Hume B. Bates
Tomahawk seat notes
April 21 01:22 2010
I have talked before about the “Squareback” seat seen in the RAF and AVG Tomahawks.
I have found evidence that this seat was common in many US aircraft made for export to the UK and France.
Below are photos of seats from NA Yales (originally French contract) and Harvards for the RAF, Mustang Mk.I (EAA XP-51) and a Tomahawk Mk.I. Also seen in a photo of what looks to be this seat in an RAF Buffalo (note RAF Buffalo www.warbirdforum.com talks about a mod from an F2A-2 Navy 6.Navy seat to Model 339 E British 6.English seat)… (also the parachutes and harness in the photo are RAF issue)

Seat_1

I believe the seats were made by America Seating and were a mod of the round back seat seen in pre and early war aircraft to accept French backpack and British seat pack parachutes.
The request for the seat in the Curtiss H-75 & H-81 fighters to accommodate French backpack parachutes is well known.
However, I believe the seat pan was also modified at British request to accommodate British seat pack parachutes.
The seats have two details seen on British fighter seats from prewar/start of the war (38/39) but not seen on US aircraft till well in to 42/43.First is the extra indent in the bottom of the seat pan.

Second is the bump out on the left side of the seat.

I believe the extra indent was so that the parachute’s hardware would not scrape on the bottom of the seat and the bump out was to clear the parachute’s ripcord so it would not rub.

Also note what looks to be a leather strip riveted in the bottom of the seat.

Again I think that was put there so the parachute’s hardware and ripcord would not rub.
Note that on the restored seats you do not seat the leather strip but the rivet holes for the leather strip are still there.

Steven Eisenman
Hawk 75A-1 Seat
April 21 07:49 2010
Your seats seem to show a common sub-contractor, which would be the way the industry went. Note the colours. The first two appear to be Dull Dark Green, The second one has a Bronze Green panel in the seat pan. The Third one could be Bronze or an Interior Green. The Hawk seat below appears to be an Interior Green of some mix.
From French Hawk Original.

Seat_2

Straggler – Login NicMillman
Seat
April 21 08:47 2010
This unattributed image is lifted from page 275 of Lionel Persyn’s ‘Les Curtiss H-75 de l’arm̩e de l’Air’ (Lela Presse, 2008). It is the seat from # 89 (c/n 12886, X888) delivered from Curtiss on 27 March 1939 and which was crash landed on 9 June 1940 by Adj Paulhan of GC II/4.
Unfortunately the colour of the paint on the seat cannot be identified from a colour image like this. How it appears and what it is may be two very different things.Hume B. Bates
I was going for shape not colour detail at this time
April 21 12:11 2010
Was going for shape not colour detail at this time.
But the French Hawk seat is a good example on the earlier round back seat and help to show the changes beween the seats.
As to Sub contracts, I think the seats all started with American Seating as seat and the design of specialty seats was their business before the war the sub contracts would of come on with war time expansion.

Seat_3

Seat cushion photo I found on one of the P-51 Mustang websites, can not recall which one and seat from war bird exchange.
source: Hyperscale
(thanks to Brett Green for permission)