them to interfear with or jam I wouldnt take any one under ten with out the duals removed they won't listen to you no matter what you say

I was flying in the states without the dual pedals removed and I had a seven year old who thought it would be funny to push the pedals as i was comming in to land not the most fun I have had in a helicopter and no he didnt listen to me   ::thanks::

[Dean]

Hi Taff when Im flying any flight which isn't instruction I take the duals out (This should be normal procedure adults or children)

 

A few years ago I was flying introduction flights (Short trial lessons) in a 206. Our budding first flight trainees had been briefed about a posative handover of the controls etc.

 

So I was flying (I did not pass the controls over at this stage)

Suddenly we had a flock of birds in our path, So the guy sitting next to me panic's grabs the CYCLIC and pulls it back, We slow down an climb.

 

So I tell him (Nicely but firmly) Don't do that and I briefed him AGAIN on the posatve hand over procedure.

 

We continue the flight, He gets to fly (Followed closely by me)

 

On the return flight to the airport we see the same flock of birds, He panic's again, Grabs the CYCLIC and pulls it back again. ::shocking::

[Dean]

Sorry Taff, I didn't say I was an adult (About 50 years old) sat next to me.

 

My point being every now and then passengers do some strange things children or adults.