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Aviation History
1954
1954 - 2070.PDF
FLIGHT, 16 July 1954 91 CIVIL AVIATION On Going Forward Backwards JUST over a week ago I would have hesitated to write about rearward-facing seats, on the assumption that most people are thoroughly-iamiliar with all the arguments for and against. On July 10th I heard a talk on the subject by G/C. A. C. Dudgeon, D.F.C., of Transport Command. It was an informative, persuasive and entertaining talk, and it put the advantages of the aft-facing, seat into very clear perspective—no wild claims, no concentration on one aspect of survival to the exclusion of all otters. Subsequently a very lively discussion developed and someone called for a show of hands. I was surprised to see that four-fifths of a reasonably well-informed audience (consisting of members and guests of Aviation Forum*) were in favour of the rear ward-facing seat for all civil transport aircraft. This was not just a tribute to the persuasion of the speaker; in many cases —my own included—the group captain was preaching to the converted. Subsequent further researches convinced me that there is a wide body of expert medical and technical opinion in favour of the aft-facing seat. I was also forced to the conclusion that both operators and licensing authorities have tended to side-step the issue, and will continue to do so unless it is kept warm. As a passenger, I do not consider myself qualified to demand rearward- facing seats. But I think it fair to ask that the subject be considered in the same terms of rational thought applied to most other aspects of air transport—performance requirements, for example. Of aft-facing seats the present chief technical officer of the Air Registration Board once wrote, very wisely: ". . . the more one studies the matter the more one feels the answer is not a choice between black and white, but rather between various shades of grey. Perhaps this is true of most problems once they are approached from a scientific rather than an emotional point of view." Precisely. To distinguish between subtle shades of grey, incredible numbers of man-hours have been spent on the various aspects of airworthiness and aircraft performance—often minute in themselves but each an integral part of an overall standard of reliability. The result of this work is seen in the safety record of the scheduled airlines. But there remains—and so far as one can see will remain—the risk of accident to any given flight operation. This risk is accepted, and so too is the need to minimize the effects of accidents when they occur. It is not pessimism or lack of confidence which has led ,'o the formulation of "crashworthiness" requirements, but a realistic desire to protect passengers and crew throughout every phase of every flight operation—including the odd one in 10,000 which ends with a mishap of some sort. The aft-facing seat question represents one small facet of the whole complex pattern of crashworthiness. As such it is entitled to its fair share, and no more, of rational consideration. The point which I hope to make is that emotional rather than rational thought has been predominant in this particular case. The whole thing is still on a black-and-white basis. Let us consider, briefly, the history of the rearward-facing seat, the advantages put forward for it and such counter-arguments as its opponents have produced. It is not certain when rearward-facing seats were first thought of as a method of increasing passengers' chances of survival in an accident. However, G/C. Dudgeon has referred to a paper on the subject written as early as 1942 by a F/L. Pekarek at Farn- borough. Both these officers were closely concerned with the introduction in 1946 of aft-facing seats, as a semi-experimental measure, in aircraft of No. 46 Group, Transport Command. Within the R.A.F. there were mixed feelings about the value of the idea, and, no doubt, a great deal of strife at staff levels. Suffice to say on this occasion that all Transport Command's large air craft, present and future, have or will have rearward-facing seats. Furthermore, some progress is being made in reversing the seats fitted to smaller passenger-type aircraft. During 46 Group's trial period some 10,000 passengers were asked to fill in questionnaires asking their opinion of rearward- iacing seats. It is important to note that this questionnaire made oo mention of the safety aspect, and in fact only one passenger (an Army major) said, in effect: "I prefer it this way because it's safer" The results of the survey were: 65 per cent preferred to face aft; 30 per cent had no preference (the majority because "fcy had not flown before); 3 per cent—practically all experienced aircrew—disliked the idea intensely; and 2 per cent ignored the "Westionnaire. . A discussion group whose primary interest is "the furtherance of "" transport." Another survey along these lines, differing mainly in that pas sengers were notified of the reason for fitting aft-facing seats, was conducted a couple of years later by the Air Transport Command of the U.S.A.F. Altogether 1,020 people were involved, of whom 94 per cent replied "Yes" to the question: "Considering safety advantages, do you favour this arrangement?" The number of civil operators who have followed the R.A.F.'s lead in adopting aft-facing seats is very small. Included in this minority are some of the British independent operators, including Airwork, Air Charter and Eagle. In addition, some manufacturers are making full provision for the fitting of aft-facing seats as standard equipment on projected new transport aircraft—e.g., the Atlantic, Friendship, H.P.R.3 and Twin Pioneer. The U.S.A.F., so far as I know, has not equipped its present aircraft with aft-facing seats, but it was decided in 1953 that future aircraft should be so provided. The first of these is the Convair C-131A Samaritan, an ambulance version of the familiar Convair 240. No requirement or recommendation for the fitting of aft-facing seats on present or future aircraft has been written into the inter national standards laid down by I.C.A.O. To my knowledge, the only airworthiness authority to have issued any definite pro nouncement along these lines is our own A.R.B. Current British Civil Airworthiness Requirements contain the following non- mandatory clause: "To avoid as far as possible the risk of injury to the occupants under emergency and minor crash conditions it is recommended that, where practicable, seats should be aft- facing." In 1952 the Australian Department of Civil Aviation came out with a proposal to issue a firm requirement for the fitting of 12g rearward-facing seats in all future transport aircraft. Shortly after wards the Australian Minister for Civil Aviation announced that the proposal had been dropped-—presumably as a result of pressure from the airlines. The reasons for the proposal were set out in a paper, dated July 1952, by Mr. R. R. Shaw, the Department's supervising aero nautical engineer. His introductory notes included this passage: "The .whole question is one of degree, and of compromise. The only way to stop all fatalities is to stop all flying. It would be quite possible from the engineering point of view to design aircraft in such a way that the crash fatality rate would go down by 95 per cent. But this would mean carrying, say, only five passengers in an aircraft the size of the DC-4. Such steps as these are econo mically untenable. But leaving aside the absurd extremes, it is believed that it can be shown that a substantial improvement in the survival-rate can be achieved in aircraft of current design by steps which involve a relatively small economic penalty. It is felt that there is a strong moral obligation to take these steps." The question to be answered, in rational terms, is: "Does such an obligation exist?" If it does, it has clearly been shirked. The advantages claimed for the aft-facing seat can be summed up very simply. A large majority of casualties in aircraft accidents result from the deceleration produced by impact with die ground, varying from, say, lg in a smooth belly-landing and 20-40g in more severe crashes leaving the fuselage wholly or partly intact. Properly supoorted, the human frame can withstand the highest deceleration likely to be encountered in any crash which is basically "survivable"—one in which complete crushing, burning or disintegration of the fuselage does not occur. Protagonists of the backward-facing seat maintain that this is the best method of providing such protection because (a) it places a shield between the body and the most likely sources of injury and (b) because the back of the human body is stronger than the front. Expressed in its simplest terms, the argument for the aft-facing seat is that in any given set of circumstances it is safer than the forward-facing seat. Evidence to support this theory is convincing but by no means conclusive from a technical viewpoint. Indeed, as no two accidents can be identical in their nature, it is difficult to see how con clusive proof could ever be obtained. Essential details of the major accidents to aircraft equipped with backward-facing seats are as follows: On December 20th, 1950, an R.A.F. Hastings crashed at Benina after an airscrew blade had torn into the fuselage, severely injuring one of the crew and jamming the elevator and rudder controls. While attempting to land on two engines it undershot and crashed heavily. All five members of the crew were killed (a point which indicates the severity of the impact without necessarily affecting the seating controversy), but the 26 passengers, who, with one exception, were in 15g rearward-facing seats, escaped without serious injury. On February 18th, 1951, an R.A.F. Valetta crashed into a wooded hill near Stockholm during a single-engined over shoot in bad visibility. One of the crew of three was killed and
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