Posted Tuesday, October 2, 2007 @ 10:22 AM  

I have been working with Oregon Aero to create cushions for the glider. The fronts are essentially done. Will post photos soon. They are nice looking, are comfortable for hours at a time and are well made. At this point, the front cushions are good for anyone up to about 5'10" in height. If you are taller, you would probably want to have them adjusted.

In general, the procedure is to order the foam cores from Oregon Aero -- about $250. The have the prototypes, so you can simply order them without starting from scratch again. Try them for a bit to make sure they are right for you. Oregon Aero will adjust them at no charge. Once you are pleased, you can either cover them or have Oregon Aero cover them. Oregon Aero charges about $400 for covering. As you would expect, the covering materials & workmanship are very high.

I am still working on the design for the rear seat. I don't take passengers that often, so it will likely be a few months before I have a final design for that seat that you could order from them.

For now, however, if you want cushions for a pilot's seat -- they have a basic design ready to go which might not need any further refinement. Note that it is two pieces, a bottom cushion and a separate back cushion. So, if you want to remove the back on days when you wear a parachute, you can.

While the seats look fairly standard, they do utilize multiple layers of varying density foam and they are custom molded on the bottom to fit the curvature of the wooden seats.

Posted Saturday, October 6, 2007 @ 04:44 PM  

http://www.afeonline.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=422

I don´t know if Dynafoam is more energy absorbing than oregonaero´s viskoelastic foam, but I think I´ll try to make a seat out of that. In the Swedish gliding community Dynafoam is widespread.

Just 4 fun, take 5(b)/ Jörgen, SE-XST

Posted Monday, October 8, 2007 @ 00:45 AM  

If you want to spend a little less, but still get the comfort and safety benefits of conformal foam (as used by Oregon Aero) you can buy 16" by 18" sheets of this foam in three thicknesses (one inch, two inches, three inches) from Aircraft Spruce and Specialty. You will see this mentioned further down the page, under 'Fitting Inside'. My contribution follows, to save you the trouble of searching for it.

I fiddled with cushions, foam etc for a year or more. Here is my final solution:
You do not want 'squishy' normal furniture foam, otherwise you will sink when you pull G and your eye line changes, also your seatbelts go slack... not nice. If you land heavily or crash, compressible foam compresses immediately, so the bottom end of your spine hits the wooden structure under the seat. Then your vertebrae compress. This can paralyse you. Or kill you if the top of your spine goes upwards into your head. Not nice.

So... I lay half an inch of styrofoam in the flat, recessed wooden base (I know it's flammable, but so's the whole airplane). Over that, I have a standard 16" by 18" sheet of two-inch thick conformal foam (Dynafoam, Temperfoam, Confor foam -- all pretty much the same stuff, you can get it from Aircraft Spruce). This only compresses slowly, so it saves your back and is extremely comfortable to sit on. It's what Oregon Aero use for their wonderfully comfortable seats.

Behind me, I have the original moulded black fiberglass seat back (dished, to take a parachute). Into that dish goes a hunk of ordinary foam, cut to shape. Over that, I use a one-inch sheet of conformal foam, with half of a three-inch thick block as a lumbar support towards the bottom of it. My wife sewed black covers for all these foam sheets/blocks, and the job's done.

My left knee tucks just under the throttle, with my right knee pretty free under the trim lever. My head touches the canopy (so I can see forward as much as possible in the nose-high landing attitude), and I use a Peltor headset in a 'universal' leather helmet. The Peltor has a thin band over your head, not like a David Clark's thick headbands. An ANR kit completes the comfort suite.

Yes, the canopy rear bar touches my back, but it's not uncomfortable.
I flew 3:30 straight off on a cross-country, then another two hours in formation on the same day. Flew a low-level aeros display at the end, with NO discomfort.