Cessna 172 front seat weight limit

murphey said:
Dig out the TCDS for the correct model, it has all the details for weight, position, etc for each seat and each position in the airplane. Don't rely on the chart. The examiner will also be impressed that you know what the TCDS is, and how to use it.
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TCDS???
 
denverpilot said:
I
In Cessnas it’d be fairly likely that a supersized pilot or passenger would speed along the standard wearing out of the seat rails which is under an AD and/or cracking it, also in the AD. Most of them aren’t new and have cracking or wear within the limits of the AD and a really large pilot or passenger could be the end of that precarious balancing point, and their ride may trigger thousands in repairs.
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It's not just the seat rails. The seat structure itself suffers. The infinitely-adjustable seat, especially, is prone to cracking. I always check the seat base legs on those; they're the welded-on aluminum rectangular tubes that hold the seat bottom upholstery frame to the adjusting linkage. They have a slot milled into them, and they crack at the top of the slot. It's caused by modern-sized folks sliding into and out of the seat. And the seat back, which is adjustable, uses small clevis pins against cams, and those pins I often find very badly worn. If they fail, the seat back flops back and the pilot's reaction would be to pull himself back up with the controls, and he stalls and crashes. Nearly as bad as a seat rail failure.

The seat rails themselves are treated seriously by the FAA. They're part of the airplane's belly structure and take some of the flight loads. I read that somewhere in some Cessna SB.

Old airplanes are fun.
 
JAWS said:
§ 23.785 Seats, berths, litters, safety belts, and shoulder harnesses.
There must be a seat or berth for each occupant that meets the following:

(a) Each seat/restraint system and the supporting structure must be designed to support occupants weighing at least 215 pounds when subjected to the maximum load factors corresponding to the specified flight and ground load conditions, as defined in the approved operating envelope of the airplane. In addition, these loads must be multiplied by a factor of 1.33 in determining the strength of all fittings and the attachment of -
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Which is 26G for front seats and 19G for other seats. It explains why the newer seats are so heavy.

What happened to the FAR listings for the whole chunk between 23.1 to 23.1456? It has disappeared from the website.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
You will have adequate elevator authority if the balance does not exceed the forward limit.
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He's talking about clearance between the control yoke and the pilot belly, not the control authority. Alternatively, you can view it as the pilot's arms (and legs) not being long enough.
 
As an alternative to the previously-mentioned method of using the charted line for each occupant separately and adding the two moments together, one can add the weights of the front-seat occupants, and then multiply by the arm.
 
Dan Thomas said:
What happened to the FAR listings for the whole chunk between 23.1 to 23.1456? It has disappeared from the website.
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Part 23 was rewritten 2 years ago to update/streamline new aircraft development. Most design requirements were moved from the regs to Advisory Circulars or the feds adopted existing consensus standards similar to LSA aircraft for Part 23 design aircraft. Will it open up new designs... who knows.
 
luvflyin said:
TCDS???
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Type Certificate Data Sheet - it's the legal definition for airworthiness of the aircraft on the FAA website. All the 172s are listed here

http://www.airweb.faa.gov/Regulator...4e90061c5bf3b1862576260063e599/$FILE/3A12.pdf

Definition:

This data sheet which is part of Type Certificate No. 3A12 prescribes conditions and limitations under which the product for which the type certificate was issued meets the airworthiness requirements of the Federal Aviation Regulations.
 
I did my ppl training in a 172L. My instructor and I were about 460-470 lb combined. I was about 265 and he somewhere around 200 at the time. It was never a problem of w&b or performance. Never thought much of it really.

I regularly fly my 182 with about 490 up front. With that load, we're often on the far forward end of CG until we burn off some gas, but I've never been able to detect any difference in performance or flight characeristics. My brother and I flew to Oshkosh together a couple years ago. We were 555 lbs together. I'm 6'3 275, he's 6'5" 280. Both collegiate linemen. It was never an issue. Obviously the thread is about the 172, but I assume the seats are essentially the same in both models.
 
Tom-D said:
Don'tcha think that is a bit of a stretch for the aircraft we deal with here?
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Not really. I don't know what kind of new designs you think will be replacing the old Cessnas/Pipers out there, but the featured E1000, DA50, Panthera, and C4 in the article are the types being drawn up now. Same price range as a new 206 or tricked out 182.
 
Bell206 said:
Not really. I don't know what kind of new designs you think will be replacing the old Cessnas/Pipers out there, but the featured E1000, DA50, Panthera, and C4 in the article are the types being drawn up now. Same price range as a new 206 or tricked out 182.
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You may be dealing with new 206s and tricked out 182s, but most of us aren't.
Lots of posts here about how to save money, Darned few about buying a brand new anything.
Like this post, -- 172 W&B
 
Tom-D said:
You may be dealing with new 206s and tricked out 182s, but most of us aren't.
Lots of posts here about how to save money, Darned few about buying a brand new anything.
Like this post, -- 172 W&B
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What do you think Cirrus costs? But I don't deal with anything anymore, although I still see a number of new aircraft flying around on a regular basis. So you never know.

However... i'll let you tell them to stop dreaming....
https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/what-plane-are-you-daydreaming-about-today.108665/
 
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