?Flying with TWO wheelchairs for ONE DS6?

[goofieslonglostsis]

I only fly southwest, so no problem for me (at least where I live now)

Ah yes, that does wonders when being used to needing one suitcase for the 'basic stuff'.

 

[SueM in MN]

I also had no idea that we could have asked for an aisle seat with a small chair. With our son being 6 (53lbs) that is going to come in handy for our next trip seeing that our plane is full. I never knew that was even an option and I have reading these boards through and though! That's a GREAT tip!!
Thanks!

Thought I had already posted on this thread, but found I had not.

If you look in the disABILITIES FAQs thread, post # 15 of that thread is about air travel and has pictures and a description of the aisle chair procedure (with my lovely DD #2 as the model).
There are also links to some of the things others have mentioned in the thread, including information about your rights.

We have not traveled with DD's power wheelchair yet - mostly because we would have to travel with 2 chairs and she is not that concerned about being able to drive herself at WDW. We had discussed it with our wheelchair tech and the big points he made (which have already been made, but I want to emphasize again):
- take the joystick/controller off. Most are easily removed with a few screws and a quick connect. My extra advice would be to take some pictures of each step of the process or copy the page of instructions. It looks really self explanatory and you think you will remember which screw goes in which hole when you are removing it, but when putting it back on, your mind gets more murky. We have used a dot of different colored fingernail polish on things. That way, you just have to match the red dot to the red dot and the blue one to the blue.

- take the joystick/controller on the plane with you. Our person suggested wrapping it in bubble wrap, but even a thick towel will do.

- take anything off if it may lift or fall off during the flight or if it sticks out. A laundry bag works well to put pieces of the wheelchair in as you take them off. I put eat piece in before removing the next. That way, I know the armrest is not still sitting on the ground as our plane is pulling away.

- if you have a gel seat, it can get freezing cold while in the hold of the plane. That can cause a thermal injury if sat on before it has a chance to warm up. We bring DD's seat cushion on the plane for that reason. Also, to avoid it getting punctured or lost since it velcros on.

- with a power chair, make sure they know how to take it in and out of freewheel. They need it in freewheel to push it, but our tech told us it's important for them to put it out of free when they are not pushing it. True, it's heavy and takes quite a bit to move it, but in free-wheel, it can roll and could roll somewhere it should not go. When it is out of free-wheel, it's not moving.

 

[Cheshire Figment]

When I travel with my ECV I attach a special page I made.

I printed parts of my manual that show (1) how to get in and out of freewheel, (2) where the tiller directional lock is, (3) how to raise and lower the tiller, and (4) where the tie-down points are. After printing, I did cut and pastes or those four items, having two on each side of one sheet of paper.

I then put that is a plastic cover and prominently attach it to the ECV at the gate.

 

[pugdog]

Here are 2 links for you on how to fill out a wheelchair placard and also the placard. We filled ours out ,laminated it, and it then Velcros to the seat pan. We show them where the lift points are and how to freewheel it.http://ncat.oregonstate.edu/projects/StowageFiles/Placard_Instructions.pdf,and http://ncat.oregonstate.edu/projects/StowageFiles/WC_Stowage_Placard.pdf