> "Now its on to replacing the canvas sling seats. And yes, I know I
shouldnt seek a post-retirement career in sewing!"
> John Bouyea
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Ken Cottle had built N335KC with an aluminum seat instead of the standard
canvas seat. (My first KR did have the canvas seat.) Ken bent the soft
aluminum over the spar and secured it with some screws, three to a side
as I recall. Once he sold the plane to Steve Bennett and by the time I
bought it from Steve, he had mangled the seat trying to get in and out of
the cockpit. Steve was quite tall with long legs and had bought N335KC
from Ken since it was the only KR he could actually fit inside. Ken had
added one bay in front of the spar and two in the rear, allowing lot of
leg room.
Once I got the plane back home, I took out the mangled aluminum and built
a wooden seat with a seatback that swung forward. It was hinged where
the two pieces of wood came together, thus making a very strong bottom
and very handy seatback in that it swung forward, allowing lots of access
to the baggage area. I recovered it with the original red cloth cushion
material and it's worked beautifully all these years. I doubt you're
doing high-G pull-ups John but in case you are ever in a mind to do some
hot-dogging, keep that canvas seat in mind. At least one KR in the early
days crashed when the canvas tore during one of those pull-ups at one of
the early Gatherings. Killed both the pilot and his passenger.
This could have easily happened to me when flying my plane from Omaha.
Once I had it home and was taking the plane apart for much overdue
maintenance, I found the aluminum seat bottom hanging from one or two
elongated holes where it had been secured to the spar with screws. The
aluminum had torn away from the other screws and it was only due to my
extraordinary luck that I didn't hit any turbulence when crossing the
Rockies and the deserts. All it would have taken was one solid bump and
the aluminum would have torn loose from it's barely-hanging attachment to
the spar. In a single-seat plane, I think it would have been difficult
to lift my butt off the cables below the seat while keeping control of
the plane. I was just lucky.
If canvas is new and of strong quality . . . and it's secured well . . .
there should be no problem. With age however, canvas gets weak. Anybody
know what Marty Roberts had for seats?
Mike Stirewalt - KSEE
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