Early Vampire Seats

Thanks Terry.

NZ5704 at RNZAF Museum Wigram in 2008.

Thanks Terry. Enlightening! Nice aircraft. Which one is it?

Terry and Nicko  thank you both for  taking the time to respond and  for adding the photographs – they are very much appreciated.

Of course there are no seat belts fitted so of limited use:

Here are some illustrations that might help.

Thanks Nicko there is a small dia hole that passes through the top of the channel with a securing tethered eye plate at the side that had the remains of a piece of string on it – so likely a roller/pin at the top.

Much Appreciated

My conclusion is that the normal seat is a radio operator NF10 seat made at Broughton and the seat with the extension is a pilot seat from a T11 made at Christchurch.

Brian

Yep, 13 is for DH.113 and 15 for 115. This is generally the case for Flamingo (95) onwards. However, the use of the letters changed radically from some point around the time of the Venom (112). Many parts for DH.100 were used on 112, 113 and 114, many from 113 on 115. They did actually start to float backwards as modifications. The ejection seat mod on the Australian single-seater came from the Venom FB.4.

The exact cable path and how it is secured I am unsure of, but hopefully the following will explain the general idea. The cable only relates to the two shoulder straps; the lap straps are unrelated. For the seat that is lower down – the Navigators – the shoulder straps continue upwards to the cross-tube so they are stable and aren’t at risk of flopping down either side of the seat. On the other hand, because of the height at which the pilot’s shoulders are and because the cable goes to the cross-tube at such a height that if the straps weren’t tied together and guided, either the straps would slip down off the pilot’s shoulders or if the cable wasn’t guided, it would tend to go to the left or right. I’m not sure if the channel has a roller or a pin, but the cable doesn’t go all the way down the channel; the channel extends down the back of the seat so that the channel has continual stiffness to stand up from the top of the seat.

Nicko – thank you for taking the time to reply. It is much appreciated as is all the useful data on your website.

Do I assume that anything with part number 13 was designed for the model 113 – NF10 ? Although it could be carried through to later models.

Also anything with 15 was designed for the model 115 – T11 ? If so the DHP and 15 stamps would make the second one definitely T11.

Thank you for the information on the harness cable directing channel. I am struggling to see how it would work – If it is to guide a cable from top to bottom –  the opening is at the bottom would only fit a very thin cord/tape – hence the structure seems oversized for a tape of that dimension ? Perhaps it is just Monday morning fugue.

Sorry for not gathering everything together first! : -) The ‘head-rest holder’ you refer to is not actually that, but the thing that directs the cable for the harness anchoring to the fuselage structure. On the NF.10, the seats are actually set at different heights; the seat without the rivetted-on bit sits lower in the fuse and the cable can actually go direct to the hard-point – this is the seat for the radar operator. The pilot’s seat – sitting higher – actually needs the cable to be guided to the hard-point. The hard-point is a cross-tube bolted to the sides of the fuselage. So in the trainer, they both sit at the same height and so both seats have the cable guide-channel. On the single-seater it is different altogether: there is no cross-tube and the cable goes to the armour-plate.

Looking at your photos again, the assembly p/n may be 13F45_A; so that dwg would include a definition for 13F377ND.

I have my notes to hand now; these date from ca. 2014. Both seats I have are the same. The stores no. for the seat is 26FC/6089. I have been unable to read the Vampire p/n in full: 13F_377_D. I would say 13FS377ND, but maybe it is just 13F377ND and yours is correct for the three of them. ND means ‘Not Drawn’. This is often the case for a final assembly which would be something like 13FxxxA, where A stands for Assembly and what defines the 377ND is on the same drawing. The seats are made from the standard SBAC seat AS.2142.

The single-seat Vampire fixed seat was made from the standard SBAC seat AS.2121, and had p/n B001089A or B001079A. The former may actually just be a typo, and only the latter is correct.

Good to see some Vampire questions/interest – these things are so sparse these days! I saw these seats on eBay back in November and was curious about details. I have a pair of Vampire RAAF T.33 or RAN T.34 seats. The first batch of Australian RAAF trainers were redesignated T.35A when given ejection seats and for the RAN they became T.34As. I will have a look at my notes on my seats tonight. I can’t find any photos.

I’m not sure if all the photos of T.33s or T.34s that I have are digitised, but this is the only one – below – I could find at this point which gives any suggestion about the head bump pad. The aircraft is an RAN example. Terrible as it may seem, I don’t think anyway that they did have them. There are at least two T.11s in NZ still in the fixed-seat arrangement – one with the RNZAF Museum and one restored about 20 years ago privately. In the UK, Alan Allen has one of these that, IIRC, he sourced in South Africa. I haven’t heard from Alan for a few years now.

My areas of interest are single seaters and the DH.108 so I would gladly swap my trainer seats for single-seater seats!