Why a 'jump' seat ?

Some interesting responses – thank you. One thought that had initially crossed my mind was that it only went back as far as the V bombers where some seats were ‘bang seats’ (ejector seats) and some were fixed meaning you had to jump in the event of an impending crash, the term being carried over to mean a spare crew seat.

..how about checking in some reliable vocabulary?

Alex

Hmmm … going back to the original question, which was why ‘jump’, you might be right Alex, and I think you probably are … but there are still the two possibilities
– because as you say, the seat jumps out of the way when not in use
– because it was designed for the occasional someone extra “here you go (folding out spare seat), jump on”
Slipstream’s right – not yet definitive

awright let’s give it a cut fellas, I was right, u were wrong, period :D;)
Now were’s my “jumpseat award”? :D:D:D

Alex

#11
Mike, I expect it was folded out of the way.

Don’t think so unless it was a half size collapsible milking stool as there’s not room for much else in there 🙂

… as I suspected…nothing definitive

Using Google I found this meaning from Webster 1913
(a) A movable carriage seat.
(b) A carriage constructed with a seat which may be shifted so as to make room for second or extra seat. Also used adjectively; as, a jump-seat wagon.
[1913 Webster]

edit Doesn’t tell us why the term “jump” – see below post #20

Some interesting comments here but as I suspected…nothing definitive. It does sound like a ‘carry over’ from the horse drawn buggy days. Wasn’t the fold down seat on the back of a car known as a Landau seat ?

I think that is usually referrred to as the ‘Dickey-Seat’

Mark

Some interesting comments here but as I suspected…nothing definitive. It does sound like a ‘carry over’ from the horse drawn buggy days. Wasn’t the fold down seat on the back of a car known as a Landau seat ?

My Buddy, always a fount of moderately useless information, agrees with Alex. A (temporary) jump seat ‘jumps’ up out of the way when not in use. Usually spring loaded to fold into a wall.

Then again ……………..

#11
Mike, I expect it was folded out of the way.

As suspected, jump seats have been around for a while … this taken from the website of the “Carriage Museum of America”

[quote] Beginning with 1857 and coming down to September of 1897, three hundred and thirty five patents have been issued in this country for adjustable seat vehicles, some of which were taken out by citizens of other countries. It is more than probable that many designs and devices have been introduced that were not patented … The first patent of which we have a record was taken out by G. & D. Cook, of New Haven. Connecticut, on February 3, 1857 [shown in diagrams] first as fitted for four passengers and the second with the front seat, thrown back and the main seat moved forward to accommodate two passengers only. The Cooks built large numbers of these vehicles and shipped them to every part of the country where pleasure in carriages were in demand. One G. J. Locus obtained a patent, dated April 27, 1858 [20,127], for a jump seat, which has a resemblance to the Cook vehicle, but operated somewhat differently. This is shown in its two positions by Figs. 5 and 6 … [unquote]

Here’s the url, read on …
http://www.carriagemuseumlibrary.org/evolution-traps.htm

ps. I’m wondering quite what was meant by “pleasure in carriages” above

As an afterthought to my previous post. I spent about 4 hours on the flight deck of a BA jumbo coming back from the Falkland Islands and I don’t recall there being a jump seat in there as I spent the whole of that time standing up, at least the RAF captain went walkabout on the outbound flight and let me have his seat for half an hour. Good blokes these Blue Jobs. 🙂

You’re right – I was trying to remember the term. We still have the buggies though 😉

Thing is though mexicanbob – didn’t jump seats predate aircraft? What were those fold down seats in the back of early automobiles called (the fold-down trunk/boot)? I]

I’m not sure when the term came in fashion, so I don’t know if the seats came before the car or what. I can say that I’ve never heard the car seats you describe called jump seats. Here in the US, I’ve always heard them called rumble seats.

Thing is though mexicanbob – didn’t jump seats predate aircraft? What were those fold down seats in the back of early automobiles called (the fold-down trunk/boot)? And I wonder if horse drawn cabs (Hansom Cabs) had jump seats in them, same as a London taxi.

edit – Just googled jump-seat and hansom cab and found reference to a jump seat buggy and a jump seat piano box buggy. I think you’ll find the jump seat predates aircraft.

I’ve got two theories, but I think either one could be the truth.

#1: I had a friend that was a Captain for Braniff Airlines. He started out on Boeing 247s and retired on 747s. He told me ,probably 20 years ago, that they were called jump seats beacause when you got a checkride from one of the chief check pilots he would sometimes sit in the extra seat to observe you. When you got a checkride that you didn’t expect, it was called “being jumped”. Since that was the check pilots seat, it became the jump seat.

On C-17s in the Air Force today, depending on what kind of checkride you’re getting, the evaluator may sit in the pilot or co-pilot seat. Or, he may sit in one of the two other seats on the flight deck. The two extra seats are called the LACM (lackum) and RACM (Rackum) seats, it stands for Left Additional Crew Member and Right Additional Crew Member. Very few people that fly the C-17’s refer to them as jump seats. Today, pilot and loadmaster evaluators still show up to airplanes un-announced to administer checkrides to crewmembers. I am required to do a certain number every year in addition to the normal scheduled checkrides. According to the regulations that govern these chekrides, they are officially called No-Notice checkrides. But we all refer to it as “jumping”.

Something else, the Crew Rest Additional Crew Member seats just behind the flight deck are called CRACM(Crackum). When we run the checklists, these are how you are refered to: Pilot, Copilot, LACM, RACM, CRACM, and Loadmaster. Assuming you have all the seats filled. It’s actually just a three man flight crew. When performing emergency procedures, the pilot and copilot are refered to as PF and PNF, Pilot Flying and Pilot Not Flying. The actual AC( aircraft commander) may be sitting anywhere on the plane and the guy sitting in the left hand seat may very well be the Copilot. It was much simpler on the C-130! Sorry to go on so long about this. It just struck me as something that might have been of interest to somebody!

#2: When an FAA or airline employee are depending on using a commercial airline as a means to travel on official business, they often don’t know if they will actually have a seat until the last minute. So, they basically “jump on” at the last minute. Since they often ride on the flight deck, it’s called the Jump seat.

I tend to put more faith in #1.

Yeah, that’s more likely – googling hasn’t confirmed this one way or the other for me, but all the definitions of jump suggest you’re on the right track there Alex

maybe because some of them are spring loaded and when u stand up they jump back in position 😉

Alex

Another carry-over from earlier times? Like the pilot on the LH side. All sorts of vehicles have had “jump seats”. The common aspect being that they are “small” (as in smaller than the main/normal seats) and folding. In other words they are a spare seat designed for intermittent use. Doesn’t explain why the name is “jump”, Mike may be right on that point.

I think all the big planes (military and civil) have at least one jumpseat in the cockpit, they’re even used for training purposes and of course are fully equipped for emergency: I had a ride in a B737-400 on the jumpseat from pushback to shutoff and apart for not being really confortable because of my height (and ar$e :D), it has a 5 points seatbelt and full face oxygen mask. What is for sure is that it’s an interesting point of view! 🙂

Alex