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Hooker v. Crow re: crotch bracket space

Flying Scotsman

Well Known Member
Ordered the crotch strap bracket kit from Van's (would like to install it while building the fuselage mid section)...I know that Hooker harnesses require a bigger gap than the Van's harness. I'm also looking at Crow harnesses. Two questions: 1. What spacing should I use if I use Crow? 2. I've found a couple of threads on Crow, but anyone have any side-by-side comparisons?

Thanks in advance!

Steve
 
Can't tell you the spacing, but I can tell you about the Crows vs. the Hookers. I did have the Crow harnesses in my RV6, but now it has Hookers. I wouldn't go back. Everybody's opinion will vary, but I like the Hookers quite a lot more - after using both.

My 2 cents!

Cheers,
Stein
 
Hey Stein...

That is only half an answer. What do you prefer in the Hookers that is not in the Crows? Did your Crows include the changes they have made as they become versed in the RV world? I have the Crows and am happy. Are you going to ruin my day?

Hope all is well.
David
 
First, the Crows that I had was years ago so I'm guessing they hadn't made any improvements you mention...I was not aware of them. I guess for me, it came down to looks (I like the Hookers color matched to my plane), comfort (the Crows that I had had pretty stiff webbing) and at the time they had some obnoxious label stitched on it in bright colors that sort of looked gaudy.

To be fair, I haven't looked at them in the past year or so, but I really like the Hooker Harnesses and the guys that supply them are good to deal with. Just my personal preference though. Maybe the new ones are nicer then what I had access to.

Cheers,
Stein
 
Who knows what you had there... :) I have a set of Crows and have used Hookers a lot in others' RVs.. and I can't tell any compelling difference between them.. except the price (in favor of Crows by a large margin).. But even if the price was even.. I don't know that I'd have a reason to pick one over the other... they're not that different....

Definitely nothing gaudy on my Crows...
 
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Who knows what you had there... :) I have a set of Crows and have used Hookers a lot in others' RVs.. and I can't tell any compelling difference between them.. except the price (in favor of Crows by a large margin).. But even if the price was even.. I don't know that I'd have a reason to pick one over the other... they're not that different....

Definitely nothing gaudy on my Crows...

I like my Crow's in my rocket far better than the Hooker's in my RV. For the price of one set of Hookers I got two sets of camlock Crow's. The adjusters on my Crow's are PULL DOWN (make sure you order them that way) which makes them magnitudes easier to adjust.
 
Luv my Crow's, camlocks for 1/2 the price of the Hookers and totally customizable however you want them....I ordered mine pull down for the shoulders and pull up for the lap belt. This really lets you pull the lapbelt tight and also allows for easy adjusting of the shoulders. Crow is super easy to deal with. If something does not work right for your plane, call them and they will fix it and most of the time at no charge! They are aware of most of the gatcha's now on the different models of RV's and will advise you on what most people are using. Early adopters were using the off the shelf racecar versions which were not customized for use in our planes. I do not recommend just ordering the stock ones from a catalog as this may cause you problems.

Nothing ugly about these:

mk7ivn.jpg
 
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I ordered mine pull down for the shoulders and pull up for the lap belt.

Brian, my experience has been the pull down belts on the lap belts are better especially on the 6 and 7. When you have pull up adjusters on the lap belts, like the Hookers are, the fixed portion of the belt is the part attached to the anchor. So when I get a big passenger and it gets tight in the cockpit, its a pain for them to get to the adjuster because there's no room between bubba and the armrest to reach down so he's got to wiggle his butt to get to it, tighten the right side, and wiggle back. Usually I have to explain how to adjust it, or have to unbuckle myself and adjust it for them. Its just a pain, and I've had to do it at least a hundred times. With the pull down adjuster the fixed part is attached to the buckle, so for big guys the adjuster is now on their belly and not buried below the armrest. No more big bubba dance! :)
 
Thats the great thing about Crow's, you can get them the way you want them and I wanted mine with pull up on the lap and pull down on the shoulders, I had my belts made longer on the fixed side to account for the Bubba factor. This puts the adjusters up higher and not so far down in the crack. :D
 
Luv my Crow's, camlocks for 1/2 the price of the Hookers and totally customizable however you want them....I ordered mine pull down for the shoulders and pull up for the lap belt. This really lets you pull the lapbelt tight and also allows for easy adjusting of the shoulders. Crow is super easy to deal with. If something does not work right for your plane, call them and they will fix it and most of the time at no charge! They are aware of most of the gatcha's now on the different models of RV's and will advise you on what most people are using. Early adopters were using the off the shelf racecar versions which were not customized for use in our planes. I do not recommend just ordering the stock ones from a catalog as this may cause you problems.

Nothing ugly about these:

mk7ivn.jpg

Nothing at all...I like what I see...

Back to the original question real quick...what's the spacing on the crotch strap bracket for Crow's?

And...can you send me the specs on your order? You mentioned ordering longer on the fixed end for larger pax, etc...? Any info is much appreciated...

Steve
 
Contact info?

As an add-on question, is there a specific RV expert at Crow and Hooker that I should contact? I'm going to be needing harnesses soon, too.

I'm also interested in the crotch strap spacing question.
 
Spacing

So how about the original question about bracket spacing. I am kinda curious.
Thanks
Aaron
 
Crow Crotch Bracket Spacing

I'll try to answer the original question. The answer is not simple because, although he is close, Fred Crow does not yet have a true drop in solution for RV's. His belts normally come with huge end attachments, about 3/16 inch thick, with holes for 1/2 bolts. For RV's he has been providing lighter attachments, about 1/8 inch thick, with provisions for 1/4 inch bolts.

If you look at Brian's pictures and then look at how your belts attach, you should spot an obvious problem. Crow's light attachment has a very short distance between the edge of its 1/4 inch hole and its belt slot. Because of pull direction edge distance requirements on the mating aircraft brackets, this results in interference between the belt webbing and the aircraft brackets.

Van's primary seat belt brackets are somewhat flexible laterally. If you don't want to live with the interference, you could bend the tips of the brackets away from the belt webs, or you could add washers on each side of the Crow attachment and use longer bolts.

Van's crotch kit includes detailed drawings and bolts for 5/16 inch (just to complicate things more) holes. I had Crow throw in a couple of the massive attachments and then drilled new 5/16 inch holes in them to match Van's brackets. The attachments are very hard steel. I had to start with a small bit and work my way up one size at a time on a good drill press. I used 3/16 inch spacing on Van's brackets to match the big attachment.

Another approach that should work would be to use the light attachments and Van's hole locations, but open Van's bracket spacing even more and glue a couple of washers on each side of the attachment to prevent crushing the belt webbing. Obviously, you would want to very thoroughly smooth and deburr Van's brackets where they contact the webbing.

Still another approach would be to use the massive attachments, with big bolts, and drill new holes in Van's brackets as low as possible. You can find web sites where people have done similar things to adapt Hooker belts.

As you can see, there is some home building required, and anything mentioned above will almost certainly kill you.
 
Fred also sent me some of the longer attach brackets with the 1/2" holes. He originally promissed some with 1/4" holes but was not able to get any that way from his vendor so he sent the others instead.

So you have some options with these brackets, you can drill 1/4" holes up above the 1/2" hole and use that to attach to Van's anchors or you can make a bushing to put in the 1/2" hole to reduce it to 1/4" for the lap belt and 5/16" for the crotch strap.

There is plenty of room on the longer brackets to drill an additional hole and that is what I plan to do. I had no problem drilling the one that I drilled for a test.

The longer brackets with 1/2" holes are 0.193" thick and the original short brackets with the 1/4" holes are 0.125" thick.

The original brackets with the 1/4" hole will work dandy for the shoulder harness cable attach on the side by side airplanes.
 
Pictures - anyone?

Would anyone have pictures of that area where problem is existing and some solutions...? I believe I understand the solution but wish to see where the original problem comes from as I'm not that far yet with my stuff.
 
Here is a pic from Rocky that shows a couple of the issues.

One is the short attach point causing the webbing to be rubbed by the anchor points. This is also a problem for the crotch strap as the cuttout for the webbing on the crotch strap attach brackets is not low enough to allow the web to clear.

img00259803459ql1.jpg


Here is another pic

2ptt99z.jpg


There is also the issue with the adjuster hitting the flap motor housing on the side by side models. See Rocky's pic above.

Mine did not have this issue because I asked for straps that have extra length down there and they include another adjustment feature in that area. See this pic.

2a645jk.jpg


So you can see there are lots of variables in that we have several different models of aircraft and tons of options available from the vendor of the harnesses. Some people have ordered custom harnesses and others have ordered stock race car versions and others have a combination of the two.

It is my understanding that the Hookers also have some of these issues as well so it is not just a concern with the Crows.

Either way, the Crows offer outstanding value and Crow will make your harnesses right for you even if you mess up and order the wrong thing so you can't go wrong with them! It is easy to work out the kinks and have great usable harnesses!
 
More Crow crotch strap installation documentation

I recently decided to add the crotch strap to my RV-9A project. I wanted to document how I did it for others.

So, the crotch strap attachment that Crow supplies has holes in them that are much larger than the 5/16" bolts supplied with the Van's crotch bracket install kit.

cimg2888u.jpg


The attachment on the left is the one that comes with the crotch strap. I had Crow send me a couple of the bigger attachments like the center one. I then drilled an additional 5/16" hole in it like the third picture. It was very easy to drill through it on my drill press. Step up the bits slowly as somebody mentioned in this post and use an ample amount of lube.

For spacing, I just dropped a few of the attachments down between the brackets and drilled:

cimg2890.jpg


cimg2889.jpg


Here is how the strap fits:

cimg2894x.jpg


cimg2893l.jpg


What I didn't like was how the strap lays against the edge of the bracket cut out like in this picture:

cimg2892k.jpg


Everything would be fine as long as the strap was being used. If it wasn't used, it would just lie there and rub due to aircraft vibrations. Yea, I knocked off the sharp edge of the bracket per the instructions but I still wasn't confortable with it. I even sanded them smoother than these pictures show.

I thought initially that I would redrill a couple of attachments with the hole further down but then realized that even if I had done that, the attachment could get clocked a bit causing the same situation.

My fix was simply to put a couple of strips of black electrical tape over the formerly sharp edge. It worked great.

So there you have it. You might want to get a total of 6 of these longer brackets from Crow...two for the crotch straps and four for the lap belts. By the way, the holes are too big on the lap attachments as well but as was described on this forum, simply squeezing a couple of AN washers into the large hole on the brackets quickly fixes this problem.

The Crow folks are great!
 
Harness

I had hookers in both my RV8's and other than the price they were great, I had them in the front and back seat, now let's talk seat belts.

All kidding aside I did look at Crows for the ten however they could not match my interior. After spending the big dollars on the flight line interior I did not want belts that did not match. Hooker had an exact match and got my business again just for that reason.

Pat Stewart
 
A related question: Is it easy to add the crotch strap bracket kit after the plane is built? I'm talking about an RV-6 here, 1996 vintage. I don't have a crotch strap but would like one.
 
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