I recently lost my 777 virginity. It was a really big plane and was flown amazingly smoothly. However, I was impressed that forward of the wing was a very long section of the super luxurious walled-off seats, placed 4-across on the plane, versus the back of the plane being 9-across.
That strikes me as making the plane quite tail heavy versus more traditional seating arrangements. In a 757/737 you have your 8 to 12 rows with four across vs. 6 across for the vast majority of the rows. At most, the front 25% of the plane with 33% fewer buttocks. (An MD-80 would be somewhat similar, with 20% fewer buttocks on only a few rows up front)
Here you had ~40% of the plane with 56% fewer buttocks. I am sure that there are other planes configured with 'normal' seating all the way to the front.
Can anyone provide insider information as to how this works? Is there ballast involved? Is there enough flexibility where you can 'overload' the front cargo area to compensate for the 'overloaded' back? Something you can do with fuel tanks?
Or is the plane simply that flexible in weight and balance, or was it designed to need to be loaded back-heavy, or am I misunderstanding that 56% fewer humans is not that much of a weight effect.
I look forward to replies (and hopefully there will be more than just ATLCrew's obligatory
)
Thanks in advance.
That strikes me as making the plane quite tail heavy versus more traditional seating arrangements. In a 757/737 you have your 8 to 12 rows with four across vs. 6 across for the vast majority of the rows. At most, the front 25% of the plane with 33% fewer buttocks. (An MD-80 would be somewhat similar, with 20% fewer buttocks on only a few rows up front)
Here you had ~40% of the plane with 56% fewer buttocks. I am sure that there are other planes configured with 'normal' seating all the way to the front.
Can anyone provide insider information as to how this works? Is there ballast involved? Is there enough flexibility where you can 'overload' the front cargo area to compensate for the 'overloaded' back? Something you can do with fuel tanks?
Or is the plane simply that flexible in weight and balance, or was it designed to need to be loaded back-heavy, or am I misunderstanding that 56% fewer humans is not that much of a weight effect.
I look forward to replies (and hopefully there will be more than just ATLCrew's obligatory
Originally posted by (actually, in the future to be posted by) ATLCrew
Thanks in advance.
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