Integral Aircraft Passenger Seat - 1973

Found while trying to find the NASA reports on the Boeing Commercial/Military transport design, one wonders how it would have worked in reality...

Human-engineering approach was used to design integral seat which provides all the safety, comfort, and protective features that can possibly be afforded airline passengers. Results of dynamic impact testing indicated that seat can withstand and attenuate gravity loads of 21-g horizontal and 45-g vertical; by design, seat will withstand lateral g's as well.

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http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19730000495.pdf

This is a very interesting find indeed. I can see, however, exactly why it never happened. It looks like it would result in fewer, not more passenger seats on a plane, which would eat into revenues, at a time when airline finances were being re-written by higher fuel costs. Also, many airline passengers don't want to wear one seatbelt, so good luck on getting them to wear that sort of harness. Perhaps when it comes to this issue, we've gotten exactly what we deserve.

The massive arm rests and wrap-around head rest resemble first-class seats installed in the latest long-range airliners. These seats are installed at an angle to the center-line to allow first-class passengers to stretch out and sleep on long flights.
If the "seat tub" is deep enough, seat-belts become less and less important.
Another option is installing air-bags that force the passenger to stay at the bottom of the "seat tub". Maybe something like the window, side-curtain, air-bags installed in luxury automobiles????

Airliners already install (belt-mounted) air-bags on exit row seats.

I doubt if we will ever seats this secure in "cattle class."

MaxLegroom said:

This is a very interesting find indeed. I can see, however, exactly why it never happened. It looks like it would result in fewer, not more passenger seats on a plane, which would eat into revenues, at a time when airline finances were being re-written by higher fuel costs. Also, many airline passengers don't want to wear one seatbelt, so good luck on getting them to wear that sort of harness. Perhaps when it comes to this issue, we've gotten exactly what we deserve.

Click to expand...

Interestingly on the last page it specifically states that NASA was not going to patent the seat design, so the manufacturers would not have had to pay to use it.

I'm still trying to run down the other tech brief mentioned in the document.

I've found the Tech Brief describing the restraint mechanism, unfortunatly that seems to be where the trail ends, the rest of the information seems to have been kept 'in-house' and who knows if it survived.

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19720000691.pdf