Tuesday, June 27, 2017

The Swiss Seat

One of the things that every Air Cav trooper carried with him was a Swiss seat.  I carried one of these on my LBE (load bearing equipment) for two or three years,

After the post yesterday, I started thinking about Swiss seats, and wondering if I still remembered how to tie one.  Sure enough, I found a piece of rope and hitched up a Swiss seat pronto.  It would take a thousand words to tell you how to do it, but through the magic of YouTube, we don't need a thousand words.



Yep, that's how we did it back in the early '70s.  You can spend a lot of money for a rappelling harness or you can get a piece of rope and make your own.  As for me, I'll go with the Swiss seat every time.

3 comments:

Old Grafton said...

Major D, the tutorial is great but that initial shot of the video link looks pretty grim; having my junk as a hitchpost is a turnoff, I'm just sayin'.. lol

Anonymous said...

When I was a firefighter in the '70s, it was common to carry a length of 1" tubular webbing in a bunker gear pocket. Tied in a loop with a water knot, it had many uses, including as a rescue drag, keeping in contact with another firefighter in a smoke-filled building, hose drag, and others. A lot of us learned to fashion a Swiss seat in case it was necessary to rappel out of the upper stories of a building. I still carry the webbing when I'm hunting as it makes a good harness to drag a critter out of the nadgery.

Jonathan H said...

I've used a Swiss seat for ropes courses and other high work as much as I have a harness, but I'm quite rusty on how to tie one. I need to review this closely.