aktango58
FRIEND
18AA
Ferrying an aircraft with a mechanic friend, and as we were doing prep last night he changed out the original passenger belt for a newer one.
The older belt looked ok, typical Cessna belt from the 70's with no damage, just dirty. I asked why?
Seatbelt Failure was the determined cause is a number of fatalities in otherwise minor crashes one NTSB study determined. The failure was the STITCHING breaking, not the web or attach points. This was the main topic of an IA seminar, with a pretty pointed powerpoint, crash fatalities included.
Thread gets old, just like our pants, and degrades, even in the shade, and becomes brittle. I guess the same happens to sewing thread which will break in a sewing machine when getting old. Once the thread gets old and is subject to a strong force like and accident, it breaks allowing the person held to go forward.
Maybe this is not new to you guys, but the suggested life is about 10 years...
There are companies that take your hardware and put new web on that for a reasonable cost. That will be one of this summer's jobs for me to get done!
Just passing on information. I for one carry very valuable cargo often, so want good belts in my plane.;-)
The older belt looked ok, typical Cessna belt from the 70's with no damage, just dirty. I asked why?
Seatbelt Failure was the determined cause is a number of fatalities in otherwise minor crashes one NTSB study determined. The failure was the STITCHING breaking, not the web or attach points. This was the main topic of an IA seminar, with a pretty pointed powerpoint, crash fatalities included.
Thread gets old, just like our pants, and degrades, even in the shade, and becomes brittle. I guess the same happens to sewing thread which will break in a sewing machine when getting old. Once the thread gets old and is subject to a strong force like and accident, it breaks allowing the person held to go forward.
Maybe this is not new to you guys, but the suggested life is about 10 years...
There are companies that take your hardware and put new web on that for a reasonable cost. That will be one of this summer's jobs for me to get done!
Just passing on information. I for one carry very valuable cargo often, so want good belts in my plane.;-)