cranky, if the plane scenario is the extent to which the presence of your young child annoys others, then they should thank you. they should thank you for not bringing him to the movies (or removing him when he cries), thank you for not letting him run wild in restaurants (when he’s old enough), thank you for keeping a close eye on him at the pool. i know i would gladly give up my 4 inches of recline on one plane flight if i knew how unobtrusive the kid normally is.
A quick check of most airlines’ websites that contained policies about travelling with small children stated that child safety seats are allowed if they are FAA-approved. The only restriction on them is that they cannot be used in exit rows.
Most airlines will let children under 2 fly for free.
You cannot use booster seats.
Also, in my experience, they may only be used in window seats, so as not to impede the exit of another passenger. This is why moving the car seat to accomodate the complaining passenger is rarely an option.
One should point out that, although the person in front of the car seat may not be able to recline, the person behind the car seat is guaranteed that the seat in front of them will not be reclining. So I’d say the karmic balance is maintained :).
I agree with others that it is rude to recline your seat when there’s someone behind you. Invoking the Golden Rule for myself, I never recline if someone is behind me: Because my knees nearly touch the seat ahead of me when it is in the full upright position, if the person ahead leans back, I am simply in agony for the length of the flight. I won’t subject others to the same discomfort.
One more thing…Someone asked why forward facing car seats prevent the seat in front from reclining. It’s not the seat, it’s the child’s legs, which are rarely long enough to be able to bend at the knee when in the car seat. Of course, if you’d enjoy my son kicking the back of your seat, go ahead and recline…
Rick, whose almost-5 year old doesn’t use a car seat on planes anymore, but whose 2 year old still does
Since I am interested in self-promotion as the next guy, let me point out that I started a Pit Rant on a similar subject not long ago.
It’s pretty good. 
If your interested…
Kinsey
Jeez! I hope not! I have no idea where I read the article but the argument against mandatory baby seats on planes goes something like this:
Use of a baby seat requires its own seat. Airlines will NOT give those away for free. Parents who would otherwise keep the child on their lap will now have to purchase another ticket. Not everybody is in Cranky’s position to afford another airline ticket for their child. Those people, instead of flying, might now take a car trip instead. Automobile accidents are significantly more likely than an air accident. Hence, such a rule would almost certainly increase injury/fatality of children.
CurtC
I also have never heard stats on injuries to children because an adult was holding them on a plane as opposed to having them strapped in. I will say, however, that holding your child securely is an illusion. The calculation is simple…F=MA (or Force=Mass*Acceleration). It doesn’t take all that much acceleration to turn your child from a 15 pound weight in your arms to a 2,000 pound weight. Quite simply, with enough of an acceleration, your child can fly out of your arms so easily you’d think you were made of tissue paper. Besides, can you say you really hold the child tightly ALL of the time on a 3 hour flight? My guess is that for a good portion of the flight the child is loosely held. Lose altitude at the wrong moment and the kid will be up on the ceiling.
As for me and reclining seats I’m a fairly slim and not so tall person (5’7"). People reclining in front of me is no problem. I also rarely recline my seat more than just a little. Usually just enough so I can prop my pillow against the edge of the seat next to me (assuming someone I know is sitting there). That said I do make a distinction between a 6’2" man/woman who can’t shorten his/her thigh bone and someone restricting my freedom to make their life easier.
I think it’s great Cranky IS trying to be considerate and flying with children is tough (I don’t have my own but I’ve done it with my niece and nephew). I also think some good ideas have been tossed out. And honestly Cranky, if you were behind me and did this I might toss one dirty look your way but otherwise I’d just live with it. I generally prefer sitting upright anyway unless I want a nap then, as I said, I recline the seat maybe an inch or two so all-in-all I personally wouldn’t be too put out.
HUZZAH HUZZAH for the tall men who suffer. RIGHT ON- me too. I was burned once, by an inconsiderate feeb who slammed back her seat- while the hot tea just served to me was sitting on my tray table. That was VERY unpleasant, all around.
Now, to Cranky. As much as Flight Attendants LOVE to enforce the myriad FAA rules regarding what you can SAY, DO or INFER on an airplane ( no jokes about bombs, etc), they had damned well never deny you the use of a device that is sanctioned by that same FAA. I’d remind that employee that safety comes before ANY Passenger comfort/displeasure issues, and if they insist that Cranky NOT use her FAA-Approved seat, they are actually not only violating FAA Guidelines, but taking a step to endanger the welfare of a minor ( Felony, in most states ). It all depends on how far you want to push it. Since you have experienced this problem enought to write about it, Cranky, I’d suggest telling your ticket counter agent, the next time out, that the word needs to be passed along to the flight crew that you are going to be using this device.
No flight attendant wants to land, and find out that they’ve just had a formal charge launched against them for A) an FAA rule violation, and B) Child endangerment. They’ll shut up fast enough.
And, another nod of agreement, you pay for transportation. You do NOT earn the right to recline. You wanna recline while you eat? Go to a Passover Seder 
Cartooniverse
It takes about 130 g’s, at which point a seat belt would not help the situation anyway.
The airframe couldn’t take more than about two negative g’s, so a 20 pound kid would weigh (minus) 40 pounds in an extreme turbulence event. Turbulence strong enough to cause loose objects (such as unbelted passengers) to hit the ceiling are rare enough that they make national news, and I think I was on guard nearly 100% of the time even for such an outstandingly unlikely event. I’d be more worried about the beverage cart landing on him than of him hitting the ceiling, and a car seat wouldn’t help that.
Out of all the things that concern me about my kid’s safety, carrying him in my lap didn’t even register on the radar.
Ok, sweetie…time for me to give you something useful, for a change.
I have some experience here, and I have yet to strap a car seat into an airplane that didn’t leave plenty of room for the seat in front to recline fully, comfortably, and still give my precious ones plenty of room. Now, we may have been using a different seat than what you guys are using, but it was plenty bulky nonetheless - A Century 5000, as I recall.
As for “Flight Attendant Attitude”…well, I’d just fire off a letter to the airline’s customer relations department to tell them all about how their employees are making the skies ever so friendly.
Cranky:
I’m one of those child-hater and I make no apologies about it.
Boy would I be pissssssssssed if your kid’s seat did not allow me to recline in an otherwise-reclineable seat. As for all of you who claim “the ticket just buys you the transportation,” keep that sentiment in mind while I eat your meal – mine wasn’t quite filling enough, you know – and watch the movie in the seat in front of you wearing my Carmen Miranda hat.
Look, Cranky, you already KNOW the answer to your dilemma because you hinted at it in your OP, but hoped you could slip it by without anyone calling you on it.
You said, “It also means that we take up the whole row SO CHILD HATERS DON’T GET STUCK SITTING BY HIM.” [emphasis added]
No, you and hubby take up the whole row because one of YOU don’t want to sit in the seat in front of your baby, thereby solving this problem before it even starts. If you want/need to sit next to your kid, fine; no reason Dad needs to sit next to you – put HIM in the non-reclining seat in front of Junior.
Look, you obviously realize that you’re risking inconveniencing others with your child seat; you also sound like you wish it were not so. Okay, so inconvenience YOURSELF and don’t all sit together. Problem solved.
No, I’m not a “child hater”, but stuyguy has an idea there. If the person who cannot recline their chair in front of you shoots you a look, offer to exchange seats. That way, no room for them to bitch. Either they’ll take you up on your offer, or shut up already.
As far as the stewardesses giving you flak, screw 'em. You’re following the regulations.
Jeff_42, it was a paper written by the Cato Institute, and very interesting. Also findable on the web, altho I don’t have the URL handy.
LOVED the airline changing table thread. Morgan made me laugh out loud.
And as for the suggestion about sitting in the seat ahead? It’s a great one–but screw giving my husband the privelege of escaping child care. That’d be ME taking that seat. I’d like to know what airline y’all are travelling on where you have that much leeway to get the exact seat configuration you want like that. It’s all I can do to get us two seats together sometimes, much less a window-aisle with a window seat in the row immediately ahead.
Stuyguy, that is a damned fetching Carmen Miranda hat, and don’t let anyone tell you different! you wear it well.
**CurtC[/c]
You sure on that math? I can’t do the math myself otherwise I’d check it. It’s not multiplying and dividing that stumps me it’s the terms. Mass in pounds (kilograms?) combined with acceleration which has a time and distance component (or something else?) equals what? Newtons? Ergs? Horsepower? I have no idea…it’s these things that always tripped me up in highschool…making sure all the terms were meaningfully related.
I will say I got my example from an old commercial for child seats that stuck in my head. Basically they showed what the effect of a moderate accident (maybe 25 or 30 mph to zero) had on the child. The commercial floated the F=MA calculation around and showed that the child turned into a 2,000 pound weight pulling against the adults arm. Needless to say no one can resist that and the child would effectively launch out the window.
I realize a car accident is a far cry from air turbulence. I also don’t remember the commercial clearly enough to know if the child weighed 30 pounds or 15 pounds (still a small child though). However, I think the lesson is still there. Recalculate to turn a 20 pound child into a 200 pound weight. That’s heavy enough to overpower many adults especially if they are caught by surprise (and when isn’t it a surprise).
Another thing, I believe airframes on modern jets can easily withstand over -2 G’s. Watching a bit on the TWA flight that crashed off New York a few years back told of a harrowing last three+ minutes (yes…the people had that long to come to terms with what was happening shudder). Eventually the wings tore off as the plane plummeted but even with other airframe damage the wings stayed on for most of the flight. Maybe tearing off in the last 30 seconds when the plane was really in its final death-dive. I’m sure the plane was far beyond 2 G’s at that point.
Which brings me to my final point. In the end I agree with CurtC that a lot of this just isn’t worth worrying about too much. If you list all of the bad things a plane can go through from least (minor turbulence) to worst (ala the TWA flight mentioned above) I would think there is a very small slice that would cause injury to unwary passengers before moving on to outright disaster where nothing can help you.
But hey, what’s wrong with a little morbid speculation?
Sorry about all the bold. I wasn’t trying to stress anything THAT much :).
…then I’ll leave you all alone (maybe).
CurtC mentioned that at 130 G’s a seatbelt wouldn’t help you. The commercial I mentioned in the post above would definitely suggest a seatbelt WOULD help you. In the accident they described the child turned into a 2,000 pound weight. How much would an adult weigh in that situation? 10,000 pounds or thereabouts in what they setup as a moderate accident? Whatever the case seatbelts clearly restrain even adults in this situation. While I don’t know the upper limit on seatbelt strength it has to be FAR beyond what we’re talking about here so I think it’s safe to say they would help.
I am not angry at you here, stuyguy, but I get really, really angry whenever I think about this, so look out:
The airlines never freaking ever get my food right. They say, right on the ticket, that I can order Kosher meals. Then they screw it up close to half the time. I often have nothing at all to eat on flights. I have flown many times on planes that were full to capacity and found myself in a broken seat. Never mind reclining - how about a seat that leaks foam filling? Or one that is WET? :mad: What about the time that my seat was so broken that all it did was recline - you couldn’t keep it upright unless you had abs of steel.
I am not one who is too timid to complain and airlines have never, ever, ever given me anything more than an apology.
The terms of the contract are simple: all that the ticket price gets you is thier “best effort” to get you from point A to point B within 24 hours of the ticket-time you purchased.
CurtC’s calculations are right. It does take a 130 g acceleration to turn a 15 pound baby into what would feel like a 2,000 pound baby.
F = MA
M = 15 pounds = 6.75 kg
A = 130 g = 1276 m/(ss)
F = 6.75 * 1276 = 8617 Newton
A force of 8617 Newton would feel like 878 kg or 2,000 pound.
I agree with CurtC that at 130 g’s acceleration or deacceleration, whether or not you are wearing a seat belt is a moot point. A seatbelt may be able to absorb the type of fources experienced at 130 g without breaking, but you (and the airplane) will not.
As for the car crash situation, I have a vague recollection that 35 g is what you may experience at a 35 mph car crash into an immovable object, but I may be totally off on this one. (Anyone with real data? How fast would the car come to a complete stop?) I don’t see how you would ever end up at 130 g, though, so a 15 pound baby would probably never end up feeling like 2,000 pound. Not that the 500 pound baby you would find yourself with at a 35 g crash would be any easier to hold on to, though.
So, it seems to me that you would always want to strap in your baby (and yourself, for that matter). Admittedly, you may not survive a typical airplane crash. But if the airplane crashes in a somewhat controlled fashion, and the airplane then deaccelerates on the ground at more than say 10 g, a seatbelt should increase the baby’s chance of survival as compared to if you were holding the baby in your arms.
Jeff_42,
The reason that g’s are often used for these things is that it makes the calculations we’re talking about simple. If something normally weighs 20 pounds, and you subject it to two g’s, it would then weigh 40 pounds. I got 130 g’s by dividing 2000 pounds by 15 pounds.
NASA has famous test pictures of a man on a rocket sled, which hit standing water in order to test the effects of high g forces. He hit 40 g’s, and I don’t think he was injured, but he was also presumably a healthy muscular guy. Any forces strong enough to turn a lap child into 2000 pounds would surely be fatal, even if belted with a three-point harness.
But long before you got to 40 g’s in an airplane, it would self-destruct. The small plane I flew when I took flying lessons 22 years ago was rated for 4 positive g’s and 1.5 negative. That’s where I got the approximate number of minus two that I used for the airliner, and this would be near worst-case for something that didn’t crash the plane.
First of all, sorry about mixing up the quotes.
Also, after I posted my reply, I finally got the bright idea to check my claim that a 130 g acceleration would not be survivable. Well, for extremely brief periods of time (milliseconds), over 1,000 g accelerations can be experienced by a human body without permament damage. (This could happen in catapult ejection at onset.) Extended periods (seconds) of acceleration of more than 100 g’s do not seem survivable, though.
http://ttb.eng.wayne.edu/~cavanau/7160-2000scd.html
Well, I guess I should learn to check some sources before making blanket statements…
The conclusion of my post still holds, though. Wear your seat belt and strap in the baby–it may not make a difference at 130 g, but in a controlled crash it could.
I was in that seat!!! The old woman behind me was pissed off. I would sit it up and then it would slowly settle back she kept hitting the seat an kicking it, cussing at me and called the flight attendant on me 3 times. What was i to do?