From: "Marvin Kaye" <marv@lancaironline.net>
Subject: Re: Shoulder Harness
To: lml
Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 13:27:33 -0400
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Posted for "Ron and Marlene Brice" <rbrice@inter-linc.net>:

Ron,

I am sold on my location of the inertia reel.  It is out of the way, and in
an extremely strong area, since the pulling moment on the attaching bolt/s
is in an upward motion into the strength of the seat back. I would not want
to change a thing.  Hooker's belts and hardware, and my choice of mounting
locations, saved me significant injury.  

When you say the "standard Lancair position", is that overhead?  Not for me,
read the Advisory Circular on vertebrae crushing with an overhead location.
The angle must be from minus 5 degrees to plus 30 degrees over the shoulder.
Mine is zero degrees.  I had severe cracking, including separation of
laminations, of the upper "roll bar" at the aft end of the canopy, and also,
the fuselage had a compression break at the upper left hand side of the
baggage compartment, tearing out nearly the complete overhead of the baggage
compartment aft of the pilot.  If I had the shoulder harness mounted there,
I would not have gotten out of this without head/torso injury.

I would not omit the inertia reel.  For the small cost, it makes for a
completely comfortable ride.  Without it, one would have to loosen the
shoulder harness to reach around in the cockpit, or to be comfortable in
cruise. If one takes the shoulder harness of in cruise, would you have time
in an emergency to put it back on? If you only loosened it, would you then
remember to tighten it for landing? The inertia reel is the only way to go. 

I feel the same way about the 5 point buckle.  I would not use a standard
airline passenger type, remember, you get what you pay for, and the seat
belt and harness is no place to short cut.  Build a lesser performing kit
plane if you need to cut corners, then and use a good (read...not cheap)
seat belt/harness assembly.

For what it's worth.

Ron