Dave's Ideas

Hans H.T.’s Plane Evacuation Seat System

March 19, 2011

This idea comes from Hans H.T., who hails from London, England. Hans wanted to address a problem that arises when evacuating a plane: The aisles are too narrow and cannot accommodate the exiting passenger traffic. This can be problematic during scenarios when the window to evacuate is limited due to threats of fire and smoke.

The layout of the plane is skewered towards maximizing passenger volumes rather than ease of mobility, the reality of air travel economics. This is why they board and empty the plane one section at a time.

Hans originally proposed an idea where all the seats would ‘collapse’, creating a level plain for all the passengers to traverse. The end result of his design is very ideal and opens up the cabin for nearly unlimited movement. Unfortunately the seats would have been held up by the presence of the passengers themselves, so the transition would have been problematic to execute.

Fortunately Hans and I refined his idea over the past 3 weeks, creating a few prototypes that would address this issue. Here is the 4th one, which is the simplest design:

Inspired by a seat you would find in a movie theater, the lower seat cushion would retract up when not in use. When this system is triggered or unlocked, one seat would move laterally, pushing the neighboring seat forward. Now two seats would occupy the space previously held by one.

This wouldn’t use motors or hydraulics, in case there is no power available. Instead. the moving seat uses spring resistance to pull the one seat laterally. Both seats are affixed to rails underneath. This will not fling you off the seat, in fact it will not work if either seat was occupied. Everyone has to stand up for their seats to move. A simple pin system to keep seats in place (like weights in an exercise machine) would be employed.

As you can see, when all the seats move out of the way, the aisles are widened over 200%. Passengers can now move more freely. Note: All the seats wouldn’t move like this in unison, but after the passengers stand up.

There would be a slight decrease in room between the row of seats of about 10%, but seeing as you’d be adjacent to an aisle any discomfort would be brief.

I think this could also be used in buses and trains, which are more likely to engage this system (flying is the safest way to travel, which is Superman’s slogan in every other movie).

Entry filed under: Safety, Transportation. Tags: Safety, Transportation.