Decoding the Design of in-Flight Seat Belts

A car seat belt is designed to arrest as much momentum as possible in the case of a sudden stop (i.e. a front end collision). This is also the purpose served by the airbag. Without a seat belt, your car would stop and you would keep moving forward: into the steering column or through the front windshield. In other words, the car seat belt assumes that if there is a difference between your momentum and the car's momentum, it will be that you are moving forward relative to the car.

An airplane accident is not usually a sudden front end collision. If it happens in the air, such as engine or control surface failure, the airplane's attitude could change drastically and the difference between your momentum and the plane's could be in any direction. The lap belt is designed to keep you in your seat in the event of loss of conventional downward gravitational acceleration and nothing more.

This week, a look at in-flight seat belts.

TTFN, Fred.

Quote of the week: "I used to think of all the billions of people in the world, and of all those people, how was I going to meet the right ones? The right ones to be my friends, the right one to be my husband. Now I just believe you meet the people you're supposed to meet." - Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, The Quest, 1995

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