Flightdeck Seats

Having real flight deck seats from an original aircraft is the end goal.  However, they are difficult to find and very expensive.  For the interim, I decided to use captains chairs from a van and converted them into looking like the original thing.

I originally used these seats for several years.  They were green vinyl (not lying) and I stained them black.  They worked good but interfered with the yokes when pulling them toward you as you would do rotating the aircraft.

These seats were on the flight deck for three (3) years.  They worked alright but I did notice the stain rubbed off in high traffic areas.  You could see the green reappear in select areas.

Once the seats were stripped of all the foam and unnecessary hardware, I began building a frame out of wood.  I did pay attention to exposed screws and tried to make them look like rivets from the real thing.  Although the flight deck is very dark, these seats look the part.  Once finished I painted the frames Boeing Gray.

I made sure that the heights of the seats worked out as well by adjusting the thickness of the base.  They are as close to scale as can be considering what I had to work with.

Once they dried I began working on the cushions.  We went to a fabric store and found some foam and fabric.  I used 5″ thick foam for the horizontal seats and 3″ foam for the vertical parts.  We also found some faux sheep skin to emulate the covers.  Although they do not have the feel of the real thing they look the part.