Overweight TO's in GA

[starchkr]

All a/c approved max weights are purposely understated in the respective POH's. This is done on purpose for those pilots out there that don't care and are going to fly no matter what the weight. There will be a time in everyone's life when they end up somewhere over the max t/o weight limitation. Most will say "NO, not me!!," but it will happen. The plane will operate just fine, and you will realize that there is a reason the pilots in Alaska are allowed to fly their airplanes heavier than we are in the contiguous 48. The max t/o weight is a limit placed on the aircraft with the manufacturer and the FAA knowing all too well that it will not always be adheared to, so they put that little fudge factor in. I have been told that there is sometimes as much as 50% built into some airplanes.

So who wants to be the first to try it out... let me know if you can squeeze 1000 pounds into a 152. First if you can get it to fit you should go home proud and be recognized by all for your efforts, and then if it flies... well let's just play and say it worked.

 

[Cardinal]

My oh my, I haven't seen such a universally dogmatic thread in months. Flying an aircraft overgross, while not legal, is also not heresy, nor treason, but merely an increase in risk. Risk is everywhere in aviation, and it is our job to manage it. And this example of 5 or 10 lbs, preposterous! If the extra perfromance realized by being 10lbs lighter is what means the difference between flying and crashing, my friend, you've made other, more significant mistakes that day. The level of risk assumed by carrying extra weight rises smoothly from OEW right past MGTOW and beyond. It doesn't start to spike until well past max gross. There are many circumstances in which merely loading the aircraft up to gross and flying the mission would be perfectly legal but also perfectly stupid, performance-wise. Concurrently, much safer circumstances can be found through planning and consideration of the factors invovled, even if they include being a modicum overweight.

Is flying overweight illegal? Yes
Is flying overweight potentially detrimental to ones career? Yes
Is flying overweight punishable by hellfire and the mark of a bad and patently unsafe pilot? No

Risk management is the whole of aviation. It's just about knowing the risks and taking on a measured portion of them.

 

[Pilotadjuster]

Overweight

I have also read stories of ferry pilots flying many pounds over gross under waiver. I would say the main factor aircraft loading and staying within the performance envelope, ie weight and balance. I'm sure we've all figured W&B problems where we find out we would be overweight but within CG limits.

I would also say the waivers are based upon careful calculations and consultation with the aircraft manufacturer to see what the actual margins are.

 

[TurboS7]

I have so many stories I could tell in refrence to this thread that I could write a book.The last two guys do have it together as far as departing over gross. Taking off over gross is no big deal, being heavy actually increases the manuvering speed of the aircraft and enables it to handle turbulence more efficiently. Landing over the max landing weight of the aircraft is a no, no as there is the possibility of structural failure to the aircraft if you mess up even a little. The problem is that it won't effect you but your stick buddy when he is trying to slip around a TRW some day.If you really got sticky and weighed every thing in your airplane most of you guys that think your legal will find out that you have been flying an aircraft that is 100 to 200 pounds overweight. We found that our aircraft "gained" 100 to 200 pounds every 3 years just in dirt and other accumulations. So I don't want to hear one person on this board say they have never flown over gross, they have. If the FAA were all that concerned about it they would have a big scale and the end of each runway and a red light and green light in the tower to indicate whether you are clear to go or not.
Would I fly over gross???Never on paper. I will never admit it in court, and I would deny the evidence. I had the FAA try to nail our operation once, they used a bathroom scale to weigh everything. I knew I had them so when the hearing came I pointed out that they had not used a certified scale at all and all the weights were bogus. They threw that thing out so fast we were out of there in five minutes.
In my 135 I set the amount of weight that the pilots could carry based on fuel for the trip segment and the required fuel for the trip IFR. If the pilot's put more fuel on to cover themselves within reason I didn't care and looked the other way. If a pilot was a stickler that was fine but he always landed with his fuel gauges at 1/4 on each tank, but he was legal--your choice.
As for the 121 lets take my 737-800, everything is in kilos and since everyone will be using kilo's when the EU takes over the world you might as well get used to it here goes. I can take 174 people on board. According to our loading graph this comes to 14,600 kilos winter weights. Usually we will have 260 bags at 14 kilos per bag.That comes to 3640 kilos.Our BOW on the aircraft is 43000 kilos and max zero fuel weight is 62,731kilos.This brings our zero fuel to 61240kilos. The big limitation is landing weight. If we were going to fly a three hour flight our burn would be about 9,500 kilos.So 66,360 plus our burn means our max take-off limitation would be 75,800 kilos and we would land with 5K worth of fuel,plenty for even the worse of conditions. This is all totally legal with the FAA.
Now reality check-our cruiseline people consist of Americans which the averge male is 210lbls and female 150lbs. At a 50/50 split that comes to 31,320lbs. Now figure the averge person carries on at least one bag at 20lbs that comes to an additional 3480 lbs plus our 31,320lbs divided by 2.2 equals 15818.0 kilos. Each bag for a cruise(these are the big mama's)weigh about 85 pounds a piece that comes to 38kilos each times 260 equals 9880 kilos this brings our payload to 25,698 total.
What does that mean??you do the math. This is an extreme conditon but it is a reason that I go outside the aircraft and personally lift a few of the bags so I can get a realistic idea of what we are dealing with. The numbers are legal I have no choice but to go, but I can add a couple of knots, do a slow rotation, and land with minimun fuel instead of the max. The beauty of the 737-800 is the angle of attack feeds the ADIRU which will give me an alert message on the MCP panel and tell me that the weight in the FMC doesn't jive with the angle of attack. So we won't fall out of the sky. But this happens day after day and hour after hour all over the globe and it is all legal. Remember we measure it with a micrometer, mark it with a thick chalk and cut it with an axe. It is safe, but you can't push the numbers in 121 because you just might be pushing them already.

 

[hyper]

One important point that is being ommited is that the max t.o. weight for an aircraft is predicated on stall speed. If you load the aircraft 100-200-500 lbs. over the poh limit it will still fly. Sure, you may use more runway to get airborne and climb slower but it isn't going to fall out of the sky. Why do you think VGs raise the max takeoff weight? It's not because they increase the lift of the wing. They lower stall speed by making the airflow over the wing more efficient at greater AOAs thus lowering stall speeds. An airplane at max t.o. weight that weighs 5000#s will weigh
10000#s in a 60 degree bank. Now consider that the airplane is certified for at least +3.8Gs (most normal cat. GA are) and you will see that at 19000#s (3.8 x 5000 and 14000#s over max t.o. weight) the wings aren't going to fall if your a few pounds over gross. We won't even consider the fact that the engineers have already designed in a buffer in the ballpark of at least 6Gs.
As we all know, your stall speed will increase as your load factor increases and thus plays an important roal in determining a gross weight for an airplane.

I'm not advocating overloading in anyway and sure there are other aspects to consider such as any given performance element or structural strength for landing gear to provide a buffer for hard
landings etc., but this is a point that should be addressed to provide a clearer understanding on the subject.

 

[AWACoff]

The only time I've known that we took off overweight was when a ramper mistakenly labeled 600lbs of mail as 60lbs. That makes a big difference in a fully loaded Brasilia. As those who have flown the Brakillya know, at 26,433, the aircraft rotates by itself on takeoff. This takeoff had both of us grabbing the yoke at rotation. At the destination we found out why the "trim" was so wacked on takeoff.

 

[TurboS7]

I put way too much time in this one to let it go to the back burner. So everyone out there flies perfect airplanes and they NEVER, NEVER go over gross. If I were the FAA I could nail any of you commuter types right now, I know how you operate.

 

[bigD]

I'd imagine that about half of the 150's and 152's buzzing around with a student and instructor are over gross by a small margin.

 

[TurboS7]

Keep it coming this is a tough issue and guys trying to make a living out there will have to make some tough decisions. If they make the wrong one it could cost them their jobs, yet the wrong one could cost them any chance at their real dream. What do yo do???

 

[bigD]

I'm still a green pilot, so I haven't really had too many opportunities to push the envelope. Back in my 152 days, I had a petite (she was 5'1") instructor, and at 16 or 17 I was only maybe 150 myself, so I don't think we ever overloaded the plane back then.

Over the course of my pleasure flying, I've loaded a Warrior, an Archer, and a Cherokee 6 (5 college girls to South Padre island for Spring Break - one of the highlights of my flying career thus far!) to as close to 10 pounds under gross. As one other poster said, the published empty weights for the planes and the actual weights can vary quite a bit. So I may have been over gross in those situations. Dunno. Also, in the case of the Six filled with the girls - I'm sure a couple were a little "optimistic" with their weights. You know how women are about that stuff! I did add a "women fudge factor" of 15% for that flight, so I might have been okay.

I didn't really notice much change in the handling in any of the planes other than a slightly less enthusiastic climb. It's a tough situation. I might have been okay on paper, but if the FAA got out the scales, it might have been another thing altogether. But as a renter, I'm kind of taking the FBO's word that the empty weight listed is what's really there. I know it's my ass as PIC if it turns out to be wrong, but there's really only so much you can reasonably do.

 

[ShawnC]

I'd imagine that about half of the 150's and 152's buzzing around with a student and instructor are over gross by a small margin.

They are, we did the math, and we found that our 152 at Takeoff was 20 lbs overweight at takeoff, but it was within CG limits, so we never really cared too much because we generally burned that much fuel just climbing to alititude so it never really affected us too much. Plus he quouted the old
"A plane will surelly fly a limit over weight but it won't fly without fuel."

 

[AWACoff]

Turbo7...on the commuter note. I see it but it's not in the interest of furthering the company. Sometimes you feel the need to stick some fuel in your back pocket. 200lbs of extra fuel doesn't count when it's in your back pocket. As long as both crewmembers are okay with it (from my experience), it's "go time"!

 

[Bluto]

Um, Shawn, you did the math on all the 152's and 150's out there? I instructed at a school for two years where I never knowingly operated a 152 over gross. If a passenger was large enough, I stuck them on the scale. If we were over gross, we didn't go.

My scariest experience with this phenomenon was in a high-performance, turbo charged single. On my first flight in the aircraft with the factory demo pilot and a student, I noticed that on climb-out, at Vy, the stall horn was going off intermittently. That's odd, I thought. But continued "normally". The airplane flew fine. The next time the student came back to fly, along with 2 pax, I did a weight and balance calculation. Well, it turns out that my student and I alone were over gross weight. On our first flight we were over gross by at least the weight of the factory demo guy. As a matter of fact, with zero fuel and his pax, we were over max landing weight! In retrospect, it was scary. Don't ever trust anyone to do the weight and balance on an aircraft you are unfamiliar with. That's what I learned from the experience.

 

[ShawnC]

Well we did it just for the 152 that we were using to teach the basics of flight (moved onto an older 172 for my x-c training, then to an 172R w/ autopilot for my solo and finally for the checkride), we figured that at sea level in the winter we weren't pushing it too much being 20lbs overweight. Not only that we could just carry less fuel since it was all local.

 

[TurboS7]

In an attempt to tie this thread and the other thread on max ramp weight together. If you are going to fly an aircraft that you know has flown over gross, since the airworthiness limitations has been exceeded would it be airworthy without a special inspection???