I am conducting research for a current 1/72 scale AR 196 build I am working on. I have pummeled the internet trying to find a picture of AR196 crew in parachutes .... with no luck. Can anyone tell me what type parachute the AR 196 crews wore? I am assuming that they used the standard Luftwaffe Seat Parachute but I cannot find a single picture showing the crew wearing anything but inflatable life vests... is it possible that they did not wear parachutes in these seaplanes? I can't imagine that they didn't wear chutes but out of the countless pictures I have viewed, I don't see any evidence of a parachute, parachute harness or any other indication that they are wearing one - even during flight. Plenty of pics of Mae West and seat belt use but no evidence of parachutes at all. Someone please, educate me.......
Thanks, Rb

From a page at britmodeller.com and another at europeanmodeller.com, the cockpit seat for the pilot appears to be the standard Luftwaffe 'bucket' that relied on the seat parachute -- probably the Sitzfallschirm 30-IS-24B -- for padding, while the gunner/observer's seat was a simple bench seat slung between the fuselage frame tubing, with a pad built into the seat. This would make the Sitzfallschirm parachute impractical because of the amount of movement the observer would make, particularly turning around to use the navigation table. Most aircrew that required unrestricted movement -- radio operators and observers in particular -- would wear the Fallschirmgurt harness, to which the Brustfallschirmpack (chest pack) parachute would be hastily clipped before bailing out. It is possible but unlikely that the observer would wear the Rückenfallschirm 12B backpack parachute.

The image quality isn't good, but in this video, of either the V3 or V4 aircraft, the pilot appears to be wearing the seat parachute as he climbs out of the cockpit (this happens around 1:05 in the video, but watch the whole sequence from the start), while the observer doesn't appear to have any sort of chute on, which would argue for the Fallschirmgurt harness.

Thanks! That answers all of my questions!