Headrests. Love 'em or not.

[PT20J]

9 hours ago, DCarlton said:

 My headrests are cheesy things slipped over a U shaped post mounted into slots on the back of the seats.  I don’t remember them being robust enough, big enough, angle properly, or high enough to support much of anything.

My ‘94 J has articulated seats with very good headrests,

My ‘78 J had headrests as you describe. There are standards for headrest positioning. I got a tubing bender and bent the U shaped tubes forward a bit to position the headrests even with the back of my head and forward so that they were only a couple of inches behind my head when seated upright.

Skip

[LANCECASPER]

1 hour ago, Echo said:

I patently disagree.   Scott 

What else is new Scott . . Lol?   With every screen name you’ve used on Mooneyspace you’ve disagreed. We still love you though 

[MikeOH]

1 hour ago, Echo said:

The violence is forward in the stop. NOT in the rebound. Whether with or without headrests THAT is clearly shown. Thank you for validation. Now if rearended(not a likely plane scenario) Headrests, if properly designed and installed, could greatly mitigate cervical injury. 

The forward motion is certainly more violent, as one would expect, but there is significant backwards motion that a headrest would have prevented.

The bigger question is why did you even start this thread?? Good gawd, you even literally asked, “What do others think?”

Doesn’t seem like you even cared unless you were just looking to argue since it’s pretty damn clear your mind was already made up

[Pinecone]

On 9/13/2023 at 9:47 PM, M20F said:

This is the correct answer.  You are probably better off with only a lap belt if you don’t have head rests.  It is a restraint system of lap, shoulder, and head rest. 

WRONG.

Shoulder harnesses restrain the upper body from moving forward and bouncing your head off the panel.  Which will likely leave you unconscious and unable to get out of the airplane, which may be on fire.

Head restraints restrict rearward movement of the head.  Not as common in aircraft, but I just saw a video of a Cessna that clipped some wires on short final, flipped, and landed tail first.  The head restraints would have limited the injuries in that case.

FYI in most cases they are head RESTRAINTS not RESTS.  Head rest are primarily for sleeping

[Jsno]

I have taken courses on aircraft safety and have found that headrests and shoulder belts do prevent people dying.  During the initial impact, you will fly forward.  If your seat belt is adjusted wrong you can submarine under it and obtain serious abdominal injuries.  If you wear a lap belt and no shoulder harness, you will be thrown forward and down striking anything in front of you, resulting in lacerations, broken bones=, concussions and broken neck.  Your body will then bounce back, and without a head rest your spine and neck will be bent over the back of the seat.  There is a video of a Mooney crash on take off in 2016 on you tube.  The person in back, without a headrest or shoulder harness, died of a broken neck from this bounce back.  Just watch videos of crash test dummies and you will see how wild it gets..

[DCarlton]

If only we had a cross bar behind the seats between the left and right sides of the fuselage and a four point harness, then you might have something that would make a difference.  We sit so close to the panels, I'm not at all optimistic that a single shoulder harness will do much good.  I hit the steering wheel with my face hard when I was rear ended and then hit the car in front of me in my F150 and was wearing an inertial shoulder harness.  In the Mooney, I keep an extra seat cushion in the back seat to put between me and the yoke in case of a forced landing.  And if I have a passenger, they can use it.  

[M20F]

20 hours ago, Pinecone said:

bouncing your head off the panel.  Which will likely leave you unconscious

I fly an Executive.  My panel is elephant hide filled with sperm whale blubber, you could drop a lead weight from 100’ and it would graciously absorb it and supplely caress it. 

[M20F-1968]

I have seats from a 1998 Ovation with Ovation headrests.  They are not shaped well and the headrests in my Volvo make much more sense in that in a normal sitting position, my head is supported as the headrest reaches forward.  I found headrests from the rear seats of a Toyota 2002-2006 Camry which, albeit,  are not as robust as the ones in my Volvo, they have the exact spacing of the two steel support bars needed for my Ovation seats.  Additionally, the headrest is contoured so that it reaches forward of the seat to support the back of the head in a normal sitting position.  Although the solid steel support rod is smaller in diameter and shorter than needed for the Ovation seats, I purchased stainless steel tubing which has the exact inside and outside dimensions necessary to slide over the Toyota headrest support bars to extend them and increase the OD so they fit perfectly into the Ovation seats.  The tubing is 316 Stainless steel, 1/2" OD, 0.402 ID, and 0.049" wall thickness.  A single through-hole and roll pin will hold the assembly securely in place.  The headrest can be covered in leather matching my seats with a velcro closure.

John Breda