What's new
Van's Air Force

Don't miss anything! Register now for full access to the definitive RV support community.

approx seat thickness? Also looking for old seats.

D

Desert Rat

Well Known Member
I'm trying to determine where to position my rudder pedals, but I don't have seat cushions yet.

Can anybody give me an idea of how thick the typical seat bottom and back are? I'd like to be able to approximate that with moving blankets or pillows or something while I'm sitting in there making airplane noises.

Also, I'd love to buy a set of old cushions that I can use during flight test. If anybody has some collecting dust I'd love to discuss.

Thanks,

Terry
 
Typical may not be right.
Ideal seat thickness is directly dependent on how tall the person sitting in the seat is.
Ideal is to be sitting as high as possible.
This will have a direct influence on your landing performance. Particularly in a tail dragger RV.
 
Seat cushions

Here are some plans for RV seat cushion foam. It looks like one answer to the OP question is roughly 2" for the back and on top of the wedge that goes in the seat base, for shop testing purposes. I believe that these are based on a design by Tony Bingelis, from an era when builders "typically" sewed their own seat cushions!
 

Attachments

  • rvseat1.gif
    rvseat1.gif
    8.3 KB · Views: 170
  • rvseat2.gif
    rvseat2.gif
    6.4 KB · Views: 175
Last edited:
My RV7 has about 9 inches from the very bottom of the lowest part of the seat pan. I only have 1 inch for my back cushion, with the back frame as far aft as it can go.
 
Just me

My Vans seat foam for the bottom wedge is 2.5" thick. the seat bottom is 2" thick. the seat back is 1" foam. Hope this helps.
 
rvbuilder2002 said:
Typical may not be right.
Ideal seat thickness is directly dependent on how tall the person sitting in the seat is.
Ideal is to be sitting as high as possible.
This will have a direct influence on your landing performance. Particularly in a tail dragger RV.
Click to expand...

So true on sitting as high as possible. I added 1" to my seat bottom years ago and landings improved.
 
rvbuilder2002 said:
Typical may not be right.
Ideal seat thickness is directly dependent on how tall the person sitting in the seat is.
Ideal is to be sitting as high as possible.
This will have a direct influence on your landing performance. Particularly in a tail dragger RV.
Click to expand...

+1 on this!

Your body metrics and your chosen headset/helmet will define how much padding goes beneath you. Cushions themselves may be somewhat standard thickness but some kind of lift beneath them will probably be needed depending on your trunk height.
 
Leg Length

On an RV-4, my legs were way longer than the builder and previous owner, so my legs did not contact the seat. The end result is that all my weight ended up on the aft end of my fanny near my tailbone. After about an hour of flight, I would find myself squirming for comfort. Make sure your weight is distributed on your fanny and some of your weight is also distributed onto your legs.
What Scott said was spot on, what may work for one pilot may be a real pain in the butt for the next.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top