Seat assembly with independent seat bottom tilt
AssigneeSafran Seats USA LLC
InventorsOscar Ruiz Lara, Arthur Glain
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Described are passenger seats (102) having a seat bottom (122) connected to the seat frame (108) at a hinge (130) at an aft portion of the seat bottom (122), and having a release mechanism (132) operably connected with the seat bottom (122) that, when actuated by a user, cause the seat bottom (122) to be released from a locked configuration to an unlocked configuration, whereby the seat bottom (122) is free to rotate downward, independent of a seat back (142), about the hinge (130) to a tilted position in order to increase a range of available angles between the seat bottom (122) and seat back (130).
Claims20
A passenger seat, comprising:
- a seat frame;
- a seat back connected to the seat frame at a first attachment point;
- a seat bottom connected to the seat frame at a second attachment point proximate to the first attachment point, the second attachment point comprising a first hinge at an aft portion of the seat bottom;
- and
- a release mechanism operably connected with the seat bottom or first hinge and operable, when actuated by a user, to release the seat bottom from a locked configuration to an unlocked configuration, wherein the seat bottom is free to rotate downward, independent of the seat back, about the first hinge from an initial position to a tilted position when released to the unlocked configuration.
A rotatable seat bottom assembly for a passenger seat, the assembly comprising:
- a seat bottom;
- a first hinge connected with the seat bottom at an aft portion of the seat bottom and configured to attach to a passenger seat frame;
- and
- a release mechanism operably connected with the seat bottom or first hinge and operable, when actuated by a user, to release the seat bottom from a locked configuration to an unlocked configuration, wherein the seat bottom is free to rotate downward about the first hinge from an initial position to a tilted position when the release mechanism is released to the unlocked configuration.
A method of adjusting a seat bottom angle, the method comprising:
- with a seat comprising a seat frame, a seat back connected to the seat frame at a first attachment point, and a seat bottom connected to the seat frame at a second attachment point proximate to the first attachment point, the second attachment point comprising a first hinge at an aft portion of the seat bottom, and a first release mechanism operably connected with the seat bottom or first hinge:
- actuating the first release mechanism to free the seat bottom is to rotate downward, independent of the seat back, about the first hinge;
- rotating the seat bottom about the first hinge from an initial position to a tilted position below the initial position while the first release mechanism is actuated;
- and
- disengaging the first release mechanism to lock the seat bottom in the tilted position.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.