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C-54B copilots seat BuNo 90412/USAAF 44-9142


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I came up on a guy today selling two sets of C-54 pilot and copilots seats. I picked up the copilot seat from  USAAF 44-9142 that  was later BuNo 90412. Mine is on the far left. 

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from the log book and on line search ....

90412 (MSN 27368) ex-USAAF 44-9142. To civil registry as N96361, then N6816D. There is a report that N96361 ditched in Pacific Ocean off Arlington, WA Dec 23, 1986 with Central Air Services Dec 23, 1986. There seems to be some doubt as to whether this crash actually happened. It may have been some sort of insurance scam. N6816D is still on the Landings civil registry as of Apr 2004. Listed as T-109 (Tanker 109)

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Very nice. It should clean up well. What is left of the seats can be used as patterns. The belts should come clean with a good soak. Then again you could leave it as is and treat it like an M-1 helmet..... untouchable!😉

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1 hour ago, 72psb said:

Very nice. It should clean up well. What is left of the seats can be used as patterns. The belts should come clean with a good soak. Then again you could leave it as is and treat it like an M-1 helmet..... untouchable!😉

It was suggested to me I have the seat back and bottom replicated then store the original pads. The lap belt and Y harness are post war Navy. I have a WW2 USAAF lap belt and Y I am thinking of replacing them with and then storing the belt and Y with the pads. 

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3 hours ago, hink441 said:

That is a really nice seat. I hope you will keep us updated of your progress of the restoration. 
 

Chris

Well Chris, Now that  I cleaned it up some and have a better idea of its overall condition I am pondering the next move. The paint shows its three configurations.  The first is its original factory paint of flat black, The second is the Navy repaint of grey then another coat of flat black over that. If it were a helmet I would leave it as is, but its not. I have a Navy PB4Y pilots seat aka B-24 seat that was repainted grey and I left that paint on and only had the head and armrest pads replaced with original period cloth and reused the padding. I also replaced the lap belt and Y shoulder harness with original WW2 era items. It came out looking good, but what I really wanted was the original paint as issued. B-24 seats are not easy to come  by so it is what  it is. I have a complete P-51D seat that I got that was in sad shape. I had that medium blasted and repainted using paint found under a seat mount for the the color code. I also replaced the lap and shoulder harness as they were rotted away.  That looks good, but its a repaint. This seat is in between those two. It's not as bad as the P-51D seat, but not as good as the PB4Y seat. So my question is do I repaint or not?

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I personally would clean up the frame, gently remove any corrosion, and leave as is. The different paint colors tell the history of this old seat. I like the used look!!

 

Chris

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I priced out putting new skin on the seat pads. Its about 550.00 for the two. The problem is matching the original color. The original color is a light avocado green. The upholsterer is looking to find a match, I found a forth color were the seat rails would attach. It  looks like it was a USAAF zinc chromate green like the P-51D at one time. The seat frame has no issues beyond all the worn paint. I am heading to a metal fab shop tomorrow to look at making dummy seat rails  that I can mount office chair coasters on.

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I got rid of the post war lap and harness belts then added period correct items. Tring to figure out the best way to mount the seat on a frame and add coaster wheels.

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