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Carrying a third (little) person in a 9A

S

Steve Brown

Well Known Member
I've been reconsidering installing a car seat in the cargo area of my airplane. It would be nice to be able to carry one of the grandchildren in the back with the wife in the front.

I guess for frontal crash protection the seat could be secured in a way similar to the shoulder harnesses.

However, I'm worried about cargo area deformation that could injure (kill) or trap them in the airplane. Forces could be frontal, bottom, or rollover

This is a gruesome request, but if anyone has pictures or links to post crash RV's please post them in this thread or link to them.

Also, if anyone else has done this I would like to hear about it and if possible post pictures of how you installed it.
 
Steve,

Been there done that and posted about it.

Check out the last entry on this page of my web site for the anchors.

Finding a child seat that fits in the baggage compartment was a challange.

This Cosco baby seat worked out well. It fits and is light.

For hearing protection, Peltor makes baby earmuffs: http://earplugstore.stores.yahoo.net/peltorkidearmuffs.html. For $19 bucks, you can’t go wrong.

PS. You can see the little guy in the background of my siggy picture.
 
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Absolute minimum 50Gs

Thanks for that post Bill.

My 4th and youngest grandchild was just born on Monday. She's under 7 pounds so I would say your anchor system has a decent chance of holding in a survivable accident.

My 1st is 5yrs and with seat would be in the neighborhood of 50 pounds. So I think the anchoring would need to be similar to my shoulder harnesses.

Here is a link to an interesting article:
http://ftp.rta.nato.int/public/PubFullText/RTO/EN/RTO-EN-HFM-113/EN-HFM-113-06.pdf

the graphs on pages 7 & 8 suggest that the restraint system to withstand a minimum 50G event. I would multiply that by 2x for some margin.

for my new granddaughter that's only 700 lbs, but for my grandson its 5000 lbs. I don't know if the attachment scheme you are using could withstand that. Maybe it would.

I guess this is the dark side of aviation. Just taking the kids up in the plane at all carries risks. We may all get killed no matter the restraint system. Where I put the risk tolerance threshold is that it is unacceptable that I live and they don't. Of course, there is no way of guaranteeing the outcome but that's where I put the planning bar.

The flip side of that is that I'm taking him up now in the copilot seat with a child seat. Those systems are not designed to work together so I may be deluding myself into thinking its safer than some reasonably well thought out rigging in the cargo area.

Anyway, I can't just dangle a seat from a cable. So in any case your scheme looks like a good way to hold the seat in place, even if it is not the primary accident restraint connection.

However, my most nagging concern is what happens to the shape of the baggage compartment during a crash. That could potentially turn an easily survivable crash into a fatal one.

Good child seats do offer a degree of wrap around protection from intrusion so I'm going to do some searching for one that seems to maximize that.
 
Steve Brown said:
Thanks for that post Bill.

My 4th and youngest grandchild was just born on Monday. She's under 7 pounds so I would say your anchor system has a decent chance of holding in a survivable accident.

My 1st is 5yrs and with seat would be in the neighborhood of 50 pounds. So I think the anchoring would need to be similar to my shoulder harnesses.

Here is a link to an interesting article:
http://ftp.rta.nato.int/public/PubFullText/RTO/EN/RTO-EN-HFM-113/EN-HFM-113-06.pdf

the graphs on pages 7 & 8 suggest that the restraint system to withstand a minimum 50G event. I would multiply that by 2x for some margin.

for my new granddaughter that's only 700 lbs, but for my grandson its 5000 lbs. I don't know if the attachment scheme you are using could withstand that. Maybe it would.

I guess this is the dark side of aviation. Just taking the kids up in the plane at all carries risks. We may all get killed no matter the restraint system. Where I put the risk tolerance threshold is that it is unacceptable that I live and they don't. Of course, there is no way of guaranteeing the outcome but that's where I put the planning bar.

The flip side of that is that I'm taking him up now in the copilot seat with a child seat. Those systems are not designed to work together so I may be deluding myself into thinking its safer than some reasonably well thought out rigging in the cargo area.

Anyway, I can't just dangle a seat from a cable. So in any case your scheme looks like a good way to hold the seat in place, even if it is not the primary accident restraint connection.

However, my most nagging concern is what happens to the shape of the baggage compartment during a crash. That could potentially turn an easily survivable crash into a fatal one.

Good child seats do offer a degree of wrap around protection from intrusion so I'm going to do some searching for one that seems to maximize that.
Click to expand...

Just keep in mind the CG requirements, as you're using the lighter Catto prop.

L.Adamson -- RV6A
 
Don't forget the insurance equation..Not saying don't do it..But check with your broker first

Frank
 
Steve Brown said:
Thanks for that post Bill.

My 4th and youngest grandchild was just born on Monday. She's under 7 pounds so I would say your anchor system has a decent chance of holding in a survivable accident.

My 1st is 5yrs and with seat would be in the neighborhood of 50 pounds. So I think the anchoring would need to be similar to my shoulder harnesses...
Click to expand...
I suspect the strength of those anchors would be good to around 50 lbs, +/-. (Four #10 screws, two per side.) The floor will deform, slowing down the child, before they pull out. I haven't done those calc's since engineering school and couldn't locate a pull strength number for the rivnuts. Anyone?

At some point, we just felt that no accident was going to be survivable, especially in a forward facing car seat. His little neck would just snap. That said, we still wanted him forward facing so my wife could tend to his needs. Putting him in sideways presented a whole bunch of other problems, so forward facing it is.

I looked at tying him into the shoulder harness tie downs and run extra cables through the aft bulkhead but that just became more and more complex.

Beyond 50 pounds and we need another airplane. (Bearhawk maybe?)
 
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frankh said:
Don't forget the insurance equation..Not saying don't do it..But check with your broker first

Frank
Click to expand...
Frank brings up a good point. Don't expect the baby to sue you but his parrents might to cover any medical costs.

In reality, all we were worried about was a rollover. Beyond that and we figured it really wouldn't matter. :(
 
Expecting an insurance increase

frankh said:
Don't forget the insurance equation..Not saying don't do it..But check with your broker first

Frank
Click to expand...

If I do this, since rates are significantly based on liability associated with passengers.

I would not consider this a "major modification" since it will not alter flight characteristics or W&B. So, I'm not sure how to make it into a 3 passenger airplane from an insurance standpoint or whether I can put it back later.

I'm going to call them once/if I work out the mechanical details.
 
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