Baby's First Airplane Ride

We took advantage of the beautiful weather this weekend to take Anthony on his first airplane ride. We weren't sure how he would do, so our goal was to actually get him off the ground, with a secondary goal of going to Watsonville (10 minutes away by plane) for lunch.

One of the main unknowns was how he would handle wearing a headset. Turns out, he did just fine with it, even though it makes me think "Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi". He's not wearing an airplane headset, though. These Peltor earmuffs are much lighter with better sound-proofing. The downside, of course, is that they don't have a microphone and he can't really hear us talking to him. When he gets bigger we'll get him a real airplane headset. Anthony didn't seem to mind wearing his headset at all!

The other issue we were worried about was his ears on landing. (Everyone worries about take-off, but eustachian tubes are a one-way valve and should be fine in that direction.) I had a bottle and pacifier ready and neither were needed. Of course, we did only go up to 3500 feet.

As expected, the vibration pretty much knocked him out.

I'm not worried about taking the Bonanza down to visit my parents in Southern California anymore, I'm pretty sure he'll be great. Heck, it may well be better than flying commercial!

And on a fashion note: he is wearing his airplane duds today, of course! His bib says "Pilot in Training".