Seeing Emfly's blinging new seats and flying 5 hours on Saturday has me wanting to do something with my seat. My Avid has a sling seat that is laced in. I suspect it probably just has some 20 year old yellow foam in there. It's not very comfortable. On amazon you can get 3" memory foam matress toppers from lots of different vendors. A twin only costs like $45. I talked to my local upholstery shop that's done work for me before and they said bring it in with whatever foam I want and they would do it for me.

Do you think a mattress topper foam would be dense enough for just your butt? I have one on my bed at home but it's pretty soft compared to like an Oregon Aero seat cushion. Ultimately I'd like to put some Oregon Aero type stuff in there but $$$$ I did run one of their cushions for a while that I borrowed but it took away what little headroom I have. I'm trying to keep it on the cheap but make it better before Idaho this year. I know I've seen some traffic on here before regarding this topic but I couldn't find it. Thoughts?

Okay I finally found my old thread from last year. I checked out Seatfoam.com and sent them an email. Will see if I hear back from them or not. Their stuff looks pretty good if it's not to spendy. I'm still thinking I should just get a twin topper and hack it to fit, stuff it inside my seat and call it good.

Avid,

I bought an RV from a guy at your airport. You been there long?

On the seats, I'm probably the only guy in the world who spent big money on Oregon Aero foam and isn't impressed with it. It's ok for 1 fuel load but anything over 4 or 5 hours and I'm in pain from them. Do have one of their portable 1" pads that we use in the cub and I've gone close to 6 hours doing some low power stuff and been comfortable. King of cheap seats for me and what I use all the time on the Oregon Aero seats now is one of those inflatable rings with just enough air in it so I barely touch the seat. Works great, is silly cheap, and keeps the helmet from hitting stuff from being too tall. Just be prepared for the jokes when you get out to get fuel...

I've been looking into this stuff for my seats. I like the idea of having different density layers, but I don't know anything about the stuff.
http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/cmpages/conForFoan.php

chrisg wrote:I've been looking into this stuff for my seats. I like the idea of having different density layers, but I don't know anything about the stuff.
http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/cmpages/conForFoan.php

That's the stuff that seatfoam.com sells. My seat is a bench type seat though that's 38 inches across. I emailed them and asked about getting a custom size cut or just buying a while sheet. For $42 for a 16X18 size piece though I'd hate to see what a whole sheet costs.

Avid,
I recently stripped the upholstery off the back seat of my 170B and was looking for a lighter, more versatile, and less expensive alternative to refinish the seat for occasional passengers. I wrapped the seat frame in canvas and got a camp chair that uses a Thermarest matress (some foam, mostly air). We flew Anchorage to Valdez and out to Hinchinbrook this weekend (5 hr total for the trip) and my backseater said the ride was pretty comfortable. You won't have bling like Emflys but you will have a camp seat when you get where you are going.
Bill
http://www.rei.com/product/719820/therm ... -chair-kit

I used the foam from Jim Fix (seatfoam.com) on my cub seats and had Fine Line in Anch. do the seat covers. They are as comfortable as oregon aeros and look awesome.

I am too short to fly a 500 gal Thrush without a cushion (even with the seat pulled all the way up) so I bought the same foam from Aircraft Spruce and made my own portable cushion. Same deal... very comfy.

Memory foam comes in different densities and qualities, so I doubt that a piece that's made to go over an existing matress will give much support, but dunno?

All the memory foam seats suck in the cold till you warm them up.

Take care, Rob

Got the basic temperfoam layers from Spruce and then sewed my own covers. Upholstery fabric and heavy thread. Once they warm up and you sink in a bit... pretty comfy and stayed on a budget. Did fireproofing spray on them.

If you are willing to buy it by the sheet (about 3' X 6' IIRC), it's available wholesale on-line. I purchased it from Rathbun Associates in SoCal (Google them).

I would recommend the extra firm (green) if you are clearance critical. I did some tests before making the seat pads for my glider. Put a piece of the foam on the floor and sat with feet up so only my tail bone was on the foam. Determined that 1/2" is the critical thickness for my butt. It is advisable to put up to two inches in the seat pad bottom if space permits. This will afford I good measure of protection from spine injuries in a crash.

The extra firm, perhaps not intuitively, is very comfortable, though not during the first few minutes in cold weather. However, as it warms from the body, it "flows" to provide even and seamless support, so, given a reasonable seat design, will provide comfortable seating for hours.

One more thing, when building your own seat pads, but the thinest sheet that you will need. Confor foam will laminate using 3M spray adhesive (77 or 90) so you can build whatever thickness you need. Buying a thick chunk of foam is a lot harder to deal with as you will need either a bandsaw or better, a hot wire to cut it thinner.

For shaping, an old electric knife works wonders. So does a belt sander, though you'll look like a green smurf when you're done.

I bought my comfor foam from the guy who has booths at OSH and Sun and Fun.. I sandwiched the blue and green to make a 2" stack. I should have done the 3" one though as I have plenty of height till I get to the roof. As others have said it is hard as a rock till it warms up, and my situation is worst then others as I sometimes fly when its -30 f outside. Summertime it is perfect. On my 13 hour flight to OSH I never once felt any discomfort ... YMMV

Ben...

Got this back from the Seatfoam folks

We have available a cut of 1X24X36 (possibly a little larger than 36 can be cut) any density runs $58.50. We are concerned about putting it into a sling type seat. Confor Foam works best if placed on a flat solid surface. It is temperature sensitive and becomes very firm/hard in cold weather. If sat on and does not have a firm base it could crack and break.

Looks like that type of foam might not work in my application. Thanks everyone for the replies. I'm still eyeballing a twin size mattress cover on Amazon for $60.

http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Innovations ... 34&sr=8-16

AvidFlyer wrote:Got this back from the Seatfoam folks

We have available a cut of 1X24X36 (possibly a little larger than 36 can be cut) any density runs $58.50. We are concerned about putting it into a sling type seat. Confor Foam works best if placed on a flat solid surface. It is temperature sensitive and becomes very firm/hard in cold weather. If sat on and does not have a firm base it could crack and break.

Looks like that type of foam might not work in my application. Thanks everyone for the replies. I'm still eyeballing a twin size mattress cover on Amazon for $60.

http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Innovations ... 34&sr=8-16

Don't think the mattress topper is going to give you the support you're looking for, but would certainly be better than garden variety yellow polyfoam.

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention about making your own pads with Temperfoam, Confor, etc. the foam degrades in UV and does not resist abrasion well, so it pretty much has to be covered even when using it under an existing cushion. When upholstering using Confor, it is common practice to spray glue and then cover the confor with a 1/2" layer of polyfoam. This allows the fabric to conform well when stuffing the cushion and adds to the touchy-feely comfort.

Here's what I did. I have been using the portable Oregon Aero cushions for a while in my S7, but never really liked the look of them sitting on the seats, or of the stock S7 seat for that matter.



I had seen some of the custom seats done by Oregon Aero for the S7 but they expensive. I had already invested in the cushion, so....

I went to a local hot rod upholstery guy and showed him a few pics. The idea was to just take the cushion material (seat and lumbar support) out of the OA pads and just incorporate them into the stock seat with a new "pleather" material. I also had him set up to embroider the the Rans S7 logo.

Here is the result. He essentially made slip covers that tie on the bottom using a similar process as the stock seat material - a plastic coated cable and pins.

It was only $125/seat. Embroidery was $75, 60 of which was the one time set up fee!

I am not sure of what OA uses in the portabel cushion, but they are comfy and there is probably a science behind their specific composition.

Those are sweet Emmet! I really need to do something. My back was hurting after my Hour and a half cruise home from Chico on Saturday. I got my ANR kit today. Hopefully between that and a softer seat I won't be a walking zombie after our 8 hour day to Idaho next month.

I have the seats for my new build S7 at Oregon for the full upgrade. I chose now so as to avoid having the plane out of commission for 6 weeks. The big difference that sold me was the webbing support they put under the bottom cushion to keep the cushion from collapsing/sagging. I'll let you know how if feels next month.

Hey Mike - what did OA charge you per seat?

Send us some pics of your plane - its gotta be almost done, yeah???

Well here's my sweet sling seat. As you can see I think I'm justified in wanting to fix it up. I ordered 4 squares of foam based of Jim at Seatfoam.com recommendation. They are super nice folks btw. It's just him and her that run the company. I love companies like this!! They only charge $19.50 for a 16X18 square. I ordered 4 and I'm going to recover my entire seat.

Here she is in all her glory. Imagine sitting in this thing listening to a two stroke at 6000rpm for 8 hours

Avid Flyer , it made my ass hurt just looking at it. 8 Hours? I would like to see it when you get the seat redone..
Ken in Alaska

Well technically 170 hours. I have done two trips where I flew 8-9 hours each way in one day though. It's only 2" thick and you can squish it to the bottom with your pinkie. It's light and works great for most of my hour or so long hops out to play but for a X-country asspad it needs some serious help.

Rob wrote:
All the memory foam seats suck in the cold till you warm them up.

Take care, Rob

Sucks is right.
We have Tempurpedic memory foam beds in our house and everyone loved them so I sprung for Spruce's 2 layer memory foam for my plane seats. Turned out they stayed hard as a brick in the cold while the foam part sucked the heat out of your butt until it remembered it was actually foam. Sent them back, went to the neighbor ladies tractor seat upholstery shop and got the same 2 inch foam I sit 10 hrs a day on during planting. A two hour plane ride is nothing.