Originally Posted by
caverunner17
What are you talking about? The shift of 18" doesn't cause much, if any change in balance due to the weight being close to the CG. Otherwise popular aircraft like the MD80 wouldn't fly due to the 2-3 seating.
In addition, there's no more safety hazard than a 3-4-3 setup
It was an opinion, of course it may be wrong.
You're right the arm is quite small, however a significant enough mass even at an 18" arm might have an effect, hence my opinion.
The Safety hazard comes if there is a mass and balance issue and one were to counter by staggering every 5 or 10 rows by going 3-4-2 and then 2-4-3 and now the aisles have jigs in them instead of being straight.
one would need to do the math and know the relevant CG figures to know if it causes an actual issue and probably can balance it with a smart aux tank in a wing tip which the aircraft pumps full or empty based on the day's actual load, as the much longer arm would necessitate a much lower mass to counter-balance.
Basically at full load the plane might fly a bit skew if unbalanced is what I'm saying, keyword being "might"