Building the Legal Eagle Seat

7/1/2010; Seat Construction

One of the unique trademarks of the Eagle is its basket weave aluminum seat. This is a lightweight design that is more comfortable than would appear at first glance.

One inch strips of .020" aluminum are woven and riveted at each intersection. I dimpled the holes and used flush driven rivets. The layout is a little tedious at first but once things get going the process speeds up.

Drilling and clecoing two of the outside strips holds the matrix together as the following strips are weaved into position.

The standard seat is a simple sling made from 36" strips. For maximum headroom I need the seat to be as low as possible and the long strips needed to be more than 36". The sheet metal shear I used was limited to 32" so a method of using shorter strips from the 36" sheet stock on hand was necessary.

The J-3 Cub seat slings use a tube in the base of the seat to give it more shape. I decided to follow that design and two 1/8" x 1/2" aluminum bars serve as the reinforcement. Each of the strips is sandwiched between the bars and riveted with two AN470 driven rivets.

Two short 3/32" cables connect the seat reinforcement to the seat belt attach bolts. The cables are tensioned tightly and give the seat more of a "seat" shape instead of being a simple sling. The result is quite comfortable and stable.

The shoulder harness is anchored to a tube that was welded in the fuse just for that purpose. This provides the optimum angle for the shoulder harness to yield maximum restraint and is located at a strong area of the fuse.

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