Hello All, I am Daniel Maccarone the founder of Sport Aircraft Seats. As many of you know we are now proud sponsors of BCP and can't wait to get to know the community. We are based in Wasilla, Alaska, and have been making seat upholstery for Alaska bush planes for 9 years now. Our 4 person team consists of two master sewers, Brady and Laura, my wife Nicole, and myself. My primary function is product field testing

I am a new private pilot as of 3 months ago. I bought a PA11 in April of 2019 and have put over 100 hours on it so far. I haven't been taking many photos because I've been more focused on learning to fly than documenting it at this point.

I will be posting on this topic about anything seat related. New products, weight savings, designs, safety aspects of seats, before and after photos, etc. I'll start it off with a few photos of some of my flying adventures.

Cheers


Laning in the Knik river valley with my trusty cub Huck



Some 180 seat upholstery installed by the customer. He saved 15lbs on pilot and copilot seats.



Landing in the Talkeetna mountains with my buddy Price



My first beach landing, Bristol Bay, Alaska



More Knik flying.

Cool stuff!

Nice seats!

Congrats on the bird and the ticket!

Love Big Red! lol..

Looks like an awesome product Daniel, good for you and your team! Any thoughts or plans for doing Husky seats? The Oregon Aero seats are not very comfortable for me or my passengers, too much "bucket" and thigh support, they need to be flatter. I would love to see another option.

Thanks

Kurt

Shout Out to Daniel,
I ordered 1 seat to try out and get before a trip to Idaho from arkansas. He was more than helpful and accommodated me in every way. Here are a few pics of the frame before repainting and covering. I think it turned out very well and will be ordering more this week.
Thanks Daniel!









Gypsy

I met Daniel at the Airman Show two years ago and always like chatting with him. I just ordered a set for a customer project I'm working on. Totally stripping the subs and rebuilding them. I'll get some pics up when the upholstery arrives!

Flying Dave wrote:Cool stuff!

Nice seats!

Congrats on the bird and the ticket!

Love Big Red! lol..

Thanks, Yes the Big Reds are the best.

G44 wrote:Looks like an awesome product Daniel, good for you and your team! Any thoughts or plans for doing Husky seats? The Oregon Aero seats are not very comfortable for me or my passengers, too much "bucket" and thigh support, they need to be flatter. I would love to see another option.

Thanks

Kurt

Kurt, we actually do make seats for huskys, we just haven't put them up on our website yet. We don't get requests for them often so the last time I made one was with my old design. The front seats are very similar to a PA18 front seat, the back rest is a little taller and of course they don't move forward and back. but other than that the upholstery will look really similar. here are a few examples of what they would look like. we can modify the pocket options, foam thickness, and colors.

gypsywagon wrote:Shout Out to Daniel,
I ordered 1 seat to try out and get before a trip to Idaho from arkansas. He was more than helpful and accommodated me in every way. Here are a few pics of the frame before repainting and covering. I think it turned out very well and will be ordering more this week.
Thanks Daniel!









Gypsy

I'm glad it arrived in time. excited to hear how it does on your trip.

Daniel,

Great news on the Husky seats!

I will contact you directly later this fall.

Kurt

I just completed then installation of two Sport Aircraft Upholstery kits on 1963 Cessna frames. These kits are cloth without the standard lumbar support, they are straight backed. They are a perfect fit for the wife, but I needed a little more support in the lower back area so I attached a 1X7 inch wedge to the ceconite back material in the proper position with rib lacing cord.

The seats are very comfortable and absolutely beautiful with the workmanship what you would expect in the seats of a new Cadillac.

Daniel has been very helpful and he business ethics impeccable. He will do anything to make you happy with his product.

We plan to do another airplane with his kits later this fall.

Monte Orr

I've watched a couple of the videos on how to install and looked at the site - can't find a lot about how the back seats are handled, in the 100 series Cessnas.

Daniel, forgot to say earlier, thank you for supporting BCP, without sponsors like yourself and Zanes hard work we would not have a site like this.

Thank you, and thanks to all the other sponsors of this site.

Kurt

G44 wrote:Daniel,

Great news on the Husky seats!

I will contact you directly later this fall.

Kurt

Look forward to your report. Our stock seats are getting a little long in the tooth.

One of my airport homies had Sport AC SEats do the upholstery for his PA12 project.
Came out very nice, and all done long-distance via phone / email.

corefile wrote:I've watched a couple of the videos on how to install and looked at the site - can't find a lot about how the back seats are handled, in the 100 series Cessnas.

they install in pretty much the exact way as the front seats. here's a video I made a couple years ago of one being installed. I'll post some more photos soon on this thread of Cessna rear seats. We also have a kit for the Cessna jump seats, the Attlee Dodge and LakeVue Aero jump seats. They are all incredibly easy to install.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J_sGj_yuBI

I've seen your seats in friend's planes and they are great! Thanks for sponsoring BCP.

I'll be ordering in the next year or so, but was wondering if you had pictures of the Carbon Concepts rear seat option you make.

Thanks!

Sport Aircraft Seats wrote:

corefile wrote:I've watched a couple of the videos on how to install and looked at the site - can't find a lot about how the back seats are handled, in the 100 series Cessnas.

they install in pretty much the exact way as the front seats. here's a video I made a couple years ago of one being installed. I'll post some more photos soon on this thread of Cessna rear seats. We also have a kit for the Cessna jump seats, the Attlee Dodge and LakeVue Aero jump seats. They are all incredibly easy to install.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J_sGj_yuBI

Awesome - thanks!

Here is an easy way to save about 20-30 pounds off of your cessna rear seat.

Cost $800-1200.

Side benefit is that your rear seat will be easy to remove without removing front seats.

Finished product will weigh about 10lbs without the removable cushions. The cushions weigh about 10lbs and velcro to the webbing. The webbing can be used to haul passengers without the cushions but obviously won't be as comfortable.



Step 1: remove the old upholstery and springs

Step 2: repair and powder coat frame

Step 3: glue on webbing

Step 4: place cushions on seat

Nice work. Love the creativity and concepts you come up with. Seats are next on the list... you know 20-30 pounds is tempting. Really I like the idea of removing the seat cushions and throwing down the dog version on the seat.

What do the cushions for carbon fiber rear cub seat look like ? Does it just Velcro on ?

Sport Aircraft Seats wrote:Here is an easy way to save about 20-30 pounds off of your cessna rear seat.

Cost $800-1200.

Side benefit is that your rear seat will be easy to remove without removing front seats.

Finished product will weigh about 10lbs without the removable cushions. The cushions weigh about 10lbs and velcro to the webbing. The webbing can be used to haul passengers without the cushions but obviously won't be as comfortable.



Step 1: remove the old upholstery and springs

Step 2: repair and powder coat frame

Step 3: glue on webbing

Step 4: place cushions on seat

I really like this - couple questions.
- What is the weight capacity of the webbing, since the seat will not be cinched around the frame the entire weight is born by the webbing flaps that are glued to the frame?
- Can you paint the flaps after you have glued them down so they blend into the frame more - will the paint effect the glue.

Sorry I'm suspect of the webbing and glue as I had a pair of seats done by a guy in arizona that has been promoted on this site before, and they were terrible - poorly glued leather and webbing came undone while I was flying and I partial sunk down in the seat.(and he would not fix them)