Color of fighter seats

[rwav8r]

Can anyone tell me why modern fighter seats are red?

[kenparry]

No idea! The ones I flew were black - but that was a long time ago...................

[Lancelot37]

Are French ones brown?

[deagles]

Fleet Air Arm ones certainly went brown at night

[Fareastdriver]

Tradition.

In days of yore fighter pilots had red linings inside their uniforms.

[Lancelot37]

In days of yore fighter pilots had red linings inside their uniforms and the French had brown linings so that the stains didn't show. :ok:

[Union Jack]

Despite the fact that blood actually shows up as a dark stain on a red uniform, I seem to recall the response, attributed to Admiral Terence Lewin, to a senior Army officer explaining that the Army originally wore red so that the blood would not show, that that was why the Royal Navy wore dark blue!

Jack

PS Tradition - In days of yore fighter pilots had red linings inside their uniforms. That's a joke,right?:)

[Dan Winterland]

The seat covers I sat on were usually brown or green with the exception of the cusion on the dingy pack which was often yellow. This is because being yellow and the fact if is still strapped to your bum when you eject and you keep it, it can be used as a location aid. :rolleyes:

Some of them also had a pair of gloves inside if you opened them up!

[dakkg651]

Early Spitfire seats were reddish bakelite.

[Fareastdriver]

PS Tradition - In days of yore fighter pilots had red linings inside their uniforms. That's a joke,right

T'was true up to the early sixties. I think it was dropped one night in 1964 when the entire air defence of the United Kingdom rested on one servicable Lightning.

[zotbox]

dakkg651 "Early Spitfire seats were reddish bakelite."


Not quite, some were.

The plastic (bakelite) seat for the spitfire was introduced by Mod 189 (14-May-1940) and was available as an alternative to the traditional Aluminium seat assembly.

So either seat could be found in spitfires throughout the war.

[dakkg651]

ZOTBOX

Thanks for that info.

Do you know what the purpose of the mod was?

[zotbox]

As I understand it the alternative (plastic) seat was introduced to reduce dependance on Aluminium as a raw material and (possibly) to reduce weight.