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Aircraft Crew Seating

 

Alex in GT450 microlight

 

 

 

 

The crew of a microlight aircraft represent a significant proportion of the fuselage volume. For this reason, their seating position has a great influence on fuselage design. Side-by-side seating is very popular for modern aircraft but before adopting a specific layout, a brief survey was conducted, considering 4 contrasting "seating" positions to ensure that the one selected was the most appropriate.

 

Prone position. Well, hang glider pilots manage it like this. They fly in prone position to minimize their frontal area and hence reduce drag. It's not unpleasant because they are suspended from above and free to move quite easily. For a conventional aircraft, prone position is not so appealing. How do you support the body and still offer freedom of movement? Before the advent of the g-suit, tests were carried out on pilots flying in prone position as a method of reducing the detrimental effects of g. Even though there was a good reason for doing it, pilots disliked flying in the prone position and the idea was abandoned.

 

 

Hang glider - photo © Geoff Emerson, 2005, Wessexcam.com

 

 

Colditz glider - Metro newspaper 31st January 2000

 

 

Back to back. Back to back is not a serious consideration since it is pretty unpleasant for the rear passenger - not to mention anti-social. It is included here only for completeness. Aircraft adopting this configuration had a very good reason for doing so, e.g. warplanes that required a rear gunner. The Colditz glider used this seating layout, to enable 2 occupants to fit into the relatively small fuselage of this escape glider. Nobody would object to sitting backwards on a short flight that got them out of a PoW camp!

 

 

 

Tandem. This is a common seating position amongst older light aircraft. Although it enables the aircraft designer to reduce the fuselage cross-sectional area, there are centre-of-gravity considerations to be accounted for. Greater care had to be taken to ensure that the C.G. fell within the right range. The Tiger Moth, for instance, has to be flown solo from the rear cockpit.

 

Tiger Moth

 

Different seating positions considered for our microlight aircraft

 

 

Side by side. Side-by-side seating is very popular amongst crews. It offers better communication and reduces the risk of miscalculating the C.G. position by putting both occupants on, or very close to, the centre-of-gravity. Although this configuration creates a relatively large cross-sectional area, the effect can be reduced somewhat by slightly reclining the occupants. The side-by-side configuration is popular for a good reason and is considered to be the most appropriate for our canard design.

 

 

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