This past month my wife and I had our first child. Declan Patrick was born on 3/7.

When we started getting serious about kids I decided to get serious about getting a more family friend plane. I solid the Pacer and got a great straight tail 182. Some of you may have my engine rebuild thread.

Well today was Declan's first flight. Can't tell you how much this meant to me.



The weather in Oregon was amazing as it as 90 in the valley and 80 at Gold Beach were we stopped for Fish and Chips.







It was an amazing day and a start to our families flying adventures.


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Awesome. Congrats!

Very cool! Thanks for sharing! Congrats on your son's milestone!

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Very cool:)

gptc wrote:

(thought balloon) "wow-- this flying shit is cool!"

Congrats. Get some Baby Banz though so they seal well and are effective at noise reduction for him.

Zzz wrote:Congrats. Get some Baby Banz though so they seal well and are effective at noise reduction for him.

Declan currently has these:
BEBE Muff Hearing Protection - BEST USA Certified Noise Reduction Ear Muffs, Silver, 3 months+ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017AHU938/re ... bxbVTJFP3V

Though they are still too big. Also with the ear muffs on his head is too big for the car seat so he "rode dirty" in the front pack with mom.

What are you other dads using?

gptc wrote:

Zzz wrote:Congrats. Get some Baby Banz though so they seal well and are effective at noise reduction for him.

Declan currently has these:
BEBE Muff Hearing Protection - BEST USA Certified Noise Reduction Ear Muffs, Silver, 3 months+ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017AHU938/re ... bxbVTJFP3V

Though they are still too big. Also with the ear muffs on his head is too big for the car seat so he "rode dirty" in the front pack with mom.

What are you other dads using?

Oh okay so they are purpose-built baby earmuffs. They looked so big on his little head that I thought you were using some adult ones or something...haha. On closer inspection they look much higher quality than the Baby Banz.

To be fair we haven't had our little girl up the plane yet but I have had her wear the "headset" and her sunglasses around a little to get used to them. She's at the point where she'll work her way out of stuff she doesn't like.

Nice Sean! Beautiful family!

Flynengr

Sean & ?!?

Best baby picture I have seen in years.

Should win an AV-Web or whatever front cover award.

Straight tail old enough for a stabilator (sp) ?
If I had been able to step up to another plane I had two choices.
The first was a straight tail 182 /stabilator.
The other was a round engine Fairchild F-24 with roll up windows.

Best to ya

Chris C

gptc wrote:

Zzz wrote:Congrats. Get some Baby Banz though so they seal well and are effective at noise reduction for him.

Declan currently has these:
BEBE Muff Hearing Protection - BEST USA Certified Noise Reduction Ear Muffs, Silver, 3 months+ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017AHU938/re ... bxbVTJFP3V

Though they are still too big. Also with the ear muffs on his head is too big for the car seat so he "rode dirty" in the front pack with mom.

What are you other dads using?

Those do look huge. Haha. But he'll grow into them. We use the baby banz for our daughter. She likes them so much that she wear them in the house flying her rocking plane.

Congrats on the little one, and great pictures! Great looking family.

Congrats Sean! There's nothing better than being able to take your family flying to fun destinations in your own plane.

Oregon180 wrote:Congrats Sean! There's nothing better than being able to take your family flying to fun destinations in your own plane.

Kristan I think it has to be getting close to a Oregon fly in/camp out. Maybe rally up Brent and crew? If the weather holds I will be at Toketee on Friday night for the opening day of spring turkey.

That's awesome Sean! Looking forward to seeing more of your family adventures!

Dude awesome! I can't wait....Now, just to get the plane back up!

gptc wrote:

Oregon180 wrote:Congrats Sean! There's nothing better than being able to take your family flying to fun destinations in your own plane.

Kristan I think it has to be getting close to a Oregon fly in/camp out. Maybe rally up Brent and crew? If the weather holds I will be at Toketee on Friday night for the opening day of spring turkey.

Plenty of those stupid birds running around the shop...

Agree on the utter cuteness of the picture... AV Web material for sure...

Brian

With all these kids (babies really) getting such an early start in GA flying, can you imagine future "hangar flying" around the campfire decades from now? The year is 2079, a very fit for his age Declan is at a backcountry fly-in with wife and grandkids and is asked "Declan, how long have you been flying?" Jaws drop with the answer "63 years".

Buddy and I loaded up and spent the night up at Tokketee State (3S6) for spring turkey. We were the only plane, but there had to be over 20 hunters in the immediate vicinity of the airstrip.



We hiked down to Pacific Power's diversion dam. Pretty cool.



No luck at Tokketee so we headed to Beagle (OR96) and took care of a resident bird.



Nice first overnight of the year.




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Nice looking bird. (the turkey that is)
I'm guessing it was shotgunned?
Do you have a special turkey gun with super-tight choke, maybe an aimpoint sight, etc, or do you just use the same shotgun you use for other birds?
Most western states specify shotgun, but Finn Agaard used to write about hunting turkeys in the Texas Hill Country with a 22 Hornet.