es330td wrote:
My father has a C182 in which I have been to about 10K ft MSL. I am
currently working on my license and am considering building a Velocity
or Aerocanard, both of which have ceilings up into Class A airspace,
one as high as FL250. (Before anyone cautions me about building one
of these, I know two people with Velocities and a local builder who
has built multiple canard aircraft. I will have lots of support and
will have logged PIC time in one long before mine is built.) While I
know that oxygen is required at altitude, what is the effect of the
lower pressure on pilot and passengers? I am doing this in part for
the purpose of transporting myself and family to visit friends and
relatives and am curious about the effect on my two children,
currently 3 and 5, and whether this will make them less pleasant to
fly with.

TIA

I'd give this a lot of thought before doing it. You can of course fly an
unpressurized aircraft at altitudes requiring O2 if the aircraft is
capable and you have the correct O2 system installed, but I'd be
particularly careful with children this young. Mask feeding is dependent
on a careful fit of the mask to the face and any movement of the mask
could cause insufficient O2 flow to the user.
To be blunt, it's doable, but would require constant monitoring of
children this young.
If ity was me, I'd not consider flying at these altitudes with young
children. There are just too many possibilities for problems, and a
young child deprived of oxygen caused by moving the mask could easily be
come something you wouldn't want to deal with I'm sure.
I've flown high altitude many times in unpressurized prop fighters and
even I had a serious incident in a P51 Mustang caused by an improper O2
feed.
Be careful.

--
Dudley Henriques