Squirreled away in a shoe box somewhere, I have a 3 x 5 print (remember those?) of my then-infant son bundled into the back seat of a Cessna 172. It was his first flight, and I’m proud to have been the pilot to initiate him, even though he doesn’t remember it. I don’t have a formal record, but both he and my slightly younger daughter have since logged enough time as my passengers to easily meet the minimum total time required for a private certificate. But before that first flight, his mother and I researched what steps we could take to make it successful.
Among our many concerns were an appropriate seat and its location in the cabin, potential damage to his hearing from cockpit noise and what effect, if any, the change in pressure with altitude would have. He was much too young to clear his own ears, and infant-sized active noise-reduction products hadn’t yet been invented. The car seat we used was approved for aircraft and it fit, so putting him and it in the Skyhawk’s back seat kept his arms and legs away from anything important.
