UA business class in the reconfigured wide-bodies aircraft advertise "lie flat" seat/beds, that recline to 180 degrees. Some other airlines have flat beds that recline to less than horizontal, for example LH at 170 degrees.

But, this is with respect to the floor and at cruise what angle is the floor at? Does a UA 747 criuse with the floor parallel to the gravational field, or is the nose tipped up a bit (as it seems). Does anyone know for sure? If the nose is, in fact, tipped up, then a 170 degree bed might in fact be "level".

Coments?

Typical airliner cruises about 2 or 3 degrees nose high. Some might be as low as 1 or as high as 4, but none that I know of go as high as 10 degrees. The only time you will see 10 degrees is on takeoff it will get up to almost 20 degrees, but only for a short period of time. I would say that within 5 minutes it down around 5 degrees until cruise altitude. Cruise pitch also will depend on weight, speed, etc.

I suggest you go for the rear-facing seats if in new-C, if you're sensitive to a couple of degrees. That way your head will be very slightly elevated.

I had that same question on my MCAT.^

dunno about flat, but the controls on the new seats are miserable, you choose modes, with no ability to move individual seat components independently. i.e. you can not just move forward if you just want your feet to reach the rests.

and narrow, with a lot of space given to a complex between-seat console for the in-flight entertainment system on which the major comedy is the flight map.

and no lumbar support. and lumpy and quite uncomfortable. i have a bad back, and did us trans-con in classic domestic first last week and felt far better afterward than i did in the new fancy seats in the ride home to narita.

for all the money spent on this, one would think that someone would have had a clue. how embarrassing.

Don't confuse recline with the relationship to the floor.
180 degrees means it is flat, but not necessarily to the floor.
170 degrees means the recline is less than flat. This is a bit like saying if you are on your back, your body would not be straight. 180 degress would mean your body would be straight, but on some airlines you mind have a tendency to slide toward the floor.

Some fast-talking salesman must have convinced AA to install BC seats that are not fully-flat and adjust to the angle that the plane flies. Bad move. They are absolutely awful and you still end up sliding down.

While the new UA BC seats are not perfect, they are a vast improvement to AA's.

Your opinion may vary.

I'm confused by your assertion that you can only choose modes with the new UA business seats. It sounds like you thought you can only choose 'sleeping' and 'sitting' modes with nothing in between. That is not quite right, but it is true that it requires a bit of practice with the various seat buttons to get it to do what you want.

But you can definitely select, for example, just for the foot rest to move up, so you can do things like sit with your feet up, etc. Although, the back will recline a bit as well to make some room when this happens.

Anyway... short answer... UA business seats feel really flat to me. Have not had the luxury of trying competing angled-flat seats, so do not know if UA's are much better, but they are definitely better to me than the old UA business recliner seats.

been on less than a dozen flights with new seats, and most in C, though F is about the same. read my post more carefully, and next time try to just move the seat forward.

I did read your post carefully. But it's not clear what you mean by 'move the seat forward'. If you mean, move the entire seat closer to the screen / foot recess area, then yes, I agree that is not possible. However, you can get the lower leg support to flip up all the way so you can rest your leg on it at any angle from the ground, including flat from the ground.

I haven't been fortunate enough to try any competing angled lie flat products, but I think the criticism of the UA product is a bit harsh. It seems on paper to be equivalent in design to most other carriers' 180 degree total flat products, except for the width where it is indeed narrower than several other competitors. If you have tried and prefer other carriers 180 degree total lie flat products, you could provide some specifics about how it differs for our edification.

There are many threads ranking various products...and many opinions as well.
for just the SEATS, United is narrower and harder than some of the competition.
The two best I've flown that are truly 180-flat are Air Canada and New Zealand. I think South African was also 180-flat, but all I know is that I slept for 11-12 hours straight and so I guess I must have liked it
United's implementation of 180-flat is WAY ahead of ANY angled flat I've tried (Thai, ANA, Singapore (old), Cathay Pacific (old) come to mind...can't remember offhand if I've been on any others).
The point about direction and "tilt" of the aircraft is correct. I did notice a difference when I took the rear facing seats and found that it was easier to sleep. Never noticed that on any other carrier's lie-flat seat, but then again it may only be because it was pointed out to me recently and I've only flown UA since.

I agree with you. Mini DG and I have found it very easy to adjust the C lie flat seats to suit what we are doing at the time, ie eating, feet up, slightly reclined, fully flat bed etc. To get more width on the UA C seats, you need to push in the silver (flat) sort of button at the end of each arm rest. Then apply downward pressure and these armrests go down completely, allowing you more seat width.

I LOVE the new seats compared to the old recliner. I have not noticed the difference in slant with forward facing or rear facing when lying fully flat, other than on rear facing I have managed to sleep up to 8 hrs ^. On my recent trip home, I was forward facing and slept almost 9 full hours straight (a record for me) ^ ^ . So for me, it seems forward facing works best .
I have tried SQ J seats on 747 also and I didnt like those seats nearly as much as I like UA's new seats. The SQ seats are not fully flat and are quite uncomfortable for sleeping.

I think the pitch attitude for 744 at cruise is right around 1.5-2 degrees up (so probably not noticable), but I don't have a reference, just stuck in my mind. Not sure about 763 (as these are the only two we care about in this discussion re: UA, right?).
Of course, as mentioned, this is "standard" which is relative, but some sort of loading close to max gross and cruise around .85 mach.
I don't know how this works for large airliners, but it's interesting to mention that a lot of small GA planes fly slightly nose low when heavily loaded and far aft CG (which I found slightly counter intuitive initially).

Again, not sure about 744, but I believe SOP for few others (73 and 75) is about 18 degrees nose up for takeoff, or about 23 degrees if they need max climb (this attitude is usually not maintained for more than 1000ft or so).

Anyway, after all this tech talk, back to seats and comfort, I'd say that the nose up pitch in cruise will definitely not offset sliding in case of LH for example. In a truly flat seat, one may or may not notice that slight angle, I'm guessing this will be personal and thankfully now you can always choose the backward facing seats and have just the right angle in the right direction (~2 degrees, head up).

Practice, practice, practice.

You can achieve the desired result by first pressing the 'tilt back' button moving the seat back into a few inches of recline, then press the 'bed' button for a few seconds....the seat will tilt back more and move forward. Once you have the seat moved forward to your liking, press the 'tilt up' button to restore your seat back to a comfortable position. The seat may move back a bit as you do this, so you have to overcompensate on the 'bed' button.

I do this all the time and it works out nicely. Just takes patience and practice. ^

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought if you stopped the oscillating lumbar support it stayed in whatever position it was in when you stopped it. I don't use it myself, but I know my wife thought it was good.