Dreamliner seat recall, quite expensive
Discussion
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/loose-7...
"A notice of proposed rulemaking released on 7 March by the FAA would require 787 operators to replace each of the $15,141 crew seats within three years"
That seat price is the price of an entire Ford Fiesta.
Which has 4 seats.
And an engine.
And a lot more.
Has nobody ever wondered if the 787 pilot seats might be a tad overpriced? No wonder they got rid of airline engineers in the cockpit 3rd seat
"A notice of proposed rulemaking released on 7 March by the FAA would require 787 operators to replace each of the $15,141 crew seats within three years"
That seat price is the price of an entire Ford Fiesta.
Which has 4 seats.
And an engine.
And a lot more.
Has nobody ever wondered if the 787 pilot seats might be a tad overpriced? No wonder they got rid of airline engineers in the cockpit 3rd seat
willy wonka said:
I work for the company that makes these and can assure you they are very complex bits of kit so worth every cent!
What, more complex than an entire car? Also it sounds like your company f
ked up to be honest and can't even get a seat to go backwards and forwards safely..... ahem 
Edited by Gandahar on Saturday 12th March 22:28
From my experience anything to do with civil aviation is vastly over priced.
I used to work in a maintenance facility and the cost of some of the things fitted to aircraft is shocking. The beverage makers fitted to most of the Boeing aircraft were about £6k. They were nothing more than a water heater not anything fancy like a bean to cup machine.
Water came into the back, was heated in the tank and deposited out of the front into a alloy pot.
Simple convection ovens were just as expensive and they were even simpler! Just a steel box with a thermostat and a heat element. The controls came separately
People wonder why air travel is so expensive..
I used to work in a maintenance facility and the cost of some of the things fitted to aircraft is shocking. The beverage makers fitted to most of the Boeing aircraft were about £6k. They were nothing more than a water heater not anything fancy like a bean to cup machine.
Water came into the back, was heated in the tank and deposited out of the front into a alloy pot.
Simple convection ovens were just as expensive and they were even simpler! Just a steel box with a thermostat and a heat element. The controls came separately
People wonder why air travel is so expensive..
The reason they are expensive is they are rated to 16g and to reach that level there is extensive testing involved.The actuators are made in France and we are working towards a fix which is not to far away.A crew seat will last longer than your average fiesta with routine servicing.We have products in the field that have been flying for 30+ years.
willy wonka said:
The reason they are expensive is they are rated to 16g and to reach that level there is extensive testing involved.The actuators are made in France and we are working towards a fix which is not to far away.A crew seat will last longer than your average fiesta with routine servicing.We have products in the field that have been flying for 30+ years.
My favorite armchair is knocking on 75 years old and still going strong. You should use them instead - I've yet to hear of a single recall on them either. 
willy wonka said:
The reason they are expensive is they are rated to 16g and to reach that level there is extensive testing involved.The actuators are made in France and we are working towards a fix which is not to far away.A crew seat will last longer than your average fiesta with routine servicing.We have products in the field that have been flying for 30+ years.
Not surprised that we can blame the French 
uncinqsix said:
willy wonka said:
The reason they are expensive is they are rated to 16g and to reach that level there is extensive testing
So? The seats in a Fiesta are rated to 20g minimum and tested accordingly. the car business is orders of magnitude larger than commercial aviation in terms of units produced, the same argument is often used with regard to medical electronics vs consumer electonics ...
the economies of scale and consequences of failure have a big part to play
" just hold on a moment while i re-boot this ventilator " said no anaesthetist ever ...
mph1977 said:
and the unit cost of the testing is ?
For the car, it's virtually nothing. Probably in the order of tens of cents for a high volume model. I'd be interested in finding out how different the testing they do for an aircraft seat is. Testing whether any seat assembly can withstand "x" g fundamentally isn't that complicated or expensive, but I have no doubt that there's something special in the aircraft testing. Still, would that be enough that it costs more than a couple of hundred dollars per unit out of the $15000 odd?
As a company we are regulated by the CAA and FAA all parts are traceable back to raw materials,we also offer 24hr AOG service worldwide and have to hold stock of every part for every product we produce regardless of age.We produce in excess of 600 seats a year along with galley inserts and various other aviation parts.You may consider it expensive but there is a lot more in the background than you may think.
uncinqsix said:
mph1977 said:
and the unit cost of the testing is ?
For the car, it's virtually nothing. Probably in the order of tens of cents for a high volume model. I'd be interested in finding out how different the testing they do for an aircraft seat is. Testing whether any seat assembly can withstand "x" g fundamentally isn't that complicated or expensive, but I have no doubt that there's something special in the aircraft testing. Still, would that be enough that it costs more than a couple of hundred dollars per unit out of the $15000 odd?
I can buy chain from a DIY shed for pennies a metre
I can buy chain from a chandlers that is rated for anchoring a boat for a bit more
I can buy chain that's rated to use in hoists for a bit more
I can buy chain that's rated to lift people for a bit more
It's not just the nature of the testing the the frequency of testing etc
I must be alone in thinking $15k is cheap! I was expecting them to cost way more.
Certification, testing, support and that nasty word profit all add up to make any parts for commercial aircraft pricey.
$80k for a dreamliner battery and up until recently they were scrap if you let one run flat. That's just one example.
Certification, testing, support and that nasty word profit all add up to make any parts for commercial aircraft pricey.
$80k for a dreamliner battery and up until recently they were scrap if you let one run flat. That's just one example.
jmorgan said:
OK, for the uninitiated, like me, why not a deck chair or orange box. OK, extreme silly suggestion but what goes into them?
The seating is designed to ensure pilot/co pilot comfort and to suit a wide range of occupants from different parts of the world.Each seat has adjustable armrests,recline,lumbar support,thigh support,headrest,tilt function vertical adjustment,and fore aft adjustment these things all have to operate in a wide range of enviroments from sub zero temperatures to desert temperatures.Seat design is not as easy as you may think!
willy wonka said:
Seat design is not as easy as you may think!
I approach these topics nowadays assuming I know nothing.Just find it interesting knowing a bit more. When in the ATC, there was an ejector seat in the back room, along with some wireless sets from WWII and a tail wheel off something, but the seat was well made and obviously a lot of work gone into it and quite rightly so.
You mention the temperature range, not thought about sub zero.
Gandahar said:
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/loose-7...
"A notice of proposed rulemaking released on 7 March by the FAA would require 787 operators to replace each of the $15,141 crew seats within three years"
That seat price is the price of an entire Ford Fiesta.
Which has 4 seats.
And an engine.
And a lot more.
Has nobody ever wondered if the 787 pilot seats might be a tad overpriced? No wonder they got rid of airline engineers in the cockpit 3rd seat
We have a Fiesta, quite a decent little car, but I am not sure I would want to fly in it."A notice of proposed rulemaking released on 7 March by the FAA would require 787 operators to replace each of the $15,141 crew seats within three years"
That seat price is the price of an entire Ford Fiesta.
Which has 4 seats.
And an engine.
And a lot more.
Has nobody ever wondered if the 787 pilot seats might be a tad overpriced? No wonder they got rid of airline engineers in the cockpit 3rd seat
My PC will run a complex simulation of an airliner, with working flight controls, computers and instruments, but I really, really wouldnt want to fly in that.
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