Thanks for the responses everyone. I'm waiting on my noise level monitor to arrive from Amazon so I can find out at least the dB reading in the helicopter. Then will consult a pediatrician as to damaging noise levels. I'm still determined to take her flying, but really only once she gets better at wearing her headsets. I'm able to put my car seat in the back, and also bought this for when she is slightly older:
https://www.amsafe.com/kidsflysafe-com/.
I still don't buy that private helicopters are more dangerous that cars. I'll make some assumptions, but the numbers are so grossly in favor of helicopters that it doesn't much matter how accurate the couple assumptions are.
- The fatal car accident rate is about 40,000 deaths per 100,000,000 miles driven.
- Let's assume that the average speed is 40 miles per hour.
- This means there are about 40,000 deaths for every 2,500,000 hours driven, or 1,600 deaths per 100,000 hours driven.
- The fatality rate of all helicopters is 0.72 fatalities per 100,000 hours flown.
- Private helicopters account for 3% of flight hours, but 25% of the accidents.
- Just to lay the math out, 25% of the fatalities is 0.18 and 3% of the flight hours is 3,000 hours.
- This means that the fatality rate of private helicopters is 6 per 100,000 hours flown.
This ignores the fact that helicopters travel at higher speeds on average than cars (for private helicopters). If you adjust for that, it's even more in favor of private helicopters vs cars.
The most dangerous part about me taking my daughter flying is the fact that I have to drive her to the airport first.