PBY Catalina Crew Seat

FarlamAirframes · **Posted:** Mon Jun 01, 2015 3:56 am

I picked up this chair from an antiques website in Lincolnshire UK.

It was being advertised as a B17 WOPS chair. I have seen this style previously as used on the PBY Catalina

It is likely that the structure below the swivel joint is steel and post war.

Can anyone confirm whether it was used operationally on anything other than PBY's and any hint as to which position this one was used on ?

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthre ... -PBY-Chair

Digger · **Posted:** Tue Jun 02, 2015 7:38 am

I have the same seat and have compared it to one used in a PBY here in Australia - its the same. But of course this does not exclude its use in the later B-17's as mentioned on the linked site.

FarlamAirframes · **Posted:** Tue Jun 02, 2015 8:44 am

Thank you Peter.

From the Catalina in scale and detail- the three seats - Nav/Wops and gunner were of similar style -but the swivel bases were all different.

What style do you have ?

Does your seat also have the belt bar on either side ?

Thanks.

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Tue Jun 02, 2015 4:32 pm

I don't think they were ever standard equipment in B-17's from the factory but post war mods meant that anything was fair game.

I have seen this seat used on several aircraft like at the radio operators position in the C-47:

Some here: http://www.airwaysmuseum.com/DC3%20survey%20station.htm

Here is one I removed from a C-47 at Basler:

And the PBY:

Looks like the base may be different in this shot:

The base must be special to the PBY as its the same at the one at the NMNA in Pensacola:

FarlamAirframes · **Posted:** Wed Jun 03, 2015 4:30 am

Thank you Sir.

Some very nice images.

Does this mean that the manufacture of these chairs continued post war and they were preferentially substituted into B17's C-47's etc.

Or were these seats recovered from scrapped aircraft and re-used ?

I assume that if the bases were different that it was the former.

I know that when we dug at Silloth in Cumbria one of the panels was a stainless steel engine cowl from a post war scrapped Coastal Command Catalina. So in 45 some were cut up in UK.

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Wed Jun 03, 2015 12:08 pm

My impression is that most crew seats were manufactured by contractors for generic installations and they were adapted for specific installations by the manufacturer. Some of these were made by office furniture manufacturers according to labels I have seen. Others are from aircraft seat companies. I would think that if mods were being done then a certain seat was selected either from surplus stores within the military of from outside sources commonly available.

Its pure speculation on my part but when you see the same type of seat in lots of aircraft from different manufacturers it makes you think that there was a catalog somewhere that the engineers were using to pick what would fit the bill.

Sort of like: http://www.martin-baker.com/products and what would work for your application.

FarlamAirframes · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2015 9:32 am

Thank you Taigh.

I understand Warren Mcarthur was one of the Big aircraft seat manufacturers in USA during the war and he made seats for the Albatross and the Mariner amongst other s - a mix of tubular and pressed metal styles.

I have also seen post war Mcarthur airliner seats as well as C54 engineers stool.

Mcarthur seats are now worth a few bob.

Then there was the Cramer typist chair that was used in the B17 etc.

This looks like it was made by a different manufacturer.

Digger · **Posted:** Thu Jun 04, 2015 7:31 pm

Hi - mine has the same square base with rounder corners, swivels and has smaller belt guides on the sides

Airlift48 · **Joined:** Sat Oct 29, 2005 7:01 pm **Posts:** 746

Also used in the B-377 as the engineers seat. Notice the different legs?

FarlamAirframes · **Posted:** Fri Jun 05, 2015 9:26 am

Thanks Kevin - a quick image search of stratocruiser cockpits show a Pan Am and this British one with the same seats. There is also some images of later machines with full leather seats.

Taigh Ramey · **Posted:** Fri Jun 05, 2015 12:22 pm

Our Harpoon has two Warren MacArthur seats one each at the radio and radar ops position. The same basic seat can be seen in many other aircraft even the P-61.

The office chair seat in the B-17 were also used in the B-29 at the nav, radio and radar ops position usually with slightly different variations on the lower tubular mounts. Some fixed, some had rollers and could slide on tracks. The B-17 bombardiers seat has a real stretched version to mount over the chin turret but the mounting post and above are all about the same seat.

Here is a shot shamelessly stolen from http://ships.bouwman.com/B17/Chin-Turret.jpg

May have some artistic license but you get the idea.

FarlamAirframes · **Posted:** Fri Jun 05, 2015 3:13 pm

just cleaned up the chair and underneath the paint is the General Fireproofing Co of Youngstown Ohio label...

shrike · **Posted:** Fri Jun 05, 2015 9:01 pm

FarlamAirframes wrote:

just cleaned up the chair and underneath the paint is the General Fireproofing Co of Youngstown Ohio label...

Who started making metal office furniture early in the 20th century, made a line of aluminium chairs, and created the classic LMD with the Model 1600

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PBY Catalina Crew Seat

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