Wander00. Are you sure that you are not confusing the Folland/Saab seat with the MB 2h/3h which was prone to seat pan collapse? Over 3 years at Valley including a stint as SFSO I never came across a case of Gnat seat pan problems. In fact with its comfortable rigid fibreglass seat cushion? allied to a large smooth accelerating gun cartridge, back injuries were rare and overall seat performance was most impressive. We were told not to
eject using the bottom handle as we would be going through the canopy (no MDC then). One QFI did as a last resort at extremely low altitude and the canopy breakers worked perfectly. All he sustained were a couple of rips in his suit leg map pockets.
My apologies for going off thread.