We've probably all heard about the dreaded seat rail issue with Cessna's. When I was flying rentals this didn't seem to intrude too much on my conciousness. I made damm sure the seat was locked into the furthest notch forward (I got short legs) and beyond that I didn't think about it very much.
When I was first introduced to my plane the previous owner happened to mention that he had removed the seat stop to make entering and exiting the plane easier. He could slide the seat all the way back which really does help. This popped up little red flags in my pee-brain and I made it a point to reinstall them. They were a couple of the little thin metal U-brackets with the pingoing through one side, then the seat rail (where there was a hole drilled through the rail) through the other end and then fixed with a spring steel lock pin. For the passenger side I put a little bolt through the only hole available between the fore and aft legs of the passenger seat. This allowed the passenger seat to go forward not quite to the front two pin holes in the track and prevented it from sliding back far enough to make it reasonably easy to get into the right side. This seemed like a great solution till I had to live with it. After I finished my ten hours for Insurance requirements I brought the plane back to my home field where a friend that flies a 185 gave me a Saf-T-Stop which would slide up the rail behind the seat leg and engage the rearmost pin-hole in the rail after the seat was all the way forward. If you are familiar with this stop device you know that it takes about five+ turns to engage it completely. The pin rail is the left of the two tracks for each seat on the 170 which means this has to be done before the door is shut, and the door has to be opened before I can reach it to start unscrewing it.
My first tailwheel instructor for whom I have a lot of respect, and who has literaly over 10000hrs flying air-taxi and comercial in Alaska visably blanched at the seat stop situation before our first flight, but after looking at the arrangement decided it was adequate. He related to me a story from Alaska days when a friend of his rotated in a 206 on floats and the rusty seat rail rivets pulled out of the floor and his seat tipped back.........................the lady behind him was kind enough to push him back forward.
I've had about 40hrs in my plane since then, about 30 with the Saf-T-Stop and I've become increasingly aware that getting out of the plane with the stop in place is time consuming at best (really it's a pain in the ass). I haven't actually run a stop watch with this, but about 10 seconds is the absolute fastest that I can get out of the plane, reach back unlatch the door, start unscrewing the stop, unlatch my seat and slide back, unfasten my belts. That's with no stress involved, if there were AVgas leaking and a campfire going under what's left of the cowl I'd be sh****** my pants trying to get out. I look at my seat rails now and then, they get inspected during the annual, and I always check to make sure my seat is latched before I even start the motor. If the rails rip loose from the floor-board (which I'm reasonable sure they won't) the seat stop isn't going to do any good and thus far I don't carry any passengers in the back seat who could save my bacon in such circumstances. So I'm not going to say that I won't use the Saf-T-Stop anymore, but I have come to the conclusion that it is a solution trying real hard to find a cause.
Thoughts..........anyone?
Anyway, I was doing some touch 'n goes, two three under my belt before the seat felt 'funny' on rotation. I decided to make the next one a full stop to check it out. When I flared, the seat tipped back. Somehow, I managed to hold on to the glareshield with left hand and keep myself up front and in the action.
