Helicopter Pilot Seats....Crimes against Humanity!
 

I have been driving these things since 1967....and with the very rare exception have found seats in helicopters to be a damn disgrace if not downright evil in the damage they do to backs and necks.

For Nick and the others that are knowledgeable of such matters....why is it the builders of these things spend millions on design studies, hire high cost engineers, and devote thousands of man hours to designing the most insignificant bit.....but still after all these years cannot build a decent pilot seat?

Bell sure doesn't have a clue....Boeing-Vertol came as close as anyone with the Chinook seat and it was still bad...Sikorsky well...leave said they need to improve. I have never sat in a Puma/Super/MKII/Tiger....so I can not speak to them...the 155 and 365 seats looked a bit uncomfy....the 350 and 355 left a great deal to be desired....

Why as an industry do we accept such shoddy design and the resulting back injuries and bad necks they cause?

Anyone else feel the way I do about Jet Ranger seats? I think the CEO of Bell Helicopters should be sued and forced to trade his fancy swivel leather luxury for an off the self Jet Ranger seat until the engineers come up with something better.

What say you?:mad:

The Puma seats are pretty variable but mostly useless. We have about 10 332L's and some have comfy seats and some are killers. The company seem to have the attitude that to upgrade them would be admitting how bad they are and lead to lawsuits.

One of my collegues on the S76 once tried to sue but no idea how he got on.

The S76 man failed in his attempt I believe.

I dont actually think the 76 seats are too bad.

but Jetbox seats are terrible, I always get kidney pain after a couple of hours, is that a common problem ?

regards

CF

Seats
 

The Puma seats were okay as long as they were adjustable in all their modes.
If the lumbar support failed, which lets face it us old farts need, then the engineers would lock it in one position and you would come out with back ache.
The company I worked for paid for personal lumbar supports for their pilots. Worked a treat. Cheap as well.
The other problem was the arm rests getting broken by pilots standing on them to look into intakes to check run down times. The arm rests made it just about comfy.

The Sea King (with or without the rubber boat strapped to your back) was the worst I can ever remember. It took a year after I stopped flying the things before I realised I had a relatively normal back!

The 206 seat is dreadful, but so many of the older ships have had the cushions reupholstered into so many different shapes, that some are actually quite comfortable :cool:

Most Eurocopter offerings still leave a lot to be desired, even the "high back" options only come to the bottom of one's shoulder blades.

The BK117 seat with vertical adjustment is good, even very good, but the standard non adjustable seat is very average in comparison.

Getting away from the basic seat design, is the positioning of the controls: nothing like having a comfortable seat, only to sit twisted sideways to accommodate a collective moving somewhere around your left hip :yuk: IIRC, the 222 and the Chinook are about the only ships around with decently designed collectives :ok:

I think its like the theory of McDonalds Resturaunt furniture. McDonalds wanted to call themselves a family resturaunt and yet they didnt want people to overstay thier welcome. So they made the deycor and furniture as uncomfortable as possible. In the helicopter world it is probably this way so we dont get too comfy and get complacent or better yet ,fall asleep. I overcome this problem with a seat cushion that was designed for people bound to wheel chairs. Its called a Roho cushion and you can get one at any medical supplies store. They are quite pricey but worth every penny. After all we only get one spine. Cheers.

"I always get kidney pain after a couple of hours, is that a common problem ?"

No idea, but have you tried if a simple body belt from a motorcycle store does the trick?

SaSless:
Backache caused by poorly designed seats coupled with ergonomically inefficient flying controls & high internal noise levels leading to hearing loss have been the two worst features of the helicopter industry since Igor first took off! Apart from bad management that is, but I'll leave that for another day.
The S61N was obviously designed to be flown by a 'paraplegic crab' (with apologies to paraplegics!) whilst the B212 is legendary for reducing 2metre pilots to 1.8metres in the space of a few years.
Perhaps in these august pages we should introduce an award for the 'worst seat' & present it to the embarrassed manufacturer at a suitably public event?
Alternatively, perhaps 'Flying Lawyer' could be prevailed upon to act 'pro bono' & bring a class action suit against the manufacturers for damages re: damaged backs/hearing loss. There must be hundreds of potential cases out there, just waiting to be heard!
With fraternal greetings, ambi

PS: the situation won't get any better because the 'beancounters' buying the aircraft are are not the ones having to fly & operate them, if they were, the situation would improve overnight!
PPS: where are you 'Flying Lawyer', there's a lot of potential custom out here!

I have certainly found that the cunning diagonal seat adjustment and the adjustable pedals on the Explorer gave me the most comfortable position. The lumbar support was good too. As far as others go R22 - not too bad, Gazelle - don't go there, Lynx - pretty good (but the Westland Vibrator gets you in other ways), Bolkow - poor, EC135 - suitable for the boyish bottom only (unlike mine!).

Helicopter Pilot Seats...Crimes against Humanity
 

They use the same planning method as Boeing designing the B-52

Boeing designed the aircraft to meet the Air Force needs, bomb load and range. Oh by the way... a crew of six (after thought), no room to stand up in the cockpit, cooling for equipment only, heat limited, seats (functional).

Helicopters designed for the job...oh by the way, (after thought) pilot, where's that thing Igor sat on, that was good for him still works today.

JetRanger seats qualify as a crime against humanity. LongRanger seats are marginally better, just scandalous I'd say. In contrast, personally I've found the high-back 350/355 seats quite decent (lowered expectations maybe?), I can function in that cockpit for up to 5 hours without back aches.

Passed nem con .

About options for B206 and B212 seats: a company called Oregon Aero make STC'd seats for these (and other) models, upholstered with open-cell foam. People that I've talked with who've used them cannot get enough superlatives in one sentence to describe them, the only potential problem is going to sleep they're so comfy! When I looked into them years ago they ran about US$900 per seat.

Oregon Aero also make seat and combo seat-lower back cushions from the same material, owners of these who use them in 206s tend to guard them like their first-borns...

Maybe someone should approach BMW or MERC BENZ designers for a little help in this regard.

Then take a patent out on the newly designed seat and flog the thing back to Bell...all will cost a good dollar or 2 but in the long run prolly pay off.

Just a thought.:ok:

These are the best seats. Maybe someone should ask them?

:8

I caould use a few of them at home for the tv room...

Looks like the seats thats found in those big passenger busses...now if only they could build one into a jetranger....or build the jetty around the seat:p

I read an article that contained the results of an American army medical study into back problems in Bells, a few years ago and it debunked the idea that vibration was a factor. Basically, they rigged a platform on hydraulic jacks, fitted a seat and controls and then had a TV or Video game (can't remember now) for the test subjects to occupy themselves with. One group did the test with the jacks in action to simulate a Huey's vibration and the other group sat with no vibration. The results were the same and it was considered that posture (bent forward and down to the left slightly) and imobility were the dominant factors.

Having said that, I'd rather have a smooth ride than not.

Another thing that greatly affects comfort is the state of the seat cushions; half the time you are sitting on about half an inch of foam rather than about 2 inches, as a result of thousands of hours of compression from backsides great and small. A new cushion can transform the comfort levels.

Having suffered hideous trouble flying mine over 1.5 to 2 hours, I bought a couple of Backshape cushions from here

They're not needed for short journeys, but once in, I can fly all day. They fix in with a velcro strap, so easy to put in and take out.

Worth £25, anyway.

Seats
 

So there we have it. Older or retired helicopter pilots can be recognised easily.
They stoop, cannot stand up for long and have f*cked up hearing and talk very loudly. (so my daughter tells me)

Who was said they wanted a career in helicopters?

The science of making people happy or comfortable does not exist, in any way.

As a professional pilot, and as project pilot on two Sikorsky helos now in production, I can't say anyone (including all those above who complain about their helo seats) can make a seat that is comfortable for all pilots, world wide.

I have hear about people who would sue over seat comfort, and even heard of one nordic pilot who took disability because he was tortured for so many years in a horrible seat on the helo he had to fly. Poor baby.

I came up with a saying a few years ago, after giving up trying to find pilot consensus on anything:

If you want 23 opinions, ask 20 pilots. All opinions will be different and opposing, and some guys will have two.

I think we are bound to differ, and the only solution is to have seat choices (not adjustability) and let the pilot chose his own.

For once, Nick I disagree with you. The number of posts here seems to indicate a consensus that there is not a single really decent helicopter seat. Whilst I accept that it is difficult to design a seat that all will find comfortable, almost every helicopter seat I've come across is a total disgrace and seems to have had no thought whatsoever put into its design. Most project test pilots do not sit on seats regularly for 5 or 6 hours at a time. I've not flown a single helicopter that has a seat that is comfortable for more than an hour or two. Most of the expensive helicopters out in the commercial world are flown in support of offshore oil operations and many of them these days are being flown by pilots who have to endure their seats for 5 or more hours a day.

A $100,000 Mercedes has seats that are beautifully designed and are almost infinitely adjustable, whilst most $1,000,000 plus helicopters have seats that the driver of a $1,000 Trabant would complain about. :\

Well, being 2m tall has its few advantages... No problem with hearing loss since every flight is very quiet with my knees covering my ears. :p

/2beers