Comfort or Perception?

SciWorks Radio is a production of 88.5 WFDD and SciWorks, the Science Center and Environmental Park of Forsyth County, located in Winston-Salem.  

Were you comfortable the last time you flew on an airplane? I bet you can answer that question easily. Now, have you ever climbed Pilot Mountain and sat on a rock to rest or have a picnic lunch? Do you remember how comfortable that rock was? 

I bet it took more effort to answer that, if you could answer it at all. Why is that? We may never think too much about the seats on an airplane, but their design and manufacture is is the product of some hard-core engineering.

Most people are quite shocked when they realize the kind of strength and capability of an aircraft seat. When you consider a system that takes off and lands faster than any Ferrari, it sometimes operates in below zero temperature for all of its life, and also it can operate in the desert. It can do that for 20 to 30 years continuously. And the seats are part of that system.

That's Glenn Johnson, the Director of the Advanced Design Group at B/E Aerospace, from their offices here in Winston-Salem. He spends his time trying to improve the comfort of your airplane flights. Surprisingly, it isn't all in the design of the seats.

I've always been fascinated by the problem of comfort, and in fact most people studying the subject look for discomfort because when you can eliminate that, technically you should create comfort. I come from a region called Yorkshire. We're famous for things like real ale and pubs. Typically in the countryside they have wooden benches called a settle, and it's a very high back. You can sit in the settles and never think about the seat. We try so very hard in office furniture and flying and cars. We can give you the beer, we can entertain you with video but you're actually not as comfortable as you might be in certain circumstances. And what is the difference? You have a hard wooden bench on one end and very comfortable seating technology system in another. And it's dawned on me over time that the perception of comfort is as important as being comfortable.

So, what are some of the ways that your perception of comfort can be influenced?

We discovered if you switch the video screen off you reduce the comfort by 10%. It leads me to think that the first few seconds you get in the seat are very important. You have an immediate perception. Studies from Boeing actually suggest that if somebody sat next to you that you know the seat is more comfortable. And actually if nobody sat in the seat, especially the middle seat it doubles the comfort. So there's a psychological aspect first of all. The next one is, we've done a lot of studies on living space. It's not just your leg space or the width. Is the seat clean? Does the seat feel safe? Does it rock or does it feel substantial enough?

Believe it or not much of the way you perceive your level of comfort in flight takes its cues from the entertainment industry. Passengers can be immersed in an experience, which will try to influence your perception.

We're very interested actually in how you present the product to the customer. The whole concept of being able to manage peoples' expectations before you get on a flight is very, very important. There's a language created for each aircraft type. There are certain colors and certain textures. In fact, the 787 is quite famous because it uses a lighting system to actually change the whole ambience of the aircraft. It's used actually to enhance the whole atmosphere, so that nice, bright, white light and the fact that you have textured panels... if you change the color of the lights slightly you change the color of the aircraft, and color has a huge impact psychologically.

Play with the many modes of the Boeing 787 Dynamic Lighting System

So, just as you probably never noticed how uncomfortable that rock you sat on at Pilot Mountain was, your perception of comfort in an airplane, bus, in your car, or at a pub in Yorkshire can be influenced by how that environment is presented to you. Also, the next time you're in the air, take a moment to acknowledge that the Triad region may have an influence on the comfort or the discomfort you are experiencing.

We are aware of the furniture business and it does impact us in the sense that we rely on some of the same skill sets. The way we've developed is a very high tech manufacturing skill set. If you go to our new plant on Stratford Road, you'll see a factory not as you might imagine it to be. Very efficiently run. It's no secret that some of the cushion supply is here, and people to make dress covers rely on a knowledge base that exists here. There are other people that create prototypes that know how to machine things and how make things by hand and paint them. There's a very well-trained, polite, educated culture here, and people know how to make things and I think that has a big impact.

This Time Round, the theme music for SciWorks Radio, appears as a generous contribution by the band Storyman and courtesy of UFOmusic.com.