Removing the co-pilot seat from a Beechcraft 1900 aircraft is a difficult task and when coupled with a strange set of “balls” hanging over your face – it can make it that much harder to deal with.

            Here: let me explain a few things to you.  Both the pilot and co-pilot seat are on a set of rails – kind of like a sliding glass door and the cockpit is minuscule.  Neither of the occupants can be overweight or too tall because there just isn’t room, not to mention if the pilot is overweight there is the whole “center of gravity” thing to think about – very important when flying.

            The bulkhead separates the cockpit and the cabin and in reality it is only a few sheets of thick aluminum – kind of like the rest of the plane.  Don’t believe me – what do you think it’s made of?  They sure as heck don’t make it out of the same stuff as the “little black box”, if they did then we wouldn’t have anything to worry about, right?  So, the seats are flush against the bulkhead and can be slid forward slightly once the occupant is in the seat straddling the “joystick” or Yoke but there is very little room, so you can imagine how difficult it is to work in this area.

            To remove the seat it must first be pushed forward as far as possible – until it hits the column of the Yoke and hopefully this is enough to pull the “wheels” from the rails and unhook.  Then the fun begins – you must rock the seat back and forth trying to get the rear “wheels” to the spot that releases them so the chair can be lifted. 

            Now, I’m not Hercules and even if I was there is still the problem of getting the chair out and there is no way to lift it straight up and pull it away from the confines of the bulkhead and Yoke, thus you have to twist and turn and tug and swear.  It takes quite awhile and to compound the issue, the width of the cockpit is only about that of three chairs but unfortunately the mechanic’s sorry ass must occupy some of this space as well.  To get the chair out means sitting on your knees on the pilots chair and bending from the waist to pull the co-pilot seat across the floor and then shove it out the door-hole in the bulkhead, from there it’s easy to follow it out.  This process can take some time and by the time I finished I was usually tired and sweaty and very dirty, but not as miserable as I was going to be once I began the actual work.