Flying overweight aircraft
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Helsinki, Finland
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Terribly sorry for the thread drift but...
[QUOTENot even the worst landing of any of my students has ever come close to that figure!][/QUOTE]
What the He**?
Sometimes students get nice ones but sometimes they get horrible ones... 5G is the "best" my student has done.
[QUOTENot even the worst landing of any of my students has ever come close to that figure!][/QUOTE]
What the He**?
Sometimes students get nice ones but sometimes they get horrible ones... 5G is the "best" my student has done.
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: NW
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I think if someone in here wants to rationalize flying heavy we might as well do it right..
First off, there are many reasons why a plane's Vmo/Vne is set at that place, and it's not always because the wings will come off if flying faster.....it might be that in a dive the plane at a given speed starts a left turn(Premier 1/C750)...so Vmo is set much lower...so not to be a bore on certification...but with regard to weight and balance.....single engine numbers at max gross weight are usualy pretty weak..
Why is that? Well you can build a plane that will take a 10g landing, wings that will never come off...and engines that will make a plane fly verticle...but at what cost...so once you start trying to make the plane light, fuel efficient and strong...we are now left with a plane that if you take off, right at max gross weight...then lose an engine...your left with really the very minimum power to make the climb gradient ect....a desgner can't design a plane based on 'well if half the pilots are idiots, and decide to take off a ton over gross, let's build in this extra performance..
So it just goes back to the idea, you might be able to land heavy, but if you lose an engine heavy...your not going up....
The only time I planned taking off heavy...and not by much was a trip that was max pax, a long leg to a place with crap wx, and the alternate was 150nms away, in another country..
I wanted the fuel to go down, take a look, miss then go to my alternate...stopping half way was not an option...
In truth I found a better way to do that trip...but at that time it seemed like the right thing to do...the one in a million chance of losing an engine in the first 2 minutes vs having bingo fuel, making my third attempt at some instrument approach...
First off, there are many reasons why a plane's Vmo/Vne is set at that place, and it's not always because the wings will come off if flying faster.....it might be that in a dive the plane at a given speed starts a left turn(Premier 1/C750)...so Vmo is set much lower...so not to be a bore on certification...but with regard to weight and balance.....single engine numbers at max gross weight are usualy pretty weak..
Why is that? Well you can build a plane that will take a 10g landing, wings that will never come off...and engines that will make a plane fly verticle...but at what cost...so once you start trying to make the plane light, fuel efficient and strong...we are now left with a plane that if you take off, right at max gross weight...then lose an engine...your left with really the very minimum power to make the climb gradient ect....a desgner can't design a plane based on 'well if half the pilots are idiots, and decide to take off a ton over gross, let's build in this extra performance..
So it just goes back to the idea, you might be able to land heavy, but if you lose an engine heavy...your not going up....
The only time I planned taking off heavy...and not by much was a trip that was max pax, a long leg to a place with crap wx, and the alternate was 150nms away, in another country..
I wanted the fuel to go down, take a look, miss then go to my alternate...stopping half way was not an option...
In truth I found a better way to do that trip...but at that time it seemed like the right thing to do...the one in a million chance of losing an engine in the first 2 minutes vs having bingo fuel, making my third attempt at some instrument approach...
Join Date: Feb 2001
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Good discussion, but what about 'artificial' MTOW which are placed for other reasons than structural limitations?
For example, many PA34s are certified in the UK as 1999kg to stay below the route charges weight threshold. Others of the same type have a MTOW (structural?) over 2000kg. Apart from the legal and insurance implications of taking off over the certified MTOW, are the arguments put forward so far for the risks of operating a 1999kg-certified aircraft above that weight with regards to structural integrity and single-engined performance weaker in this case?
For example, many PA34s are certified in the UK as 1999kg to stay below the route charges weight threshold. Others of the same type have a MTOW (structural?) over 2000kg. Apart from the legal and insurance implications of taking off over the certified MTOW, are the arguments put forward so far for the risks of operating a 1999kg-certified aircraft above that weight with regards to structural integrity and single-engined performance weaker in this case?
