CEREBRAL PALSY STORIES: Airplane Aisle Chair Basics 101-The Fundamentals Of Disabled Air Travel

The aisles of an airplane are very narrow.  Watch out for the safety of your arms and legs!

As many of you who follow this blog know, my family and I have a passion for traveling.  Ever since I was born, we've traveled to numerous places around the world.  Sometimes these traveling adventures are road trips.  Other times they involve using air travel to get to our final destination for whatever trip we are on at a certain time.

If you've been following our latest traveling adventure, then you know that we just went on another European excursion for the 10th time to Berlin and and Munich in Germany as well as Prague in the Czech Republic.  What you may not know too much about is the process involved in getting someone with a physical disability or impairment on an airplane.

Your basic Airplane Aisle Chair.  

These chairs are small in size because they have to to be wheeled down the narrow aisles of an airplane.

One of the most common tools that airlines use when helping someone who has a physical disability onto an airplane and into their seat is what is known as an aisle chair.  Now if your assigned seat is close to the the front of the plane, then it would probably be best to let the airline employees know that you can manage to board without the use of an aisle chair if you are able to do so with assistance from your caregivers.  I should also mention for those who might be wondering just when a person with a disability or any other special needs boards an airplane, we usually are the first ones to get on the plane in the boarding process and the last ones to get off.  

If you are not assigned a seat towards the front of the plane and are given a seat in row 29 for example, then the use of an aisle chair is probably required unless an airline is nice enough to upgrade your seats closer to the front of the airplane.  It's during those times when all options for potential seat upgrades have been exhausted that people with disabilities and those they are traveling with (family members or otherwise), need to know what to expect and do while using an aisle chair when traveling by air.

To begin with one of the first things to take into account about an airplane aisle chair is just how narrow, skinny and cramped they are compared to a regular manual or power wheelchair.  The reason for this is because the aisles in an airplane are pretty narrow and cramped to begin with, so it wouldn't make sense to design any aisle chair using the specifications for a regular manual or power wheelchair.

From my own personal experience of using aisle chairs, I can tell you that it does get easier to use one the more you practice with it and the more you travel and see the world.  As an example, one of things that I started doing to practice and prepare myself for this latest trip to Europe and even as far back as our trip to Costa Rica last year was seeing how well I could fold my arms in for those tight spaces on an airplane between the arm rests of the seats and the aisle.  Based on this latest traveling adventure, I feel that I've got the arm-folding move down pat.

Another thing to consider about airplane aisle chairs is the kind of straps they use to secure you in place when boarding for your flight and where they are located on the chair itself.  Usually there are two sets of strap restraints that go across both the chest and arm area of your body and another set of restraints that go across your legs and feet.  Most aisle chairs even come equipped with arm rests on each side to give you even more of a secure feeling when heading to your seat on the plane.

Even with all the security the aisle chair restraints helps provide, it is very important that you practice with the arm folding movements I mentioned above and see how well you can do with it if your are considering traveling somewhere on an airplane because it is only going to help you in the long run when traveling by air.  Not to mention the fact that that is one of the questions the airport employees who are responsible for getting you on the airplane and to your seat will ask you before or even when boarding the plane.  Another thing that is important to keep in mind while on an aisle chair is that once you are strapped in and secured as best as possible is to stay as still as you can, keep calm and not panic if anything goes wrong because any movement you might make while on the chair will have an impact on how fast you are able to be transported off the plane.

One particular aisle chair adventure that didn't go quite as planned on our latest trip was when we had to get off our flight from Philadelphia to Dallas while heading home from Munich Germany.  Let's just say that the two gentlemen who were in charge of getting me off the plane did not know what they were doing at all.  By the time I was off the plane my body had slid almost entirely off the aisle chair.  It also didn't help that the two guys who helped me off the plane with very limited English speaking skills didn't do a good job of listening to the instructions given by my Dad who was also trying to help with the deplaning process.

It's nice to know that even with that little deplaning obstacle, my family and I made it home safe and sound once again from another successful vacation adventure.  In terms of your future travels whether you are disabled or not, I hope this post give you a little insight into another aspect of traveling with a disability that not too many people think about and may take for granted.

Tim Musick
Copyright 2016
All Rights Reserved.  

  

A Day Out: The Commemorative Air Force Museum - Camarillo, California

For years, I'd drive through this Ventura County town on my way to Santa Barbara or on my way back from San Luis Obisbo, and see a stunning Lockheed Constellation parked at the south end of Camarillo's airport from the freeway.

I vowed to take a closer look but never did. Eventually, the Connie went away but I still made it a mission to someday see the air museum here.

That day has come as I've vowed to get the family out of the house more often and do more of these day-long adventures.

Camarillo sits just over the hill from the mega-sprawl of Los Angeles. A sometimes hair-raising descent over the Canejo Grade from Thousand oaks deposits you here. This city, Oxnard, and Ventura are making their own little sprawl but miles of farmland still surround the trio of cities.

It's also become home to refugees of the giant congested city to the south with thousands of residents commuting daily via their cars, Metrolink's railroad, or buses to their jobs in L.A. The telltale sign is the congested traffic coming down the grade this morning.

We crawl our way across town on the 101, making our way over to the airport. It's a former Air Force base so old, military style buildings dot the grounds. A couple of schools and the Sheriff's facility have moved into some, airport support services occupy the others.

A bright yellow Huey helicopter, with the signature 'whoop whoop' of the rotors eases it's way down to it's pad at the Sheriff's Search and Rescue facility while we look for the museum.  It's just past the deputies' landing pad.

The docent manning the front counter lets us know that half of the planes are missing today because they are appearing at an air show in El Centro. To compensate, he only charges us half price (usual donation is $10 to get in, today it's $5).

Before setting out onto the tarmac, we browse the interior with displays of weapons, bomb sights, uniforms, and even this piece of the 'Enola Gay,' autographed by the crew.

A couple of planes are inside the hangar with us, a trainer covered with a tarp and this P-51 Mustang that was getting a new engine installed.

We head outside and start looking at some of the craft when a docent comes up and asks us "where's George?"

I let him know that I don't know, and don't even know who George is. He tells us that we must be escorted at all times on the tarmac. No one told us but he goes off to get George, another docent.

Once George shows up, with a couple of German tourists in tow, we get a tour of the tarmac. There's a C-47 (the military version of the DC-3) that saw service in WW2 and as a gunship in Vietnam and a Huey that was also a gunship in Vietnam (pic at the top of this post).

The 'China Doll', a C-46 transport that was built right at the end of the war so it saw no military service but planes of this type flew resupply missions over the Himalayas.

In a hangar next door, George shows us a B-25 undergoing restoration by another group unaffiliated with the museum.

With several planes in the collection gone...including one of the few remaining true Japanese Zeros left in the world...it's a fairly short visit.  We're on our way but not before I snap a picture of this docent-owned classic Chevy Bel Air (by the way, the docent told me the Lockheed Connie that used to be there is now at the Yanks Air Museum in Chino).

Once outside the gates of the airport, we're back in the middle of prime Ventura County strawberry country. Some of the best strawberries in the world come from this region.

A small farm stand sits in a field across from the airport gate, we'll pick up some berries here. They were delicious and most didn't make it all the way home.

We also picked up a bag of local oranges.

Over the hill in Thousand Oaks, we go to the local mall to have dinner at Stacked.  This is a new chain, about half a dozen locations at the moment, started by Paul Motenko and Jerry Hennessy.

We're big fans of this pair, going way back to their days of buying up another small local chain, BJ's, which they turned into a nationwide powerhouse.

Paul and Jerry were bought out and forced out of their positions at BJs and, as soon as their no-compete clause expired, they were back at it again with Stacked.

You can order via an iPad at your table...or you can order via a server the old fashioned way...and customize your food to your preference, the price changing on the iPad to reflect additions or subtractions to your entree.

Tim and I had bacon cheeseburgers...mine with onion straws, his without...and Letty opted for the more healthy choice of this salad.

One more stop in Simi Valley for a trip to Costco for groceries and gas where we spotted this beauty...a bright yellow 57 Chevy to go with the red and white version we saw at the airport.

Darryl Musick
Copyright 2017 - All Rights Reserved