"As a result of its size, passengers were asked to crowd together on one side or the other to help make turns."

That's amazing

Somewhat unrelated, I’ve been wondering for a while whether all pax in concert moving to the front/back of the cabin could bring a jet out of its flight envelope. There’s one or two related aviation stack exchange questions (that I’ve contributed to, IIRC), but I’ve never seen an informative authoritative account.

Abso-freaking-lutly. The permitted range for the CG (longitudinally) — denoted as "% of MAC", for Mean Aerodynamic Chord — is quite narrow, and you prefer to stay away from the "edges" of that range whenever possible.

The distribution of pax and baggage are chosen so as ensure its within the range. IOW, they don't book Row 1 then 2 then 3, etc, — sold seats are sprinkled across the aircraft as it's filled.

I've been told when the flight attendants are moving forward and back with the beverage service you can watch the trim wheel turn as the autopilot maintains correct AOA.

I did recall one incident where the plane got out of balance because of passengers moving in concert.

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/asaram-bapu-rape-accus...

On the ATR-72 [0] there is an extra leg that folds down at the back of the plane to stop it tipping over, and passengers at the front half must remain seated until the rear pax have left, so there must be some danger of unbalancing. These are weird planes in that the cargo is stored at the front, behind the pilots, and the only door is at the rear. They are prop planes, the 72 being a stretched 42, I believe.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATR_72

There was a plane crash in the Congo that was reportedly due to everyone running away from a crocodile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Bandundu_Filair_Let_L-410...

When flying a small airplane in Asia we were all weighted individually, and distributed around the plane accordingly.

I read about other flying boat - Boeing-314. It seems that it was basically 74 first class equivalent passengers and it was very expensive in its time. Converting it to cattle-class economy maybe could push it to 100-120 or so passengers. It would still be very expensive due to inefficient flight profile and high fuel consumption. Limited routes too. They are very pretty though, I'm not denying that.

Pan Am's Clippers were basically modeled after the luxury trains of the era, divided in compartments with seats that could be converted into bunks, and a common dining lounge: https://airandspace.si.edu/sites/default/files/images/7146h....

I think the problem with these is that they're terribly inefficient. Large plus slow equals low altitude, which means thick air.

Maybe it'd be possible to revisit nuclear powered aircraft? Modern, intrinsically safe reactors powering turboshaft engines could keep a ponderous flying platform aloft for months at a time.

I don't know much about modern reactors but I suspect even 3rd gen ones will still require immense shielding of a cabin and will be single contour design, meaning that exhaust will be irradiated, maybe less so than on prototypes from cold war. And as I remember soviet Tu-95LAL that did flew with a reactor did so WITHOUT any significant shielding for the crew.