The International Cessna 170 Association

The 206 seats look nice and very comfortable but don’t underestimate the utility of a single Atlee Dodge seat. (I don’t fly with 4 pax.)

Most of the time, I have mine folded up flat against the side of the fuselage which leaves the entire back area open for cargo. Folding the seat down and securing the inboard seat legs to the center floor rail takes all of about 30 seconds to get it ready for a passenger. There is no change in CG for the seat if it’s folded out of the way or down as a seat, just calculate for the passenger.

I have mine on the pilot side so if I need to carry long cargo, I can take out the front pax seat and have a very long unobstructed cargo space on the right side of the aircraft.

I ran across a C-172 three seat configuration in a Cessna Brochure. Someone needs to sell an STC for such a setup. Be nice to mount the tracks laterally, parallel with the wings, so the passenger could choose which window to look out. Yeah, right. Good luck engineering that!

Wonder if that might be what Cessna sells schools like Emery Riddle? Don't know that that 3rd seat has the capability of being in the left or right side of the plane (or in the middle).

For the 170 at least, why not simply sit in the middle of the rear bench and be done with it.

gahorn wrote:For the 170 at least, why not simply sit in the middle of the rear bench and be done with it.

Because it’s stock and stock isn’t good.

How would the seat belt work in the case of sitting in the "middle" of the bench. The obvious advantage of a single seat is weight and space for "long loads" like say skis.

I doubt any significant amount of weight would be saved and any that could be would be expensive weight-loss. If the owner really wanted to use the middle position he could either add an additional belt or install existing belts with buckles on same side. Skis can fit beneath the bench seat.