AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2021 - 99

P&E DOGFIGHT
Should you fly with your dog? Let the fur fly!

Leave that dog behind

I want my dog

A dog is not your co-pilot

Best friends make everything better

IAN J. TWOMBLY

BY JILL W. TALLMAN

FLYING IS BEST DONE WITH OTHERS. As is the case with most
pilots, my enjoyment of aviation comes from sharing the experience. But when I say others, I'm talking strictly about humans.
We have become a dog-obsessed society. Our dogs have
moved far beyond the best friend zone to take up roles in our
lives as fashion accessories, social statements, home health
aides-and, for many 20-somethings, children. We take them
on walks, on drives, to doggy play dates, and even to restaurants. One place we should stop taking them is in the cockpit.
A few years ago, taking a dog along on a small airplane
was either not done or not discussed. Today it's celebrated
with Instagram photos and pricey accessories. There are even
groups dedicated to transporting
dogs long distances from shelters
to forever homes, and often they
are not in crates. Now instead of
relying on vans to take dozens of
dogs safely inside crates at $2 a gallon, we're flying one or two at three
times the cost as they freely roam
the cockpit. We're even torturing
cats in airplanes!
IAN J. TWOMBLY
I don't want to disparage the
good work done by rescue organizations or those who volunteer to transport animals. But they
simply don't have a place in a small-airplane cabin chilling in
the back like it's the living room couch. Because the reality is
that they aren't always chill. They cause accidents.
Consider the pilot of a light sport aircraft who crashed into
a cornfield short of the runway. The NTSB determined that
the pilot's 70-pound dog interfered with the controls, causing
the accident. In a cruel bit of irony, the pilot died, and the dog
was unharmed.
Or take the case of the January 2018 accident in which a
Lancair Legacy crashed short on final. The owner, who had
stowed his dog in the baggage compartment, believed the pooch
was able to open the canopy because of a unique unlatching
mechanism. On landing the partially open canopy caused more
drag than he expected, and he lost energy and crashed short.
Before you write to me assuming I'm some sort of animal-hating curmudgeon with white couches and clean carpets, consider
that we currently have five of the furry friends at home, each rescued from a certain-death situation. My problem isn't with dogs,
it's with pilots who think dogs are their co-pilots.
AOPA

I COULD EASILY WIN THIS " DOGFIGHT " discussion by posting a
photo of a dog in an airplane. Who in our readership doesn't
love dogs and airplanes? But that would be cheating.
Dogs love their people. They are pack animals, and we are
their pack. Dogs want nothing more than to be with their people, which is why you see so many dogs riding around in cars
with their families.
If a dog does well in a car, conventional wisdom is that it
will do well riding in an airplane. By my own experience and
the anecdotal experience of dozens of other pilots who tote
their dogs in airplanes, that's true. But if your dog vomits, cries
constantly, bounces like a rubber ball from one side of the car to
the other, or otherwise shows signs
of distress, you're better off leaving
him home. Just make sure you tell
him you'll be back. (I always tell my
dogs I'll be back.)
Dogs make anything better.
Why do you think the boating
industry included a dog in its " Take
Me Fishing " promotional campaign? That image of a dog with a
JILL W. TALLMAN
pleading expression sitting in a boat
with the words " Take Me Fishing "
made me want to buy a boat, and I don't have the time, money,
or energy for a boat.
I've flown my dogs for pleasure trips and flown Pilots N
Paws missions to transport dogs to new homes. When flying
any dog, common sense and safety need to be your watchwords.
Don't feed your dog before his first flight, else he might vomit,
and neither you nor he will be happy about that. A crate is an
inexpensive way to safely transport your dog in the backseat
of your airplane until you can determine if he's as comfortable flying as he would be in a car. A pilot acquaintance takes
her dog everywhere; he's a small breed and she secures him in
the backseat with a harness that clips to a passenger seatbelt.
If I owned a large dog, I would not put him in the right seat.
I would not want anything to interfere with the controls, or
my ability to safely pilot an airplane. But if the big guy is happy
riding in back, and his weight is accounted for in weight and
balance calculations, I don't see the harm.
After the excitement of coming to the airport and getting into
the airplane, most dogs go to sleep. They're great passengers in
that sense. And they're not going to critique your landing. AOPA

EMAIL ian.twombly@aopa.org

EMAIL jill.tallman@aopa.org

aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 99

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AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2021

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