Denied a Win with Defiant X, Collins Aerospace Is Still Looking to Slip into The Military Helicopter Seat Market

Among the offerings Collins Aerospace displayed at this week’s Army Aviation Mission Solutions Summit (Quad-A) was a new integrated seat solution for military helicopters including the Army’s forthcoming Future Vertical Lift (FVL) aircraft.

Collins Aerospace is best known for its avionics/autonomy integration and development but it actually has a going business in passenger and cabin attendant seating for fixed wing commercial and business jet markets.

However, the company sees potential to expand into military rotorcraft pilot seats with production of Bell’s new V-280 looming and a selection for the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) side of FVL on the horizon. Its seat offering is part of a broader integrated solutions push within the company to try to address size, weight and power challenges for Collins’ customers, cultivating new business in the process.

That push may not have had as much emphasis had the Sikorsky-Boeing team been selected to provide the rotorcraft for the Army’s FLRAA (Future Long Range Assault Aircraft) requirement. Collins’ seat had been chosen as OEM equipment for the Sikorsky-Boeing Defiant X which lost out to the V-280.

The seat that Collins displayed at Quad-A is actually a combined pilot seat and flight controls in one assembly. The company maintains that it provides weight and space savings, simplifies design and integration, and requires fewer spare parts. Its weight advantage derives in part from thermoplastic material used in the seatback and pan, material which Collins says it has developed significant expertise with.

Thermoplastics have shorter production times than other materials with associated cost advantages. The integrated cyclical and collective controls save weight as well and offer packaging advantages compared to separate assemblies.

While it’s not known for military aircraft seats, Collins is providing ejection seats for the Boeing-Saab T-7 advanced trainer for the Air Force. The seats have recently been the subject of concern and program delays related to ejection safety with Boeing and the Air Force blaming each other for design development issues as well as the aerodynamic anomalies the Red Hawk has experienced.

Pilots of the Army’s CH-47F Chinook already fly in Collins’ seats. Cabin occupants of the venerable Bell Hueys ride on Collins troop-seats in the services’ remaining examples. But that’s the extent of Collin’s penetration of the rotary-wing military seat market. “It is an area for growth for Collins Aerospace,” Max Slavin, Collins’ business development director, seating acknowledges.

The FVL aircraft and existing Army tactical helicopters like the AH-64 Apache are a different kettle of fish, operating in a more dynamic flight environment and subject to greater exposure to enemy fire than Chinooks or Hueys. DeWayne Rittenhouse, Collins’ aerostructures business development director is a former Army Apache pilot who says the first thing he noticed upon seeing the new seat design was the integration of the cyclic and collective flight controls in one assembly.

“This allows those controls to stroke with the seat in a hard landing or crash scenario. The safety of that jumped out at me.”

In attack helicopter crashes wherein the controls are separate from the seat, the possibility of limb or other injuries to pilots is increased as the seat “strokes” downward on impact while the controls don’t or do so at a different rate. The Apache is an interesting study from the seat business perspective. NASCAR’s famed Hendrick Motorsports has also developed seats for the AH-64 and had them evaluated by the Army’s Program Executive Office for Aviation.

Slavin says he’s often asked by potential defense clients what Collins’ experience with designing pilot-seats is. He points to the company’s commercial portfolio of helicopter seats as a main supplier for rotorcraft including Airbus H145-H155 civilian helicopters. “We take that commercial pedigree and bring it to the defense segment. We understand ergonomics, comfort and survivability,” he affirms.

The last is achieved via seat armor that can be applied externally to the thermoplastic seat back and pan, and an energy attenuation function in the seat which dampens the deceleration G-load to the pilot in a crash. Collins achieves this with a patented process that is essentially a controlled-deformation of the seat pan, allowing the material to stroke or give, instead of the pilot’s lumbar absorbing the shock.

Collins remains in discussion with Bell about the possibility of supplying its seat for the V-280 and is awaiting a decision according to Slavin. Future military projects are on the company’s radar including an Army study to consider a future heavy vertical lift aircraft to succeed the CH-47. UH-60 modernization may provide another welcome opportunity, particularly in view of FVL platforms not really coming online for seven to ten years yet.

“We think the Army will see that our product has significant weight advantages,” Slavin says. He adds that Collins is in discussions with Sikorsky regarding possible foreign military sales opportunities for seats for its Blackhawks though they remain preliminary.

Collins won’t say how much its seat will cost but asserts that it will be price competitive and that its commercial seat sales make that possible. Incorporation of new technologies like haptic-cueing in pilot seats may make Collins a more attractive option as well. Whether it can slip into other seat opportunities including the Army’s choice for FARA only time will tell.