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I have always wanted to be able to get in and out of our aircraft
without having to step on the pilots seat. Yes I know if you do some
gymnastics you can do it. My question is this. Does anyone know of a
modification that will let the pilots seat go further back to allow easier
access? Also, what about the height issue? I am tired of hitting my head
in turbulence. Electric seats like in a car? Thanks in advance for the
feedback.
re: height, since I struggled with this myself I can report there are
several factors.
The seats sit right on top of both spars so there's very little to be
done in terms of lowering the seat.
One thing to think about there is that if there are vertical G's in a
crash, the only energy absorption you are going to get is from deforming
whatever is between your butt and the spars. (I
don't know what Lancair is talking about when they say they have a 20G
seat. Does that mean that after they remove your body from the
wreckage the seat may still be intact?)
Anyway, so here are some
factors.
a) you have to really pay attention to foam thickness when you put
the seat together.
b) Jim Griffen used to build a dropped seat pan. This allowed
you to get some foam underneath the center of the seat but you are still
limited by the buildup on the sides of the seat to clear the seat rails,
bolt on a layup of carbon etc.
c) Some builders have pre-contoured the pan itself and then put a
very thin layer of foam over that. I don't see that this
would buy you a whole lot in a IVP unless you eliminated the seat rails
completely.
d) On a IVP the common interferenc point with your head is the front
of the door frame. Therefore, if you are tall and have long
enough legs, getting yourself back a little further can help. The
wedge of foam at the bottom of the seat back tends to hold you
forward. So you think about economizing there.
as far as getting the whole seat further back
for loading, I suppose it's possible but I don't know if it's very useful
to get the front of the seat further back than the front of the front spar
and it pretty much already does that.
electric seat assemblies are generally far
thicker (vertically) than you could ever fit in a
IVP. |