Opinions on http://www.kidsflysaf...

What are all your opinions on this product? Is it as good as a carseat? Sorry if this message has been answered previously but I never seem to find much thru the search options and my 21 month old won't leave me alone for long enough to really search.
Thanks

I assume you're talking about http://www.kidsflysafe.com/ which is the website for the CARES system. The website did not come through completely in the subject line. I have no experience with it, so I'll leave that to others, but I just wanted to clarify...

PS Here's a thread on it

http://www.car-seat.org/showthread.php?t=50677&highlight=CARES

It's great - works just how it should. Let's be honest, if the plane is going down, there might not be any restraint that can really protect - but this is more about turbulance than anything else. A plane can drop suddenly in severe turbulance - which a lap baby would fly up and hit the ceiling. This keeps them put. Prevents falling.

Now - it's great for the right situation - that would be 1. shorter plane rides where sleep is not expected 2. You have a carseat already at your destination - and you don't 'check' your seat or rent one... safer to just bring your own seat on the plane if it's faa approved.

I bought 2 for my trip to FL because I was traveling by myself, and we had carseats already at our destination. My kids did well in them, but for my 5 year old, he probably would have been ok sitting with just the lap belt because it fit him fine and he stayed put. I came home and sold them on ebay for like $70 each... which is just silly... since they are $75 new... but that's ebay. So if you do buy them, you can totally resell them pretty close to what you purchase them for.

I really wish planes just supplied them for kids when you purchase a kids seat... THAT would be great.

capeKO71 said:

It's great - works just how it should. Let's be honest, if the plane is going down, there might not be any restraint that can really protect

Click to expand...

Actually, the majority of plane crashes *are* survivable.

Plus a lot of emergencies are runway emergencies that mimic car crashes, just at 150 mph instead of 30 mph (the threshold for a "serious" collision, and at what speed crash tests are done). The CARES harness does not have a crotch strap, so submarining is an issue. It pulls the seatbelt's buckle right on the child's abdomen, not across their hips. It barely offers any side impact protection.

The buckle and the lack of a crotch strap are what worry me the most. The buckle is ridiculously easy to open. Everyone knows this. Ten months old can open it. So leaving a child with it right there to play with may be disastrous. Plus the CARES harness pulls it up onto the abdomen where there are no bones to protect the internal organs. And it's so big it takes up nearly the full abdomen on a small child. Any EMT will tell you (I was one for years) that children can go from upright and walking and talking to dead in three minutes from internal injuries. And you can't tell looking at them if they're bleeding out. Any child who is suspected of having internal injuries is treated as if they are at death's door. So putting a buckle right there that is so big is just asking for trouble, even from a relatively minor crash (it would take more than braking hard, but anything beyond that would worry me). If the buckle was on the side it would be better, though still very easy to open.

Plus it's rated from 22-44 pounds. Kids should rear face on the plane just like they do in a car, so to 35 pounds. See above about mimicing auto crashes but at five times the speed. So that leaves kids from 35-44 pounds to use it. They may not fit in the plane's belt. Piper's tiny hips don't. And a lot of kids that weight don't have the maturity to not play with the buckle. And probably 95% of them at least don't have the torso height to put the buckle low on their hips.

Let's say you have a tall and thin child. Someone who needs something in the car and could benefit from a bit more on a plane. Someone who is older and understands the ramifications of playing with the belt. Someone who has hips big enough to not allow a lot of lateral motion. In other words, about 2% of the population.

Wendy