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Negating the Need for the Knee Defender: Recline-Forward Airplane Seats. Plus, Which is Ergonomically Worse--Being Tall, or Short?
Our post on the Knee Defender, a pair of passive-aggressive plastic doohickeys that prevent the person in front of you from reclining their seat on an airplane, has generated quite a bit of interesting commentary. Aside from one commenter who angrily fulfills the selfish "My comfort is all that matters" ethos—I won't call him out by name, but a casual perusal of the comments ought make it obvious—readers contributed some interesting opinions, well-reasoned and intelligent debate on whether being short or tall is ergonomically worse, and helpful tidbits of information on other design solutions to the problem of airplane seating.
In particular I'd like to hear more and/or see images from Core77 reader and industrial designer Shaun, who devised an interesting-sounding "checkerboard" pattern of economy seating for an airline client. Sadly, Shaun's design was forcibly modified by the outside forces we know all too well, and the mangled version of his concept that made it to the prototype stage was eighty-sixed by unhappy test subjects. (Shaun, every designer on here feels your pain; and if you're both willing and legally able to share more on the project, please drop us a line.)
One of the more interesting tidbits came from reader Kenny, who sent us a link about an ANA-branded Dreamliner that had been kitted out with forward-reclining seats. With this design, the topmost part of your seatback stays fixed in place, but you can slide the seat bottom forwards, pulling the bottom of the seatback into an angle. As you do this, of course, the seat in front of you doesn't move—so moving yourself into a reclined position affects only your own comfort.
That's still not an ideal solution—what we all really want is just more space—but under the constraints, I think it's a brilliant design approach in that it goes the other way. A passenger's misery at least becomes self-contained; they do not inconvenience others and can instead direct their displeasure at the airline responsible for the space constraints, not their fellow passengers. (Commenters in online forums who have actually tried these seats, by the way, are divided; while no one loves them, some are fine with them while the most vociferous hate them.)
The only video I could locate of this system in action is here. (I won't embed it because the footage is so terrible.) It took me a while to track down the manufacturer and their documentation is incredibly lousy—there's no images, diagrams, or renderings of the seat action—but it appears ANA got the seats from Sicma Aerospace, a subsidiary of French manufacturer Zodiac Aerospace. And though I've yet to see these seats in my last six flights over the past two months, apparently some American carriers have them; Delta, American and United have reportedly installed them in their newer planes, purchased through another Zodiac subsidiary, the Texas-based Weber Aircraft. The seats are called the 5751 and if you don't believe me about the lousy documentation, have a look, here and here.
I realize the 5751 seats won't improve the lot of previous-post-commenter Mike, an industrial designer who rings in at 6’10”. And Mike, I've gotta say your comments have turned me around on the tall-vs.-short ergonomic nightmare thing. As a 5’5” person, foreign films in public cinemas is a no-go for me—if the theater doesn't have stadium seating, I can't read the subtitles through the sea of heads—concerts are a depressing study in other people's backs, and recently a cute salesgirl cheerfully told me I might be able to find the size I needed "over in the boy's section." But after reading your comments, I agree that you've probably got it worse; whereas my discomfort is episodic and fleeting, you writing in about having to tough it out in cars, beds, planes and even doors makes me think your life must be a living hell! Anyways if you're ever in the neighborhood, stop by; there are some books on the top shelf I need to get to.
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I'm one of the main designers of this seat and have a patent for it: US20090058165VEHICLE SEAT ASSEMBLIES
There indeed are alot of rules which constrain you to a very small design envelope.
In this seat our primary focus was to make it light weight and improve passenger living space. At 6"4 i had an interest in it!
We indeed had the high pivot point for the seat back and the forward translating seat pan. We also moved the AFT base tube forward by 2" increasing the leg room by that much. We had to smartly reinforce the seat by moving a structural member like that. We also positioned the electronic boxes as tightly as possible under the seat and not on the leg, which really uses alot of passenger leg space. The only feature on the leg you see is a housing for the cables.
In the end it's the airline which spaces the seats, the recline angle and determines the living area.
I'd be happy to answer any questions about this seat. Pretty proud of it as it beat the seating competition!
Hello talking about regulations, would you mind sharing some important regulation points that made the design more difficult?
Having worked on three commercial seating programmes I can see the ergonomic logic of having the seat pan articulate forward. What you compromise in knee room, you gain in postural comfort. IE Your not going to slip of the front of the seat.
I should point out that the economy seat has not changed fundamentally in 40 years. Aerospace is so risk adverse and insular, that only handful of manufacturers supply product Zodiac included! Airlines are effectively a cartell and there is no pressure to change, so the design focus is operations centric rather than customer centric.
The main differentiator between a train and an aircraft is, as most of you gathered, real estate. Losing one seat greatly impacts the bottom-line. Aerospace is so constraint rich, both in saftey and economics I (cynically) dont think we will see a major disruptive innovation in the ecy cabin until there is considerably external pressure to change. IE peak oil or transcontinental high speed rail.
But I'd love to be proved wrong! Look forward to hearing your thoughts.
That's the power of math and algorithms...
I bet you wouldn't have to adjust dozens of seat rows.
As I described above the previously used pattern is the basis for the new seat-adjustment-plan.
And given the fact that more than 60% either don't care about that feature or are simply not eligible the number of seats that have to be adjusted can be reduced tremendously.
I bet that only around 10% of the seats have to be adjusted before eacht flight, given a well working algorithm.
And that is something that can easily be done. During the "clean up" process.
Making the adjustment process easy is the job for designers and engineers. A secure central locking system together with an easy move mechanism, together with maybe a signaling function (e.g. using the seats lights) for the seats that need adjustment could be thought about.
@KD:
Well in Europe domestic flights are not the major issue.
Because almost every flight longer than an hour brings you to a different country ;)
And domestic flights are in general not the biggest issue, due to the short duration.
If you really want the comfort on a domestic flight...is it that big of a deal to show the airline your passport?
And you are forgetting about one important thing...if you sign up for membership cards (miles-program) you usually have to give them your ID anyways. The information could easily be saved during this process.
If you are an identified and frequent traveller there is no need to show them your passport every single time ;)
I design custom aircraft interiors, and leg room is STILL a problem in some parts. This problem will literally never go away. I've decided when I'm rich enough for my own private plane the interior is just going to be one seat in the middle of the plane. Nothing else. Just one seat, maybe a desk.
The train I commute on has seats that face each other, so we end up dovetailing our legs together. It's a bit intimate, but it does amount to a bit more legroom.
People are not a uniform shape or size, and we simply not designed to stay in one position for many hours at a stretch.
Ultimately all they wind up doing is make you slouch.
The aviation industry is a tough field.
There are countless restrictions, international standards (like the size of onboard-trolleys for food and other goods) that minimize the possibilities.
I always thought about a stair-like design, as it is found in theaters, cinemas and lecture halls. But this would make the use of trolleys difficult, as well as the cargo area would be weirdly shaped and would--I guarantee--conflict with the standard sizes for cargo-boxes.
But there is a solution...something quite math and algorithm based:
Modern passports (those with an RFID-Chip) contain information about your size as well. And on most of the older ones this information is printed somewhere as a main identification characteristic.
This information could be used to place the customers on seats with a matching legroom. And abuse of the system could be prohibited that clearly would occur if you offer that option during webcheckin. As then everybody would all of a sudden be 2m tall, just for the sake of the extra legroom.
So during the checkin process or at the security gate the customer should be asked if this information can be shared with the airline (Opt-In feature! Privacy first!)
If the customer allows the airline to use this information, together with your seat preference (like back/front, windows/aisle, together with the spouse or a group of friends/familey or even the information 'I don't care') a program should be able to calculate the perfect 'seating' plan for the airplane.
The seats could have something like 3 classes. Short / Normal legroom / extra-large legroom.
I bet in this initial step 60% of the seats could remain normal and the rest could be adjusted.
In another step one could think about sliding seats. That slide back and forth 5cm.
So that before the flight, when the cleaning crew goes through the plane the seats could be positioned.
For extra legroom the front seat could be moved 5cm to the front, whereas your seat is put one position to the back.
I am pretty sure that if you let this be done by an pattern optimisation algorithm you get a pretty nice and equally spread variation of legroom.
Before the flight the seats should be locked in this position by a central locking system. (Of course only delockable while the plane is on ground and not moving.)
To make this attractive:
People, who get the shortened legroom should get a price deduction on their ticket or something like double-miles on the airlines bonusprogram.
Tall people or other poeple who really need more legroom (pregnant women, disabled people etc.) should get it for free. Their passport is the document that verifies the need.
Small people who just want more comfort should pay 10% more for it.
I bet on average this pays out. Keeps the plane's capacity at current levels (no lost space) and satisfies every customer. :)
I am quite comfortable with the seats in airplanes as I am only around 1,8m. I would probably even accept the smaller legroom for a price deduction.
As for recline-forward seating, as you say internalizing the issue doesn't negate the core issue of legroom unfortunately, so airlines will continue to be flying cattle-cars. Commercial air travel has become such a miserable experience in every facet that I, someone who loves flying, would rather take the train.
But hopefully some designers can add more legroom, streamline boarding processes, and negate the need to remove shoes, clothes, and everything else you own to get aboard an airliner.