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

Seats
 

I have to say, when new, the Puma L/L2 seats were very comfortable. As pilots we had a vested interest in making sure the seats were maintained in such a state and if not doing something about it ie snagging. Many a day I spent discussing with the engineers how to get them back to there original state. More foam done the trick.

Nobody seems to have picked up on personal lumbar supports. Why not! They are a valuable item for any pilot and you can even get one designed to the shape of your back.

Made life bearable when I had one made. All the pilots with back problems had them. But you should get one before it becomes a problem.

I tried a lumbar support but found it tended to push me too far forward in the seat. I know plenty of people that swear by them though.

However, that simply reinforces the point about it being a disgrace that they are not comfortable in the first place! Would it be considered acceptable to have to buy your own GPS because the aircraft had a system that was unusable? (I'm talking about large machines here.)

The big difference we have over fixed wing pilots in this regard is that we are totally imobilised in the seat; they can walk around on a long flight. Thankfully the longest I've ever done was 8:55 in one day, but even shorter days can leave you feeling half crippled sometimes.

Oregon Aero seats are the best period. The seat they make for the 500 (try sitting in one of these for 8 hours if you think a jet ranger is bad) and the 206 are great. The design that went into them came from a group of physicans... But again the cost a 6-900 a set put people off. I know more and more guys wo are buying there own.

rb

Nick Lappos you scandulous swine! Take yourself down to the hangar floor where you work....set yer wide bodied butt down in one of the seats in the front end of one of those Gulfstreams....then tell me about helicopter seats.

As the man said....10 Million for the aircraft....and a VW Jetta has better seats....heck...my 13 year old Ford pickup truck has a better seat now after 250,000 miles than any helicopter I ever flew.

So...Mr. Lappos....knock it off and get a grasp of reality....you ain't selling them anymore.

Better yet....as a litmus test....take yer best Sikorsky seat and put it into a Gulfstream.....see how long it takes for the pilots to refuse to sit in it! Would you let me send you a Jetranger seat and trade it for your office chair.....do a sit test for a month then tell me how good they are?

Your point about building a seat that will make everyone happy is a nearly impossible chore...but Nick...old buddy...the industry has a very long way to go in this part of the design/build effort.:mad:

Oh! My aching back
 

Some of you may have spotted that on that famous cartoon that depicts a helicopter pilot struggling with his trusty steed under IF conditions and entitled "HELICOPTER PILOTS ARE DIFFERENT" the pilot's seats had a manufacturer's label on the side - it said

ACME SCREEN DOOR AND WINDOW COMPANY

Says it all

If you could see the close up...the adjustment settings are along the lines of "Too hard" , "Too High", "Too Low".

I have a 3'wide by 4 foot high hand drawn framed copy of that cartoon....done in Thailand by a USAF Flight Engineer who made it as a going away gift for one of his pilots by name of Jerry Crupper. Jerry and his wife were killed by a drunk driver shortly after Jerry retired from the USAF and took a job as an S-76 instructor pilot at American Airlines Training Corporation in West Palm Beach. His daughters gave it to me after Jerry died....at some point I will donate it to either the USAF Museum or the US Army Museum if they will have it. Jerry was a Jolly Green pilot doing combat SAR on Sikorsky H-3 and H-53 aircraft.

To SASless and his defunct seat
 

My, my you embark on quite a language. Maybe you forget that some employers don't like the fact that pilots feel comfortable at work. From my past and perhaps present experience a few CEO's would rather employ a monkey for flying those things because those can't talk thus cannot complain.

Now reflecting on your seat problem (siding with your problem); all manufactureres of helos should actually get their damn royal behinds on their damn products and hang in the sky for 8 or more hours a day. Then these fine specimen shall go home and play with the wife if the the screwed up backs/spines allow bed sheet acrobatics.

Haven't flown Eurocopters until now - have been a Bell dude - well the divorce is set for May 2. Actually, SASless is right...the seats of a beaten up old European car with almost 150,000 miles on it are a better fit then the 206 series seats. Amen:}

Sasless,

Get a grip. You don't think anyone tries to make the seatuncomfortable, do you? For one model, we actually designed the seat to precisely suit a customer pilot board, against the advice of the test pilots. We designed the seat to their exact requirements, and they loved it. Then, one year later, when we produced the seat, the new pilots from the same companies couldn't stand the seat, they rejected it (and the original prototype that their buddies had designed!)

I don't doubt that the seats are uncomfortable for some pilots, I merely think that all pilots are uncomfortable in a seat or two, and some pilots are uncomfortable in all seats, and No pilot is comfortable in all seats.

The only people who believe that stupid manufacturers try to make crappy seats, at a cost of perhaps 2 million dollars total, are dumb pilots. And I don't know a single dumb pilot ;-)

Anyone remember the old "J" mod Puma seats ......

Designed for "French Army Pilots" who bore no resembelance to human beings .... I was once told it was Quasimodo (probably during a lunch break from his day job at Notre Dame) who provided the dimensions for their manufacture ?????

;) ;) ;) :p

alouette
 

In my previous life as an IT-consultant we had a saying that went along the lines of: "Having fun at work is the same as stealing from your employer". Maybe the pilot seats fill a similar function to keep the levels of happiness down?
Another theory is that it's much better having pilots complaining about seats and by that keeping their focus (whining) away from how the company is managed. :D

/2beers
"Easily distracted by shiny objects"

Sorry Nick, but I have to agree with SASless on this one. The majority of replies on this thread have been pretty negative. I'm quite sure the manufacturers don't try to make seats uncomfortable, but they also don't do nearly enough to try and make them comfortable and with a decent range of adjustments. I have never found a single helicopter with a seat which is comfortable for more than a couple of hours and I live with constant back discomfort from too many years of sitting in some terrible seats. Some of the seats I have met which have looked good and have felt comfortable to start off with have left me practically unable to walk after a few hours. The Sikorsky S76 is one which springs to mind and I can only fly in that with a lumbar support on the seat and wearing a lumbar support belt. For an old dog like me it's probably too late now to ever fly in a helicopter with comfortable seat, the one in my 4 year old VW Golf is far better and with a better range of adjustment than any helicopter seat I've met. :(

Our police air wing was the proud owner of the first Bk117 in Australia. Under the regional marketing agreements, our machine came from Japan, rather than Germany.

The seat could move fore and aft, but had no height adjustment - it was too close to the ground, and us long-legged "pirates" (as the Japanese instructor called us) sat on the point of our bums with knees high in the air - very uncomfortable after a while.

We asked if there was a height-adjustable seat, and they said no. All pirates are the same size, according to them.

Subsequently we found a German catalogue for the BK, and in it was an option for a height adjustable seat. Seems that the 95th percentile of Japanese pirates were happy in the low-slung seat, but caucasians and aryans fell well outside the bell curve from Nippon.

They also lied about a nose-mount option for the night sun, but that's another story...

And my back has never recovered from Bell seats in Hueys and 206/407 series. The 76 seat is OK for an hour at a time, but long days are a pain in the @rse, despite woolly seat covers.:ugh:

AC,

See my previous re the comfort of the height adjustable BK seat: I've never had a sore back from mine, even after 10 hour day on fire ops :ok: Both my seats are height adjustable, and a Kawasaki option from the factory :D Doesn't the NSW Parks Squirrel have a BK seat for the driver?

Nick,

Put me down as one of the stupids ;) I still get back to the cause & effect issue of the positioning of controls as well as the seat comfort. The best seat in the house is useless if you are twisted sideways to operate the collective, or perched on the points of your @rse because you can't stretch your legs :rolleyes:

Must be lonely in that trench over there Nick....cause I stand shoulder to shoulder with the SASless rebels over here.

I think the biggest issue is similar to Nissan cars and pilot helmets. Nissan's are a great driving car with solid engines and all round performance but try fixing one. What an abortion. They are a classic example of engineers designing something without chatting to the mechanics who are going to have to disassemble and repair it.
As with flight helmets. Name one that actually does all that a pilot needs. I am not talking anything beyond the bare basics: Protection, noise attentuation, lightness and flexibility for various op's. Gallets are noisy but small, Alpha fit and attenuate fantastically but try longlining with that massive visor cover and Gentex is just antiquated in all the above requirements. Nobody has sat down with the pilots and asked "what do you guys do with these?"

Speaking of sitting down...
I think I must be pretty much in the perfect demographic for pilot size and weight. 5'10, 180lbs wet and I run and workout constantly. I try to take care of my back with exercise and chiro. But it feels like a losing battle. I am working constantly just to offset the hunching that invariably happens while flying. Include the helmet weight to the top end and I have noticed my neck makes popping noises when I roll it from side to side. That's not good is it?

Regarding Helicopters:

Robinsons: all the same. Not bad but you tend to hunch forward.

Bell 206 is an abortion. End of story. We were just complaining about this in the crewhouse last night. Everyone agrees and the 204 and 205 with the fabric contraptions?? ...sheesh.

AS350: Bucket seating to form you into the shape of a banana. Feel the pain...

S76: not as bad as the above because you can adjust the seat height. Needs more lumbar support.

I have started flying around with a roll of foam in the small of my back. I don't know if this is a good thing because I am still sore. Maybe having to be bent back into proper shape involves more pain...

Sign me up for the law suit. Rant over and out.

I have to agree after just over 7 hours in a JetRanger today, I must be getting punished for something I did in my past life, but I have to ask the question................ Is there a seat anywhere, not limited to helicopters, that would be comfortable after any extended period of use? Even those massage chairs in the mall would turn your back to mush after an hour. All of the aforemention reasons lead to the same end. It's not the saets that were poorly designed, it's us that weren't meant for repetitive movements in confined spaces.

No, Nick, I don't think you go out of your way to design uncomfortable seats. I don't think you go out of your way at all to design seats, one way or the other, other than to try to make them as light as possible, to maximize the payload you can advertise. I have never, ever, not one time, heard a pilot say anything good about any helicopter seat. Never. And I've been around a lot of helicopter pilots for a long time. You might believe that no two pilots ever have the same opinion, but I beg to differ. Every pilot I've ever talked to has been of the opinion that helicopter seats are terrible.

Trying to defend the indefensible seldom makes you look good.

The early Super Puma seats or "Tiger" seats were the worst. They had height adjustment but not enough thigh support.

The result was that you sat on your tailbone and the cushions soon compacted down to the seat pan making life very uncomfortable. In those very early days on the Tiger, we flew double North West Hutton flights out of Aberdeen just squeaking inside the daily flying limit.

After many complaints, Bristow copied the design of the optional Aerospatiale seat which had extended thigh support and arms and even a lumbar support and installed it into the Tigers but alas not before I had moved on to another type.

The final result for me is that 23 years later, I have lower back problems which are very painful and require lots of therapy.

I am glad I don't have to fly anymore since the pleasure I once derived is now counteracted by the discomfort.

Of all the types, I found the S76 to be the best, followed by the good old S61.

Any Lawyers out there!!!

HH:cool:

The only seat I found really useable was the seat with armrests that we fitted to the 61 in Brunei; subsequently had the same seat in Dutch 61's; 5 hours of shifting, 45 sectors etc, no problem. I think they were French and there were some issues about certification; but they were great.

I had to fully recline the Chinook seat in the cruise (could hardly see out); the co-pilot's side had such bad vertical bounce that he would have to pee after only 45 minutes in his seat. The 76 seats seemed to vary according to what day they rolled out of the factory - I had an anguished correspondence with Nick which roused the fury of my Engineering Director even though it was nothing to do with him. In the end on the 76 I found that if I kept my lower back pushed hard into the seat back I didn't get backache.

Mind you I've a concrete back - 5 lumber vertebrae welded together after what I thought was one of my better Jetranger landings. I think this injury helped me to get through the remaining 16,000 hours more comfortably, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.

The reason your seats are bloody awful and your cockpits bloody noisy is because you don't pay for the aircraft you fly; your passengers fare very slightly better because the beancounters need your passengers to pay for the helicopter. The pilot's needs are a long way down the list of priorities.

I just have to comment in defense of the B-212.

Yesterday I did 8:34 hrs in my trusty old 212 and although tired after the days flying I was in no way feeling uncomfortable or sore.

I really like the seats in my company's 212 and I don't think they have any special seats installed.

http://iserit.greennet.gl/waltere/PICT1422_resize.JPG

I have also in the past done long hours in the B-222, that is 4-5 hours sitting in the aircraft with hot-refueling and I also liked the seats in it.

However I agree that the B-206 seats are very bad, I'm going to look into having them re-done in mine.

The S-300 is also very bad. I hate the AS350 bucket seats too.. after 6 hrs sling work I dread thinking of the next day's rerun :oh:

Hey Nick...try this one for a seat test....
 

Nick,

In a follow up to my boast that my 13 year old diesel pickup seat being better than any helicopter seat I ever perched on....I decided to validate my statement.

I challenge you to duplicate it in the very best helicopter seat around....you can use a simulater if you wish...but there must be equal exposure to both vibration and endurance.

As a test...I loaded my baggage, Turkey hunting gear...and camp gear into my '92 Ford F-250 four wheel drive pickup....the one with Ton and a Half Springs....thus a rough riding potato wagon...and departed North Carolina on a Thursday morning, and rolled into Washington State on Saturday Afternoon in time for an afternoon hunt. 2800 miles in elapsed time....with a driving time of 44 hours in the seat....one well used by a previous 238,000 miles of driving.

I did not have a sore butt...I did not have a sore back...my legs never went to sleep...I did not have cramps of any kind...I never squirmed around....refuelling stops were every 5-6 hours and usually lasted only 10-15 minutes.

Want to set up a test in the S-92 Sim at West Palm Beach....I will volunteer to be the test subject with you as the monitor.