W&B and obstinate pax

OK, you all seriously think this was about Kim?

Wrong. I already knew what I needed to know in that regards. I have a freakin' Comanche. If the door closes you're good to go. The weight and balance envelope is HUGE, and I can take myself and 550lbs of crap in the cabin if I top off with fuel. This thread was more a two fold exercise.

1) What you would do in an actual real life situation you might encounter and
2) To get the PoA gossip squadron all riled up.

As per expected #2 was much more entertaining, and I would like to thank the lovely Kimberly for playing along as the offended party.

You've all fell victim to one of my classic pranks.

19648bazinga_TS_MD.jpg
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
I would assume that Ed is planning on a bunch of supplies in the baggage area and needs to know that he will have enough weight up front to move the CG forward enough.
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OMG, this thread is even more funnier. I no longer think K is the wide eyed unknowing maiden wandering ignorantly into the black forest. Now I wonder if Ed needs protection. Kimberly likely has an elephant gun and is a good aim.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
I would assume that Ed is planning on a bunch of supplies in the baggage area and needs to know that he will have enough weight up front to move the CG forward enough.
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Yes but these same supplies have been carried to (and from) 6Y9 before with other passengers - and he did not ask them a thing about their weight. He is just trying to be . . . well . . . a second grader.
 
EdFred said:
OK, you all seriously think this was about Kim?

Wrong. I already knew what I needed to know in that regards. I have a freakin' Comanche. If the door closes you're good to go. The weight and balance envelope is HUGE, and I can take myself and 550lbs of crap in the cabin if I top off with fuel. This thread was more a two fold exercise.

1) What you would do in an actual real life situation you might encounter and
2) To get the PoA gossip squadron all riled up.

As per expected #2 was much more entertaining, and I would like to thank the lovely Kimberly for playing along as the offended party.

You've all fell victim to one of my classic pranks.

19648bazinga_TS_MD.jpg
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If this is true, he even had me fooled.

But hey, I like people who keep me guessing.

Oh and if this thread was educational in any way - well then all the better.
 
Richard said:
That's a thin veil you hide behind. You can't back away now. It's no longer your thread anyhow.
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Does a thread on here ever belong to the thread starter?
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
Do also keep in mind that Ed had already seen those photos.

Again, gotta love those people skills Ed has, right?

Kimberly
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Hard to get scale out of those. If I was concerned about being over gross, I would have asked, so I could give you your baggage limit (I now have them for when I carry pax on overnight trips, especially when said trips involve camping). Ed's airplane isn't easily over grossed, but I imagine he has to schlep a lot of stuff up to 6Y9 when he goes.

If you want to know what can happen when you overload an aircraft, you need look no farther than the last time the Free Bird graced the Pickett Grooms airfield. I didn't develop my own pax habits in a vacuum.

I won't make big claims for or against Ed's people skills beyond saying he is welcome back at the Steinholme. I will tell you that you are likely to hear that request again in aviation circles if you ride with other pilots. And photos or no, I would ask, like I said so I could calculate your baggage limit. And to be perfectly honest, to fly into a strip like 6Y9, which is at the edge of the performance envelope for my aircraft, I would not take no for an answer.
 
steingar said:
Hard to get scale out of those. If I was concerned about being over gross, I would have asked, so I could give you your baggage limit (I now have them for when I carry pax on overnight trips, especially when said trips involve camping). Ed's airplane isn't easily over grossed, but I imagine he has to schlep a lot of stuff up to 6Y9 when he goes.

If you want to know what can happen when you overload an aircraft, you need look no farther than the last time the Free Bird graced the Pickett Grooms airfield. I didn't develop my own pax habits in a vacuum.

I won't make big claims for or against Ed's people skills beyond saying he is welcome back at the Steinholme. I will tell you that you are likely to hear that request again in aviation circles if you ride with other pilots. And photos or no, I would ask, like I said so I could calculate your baggage limit. And to be perfectly honest, to fly into a strip like 6Y9, which is at the edge of the performance envelope for my aircraft, I would not take no for an answer.
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For goodness sake, I did not give him "no" for an answer when he asked. I gave him rough calculations. Such as "I weigh less than a cow."
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
I know I "need to get over this" but two things:

1. I have never been in anyone's plane before, so this is the first time anyone has asked me my weight.

2. Women who "look like they are 120" often are not and the number for whatever reason makes them uncomfortable.

Again, not really something about me I want on the internet!

Thanks, Ed, you're a real doll - !
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Haven't you done a weight and balance with your CFI? You will probably have to do one when you do your checkride. You'll need to put down your weight for that. Also consider that after passig your checkride, you may be in the position of having to ask one of your passengers for his/her weight in order to ensure the plane is within CG. How would you respond if he/she won't tell you?

I have a large friend who is very sensitive about her weight. When she wanted to go flying I didn't ask how much she weighed because it was just the two of us in a 4 seat plane and I knew we were within the limits. But if we were flying with another person or a bunch of baggage or a different plane, I'd need to know her weight. In her case, given the choice between telling me and staying on the gound, I know she'd choose to stay on the ground. I don't understand the reasoning behind that, but it is a valid choice.

Everskyward said:
Just tell them you need to see ID and look at the weight on their driver's license. Of course this doesn't work if they hand you a passport.
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My (Iowa) driver's license doesn't have a weight on it. Of course, my pilot certificate does but it's a self reported weight, so who knows if it's my actual weight? I'd guess if any drivers licenses do have weights on them, the numbers are equally questionable.
 
steingar said:
Ed's airplane isn't easily over grossed, but I imagine he has to schlep a lot of stuff up to 6Y9 when he goes.
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Actually, I don't, as I keep riding gear up there, and I stay at the cabin. My weekend trips, including the fly-in, consist of a backpack, or a single carry on, a few dog bones for Kaiser and his food. Total weight....MAYBE 25lbs.
 
The bronzed, tanned and rippled Sacramento Arrow was lounging in his hanger discussing world issues and airplanes with the Polar Bear.

“So Polar Bear, how’s flight training going?”

“Not real good, Sac, I had uh… weight and balance issue the other day.”

“What happened?”

“My CFI insisted in doing a proper weight and balance using my real weight.”

“Which was…”

“640 pounds.”

“Oh… that sounds like a real problem. Definitely pushing the forward CG limit.”

“Actually, uh, I have to fly with the front seat out. I just don’t fit.”

“So when are you flying next?”

“I don’t know, after I get another CFI I guess.”

“What happened to your CFI?”

“Oh, he ****ed me off so I ate him.”

“WHAT?”

“I am a Polar Bear, you know.”

“Oh.. yeah, right.”

“He just pushed it, you know. Kept asking for my weight. Kept ragging on me. Said he wouldn’t fly with me. The douche tard deserved it.”

“You’re so sensitive.”

“Yeah, now I know how a fat chick feels.”
 
Henning said:
Depends on body shape. For general fatties under 6' tall use 100lbs / ft in diameter is pretty close until you get >4' in diameter then it goes to 150 after that.
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I love that you just randomly have a formula for this. I nominate this for post of the week.
 
jesse said:
There are inspectors that disagree, even 91.
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I would ask them to provide a reference. I can't find anywhere where it says that a copy of the conditions of a particular flight must be present onboard, or even available.
 
In CA they send you a renewal DL in the mail. The last time I had to write down my weight on it I was 15 or 16 years old. I'm now 32. And I weigh within 10 or 20 pounds of what I weighed back then in high school. Not a big deal.

PS - I am not a polar bear.
 
ajstoner21 said:
Well, OK. The aircraft weight and balance numbers....
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The information has to be present on the airplane that allows the calculation to be made. There is no FAR requirement that I have found that says the actual calculations have to be present.
 
Wow, 100 posts in less than 5 hours. Is this a new world record?

Weight and Balance became a whole lot more interesting today than the textbook version.
 
EdFred said:
Actually, I don't, as I keep riding gear up there, and I stay at the cabin. My weekend trips, including the fly-in, consist of a backpack, or a single carry on, a few dog bones for Kaiser and his food. Total weight....MAYBE 25lbs.
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See?

Second grader.....
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Depends whether you put the Gatorade bottle in the back seat, throw it in the baggage compartment, or send it out the window...
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Sec. 91.15 — Dropping objects.

No pilot in command of a civil aircraft may allow any object to be dropped from that aircraft in flight that creates a hazard to persons or property. However, this section does not prohibit the dropping of any object if reasonable precautions are taken to avoid injury or damage to persons or property.





Now we are back to making this thread educational again, thank you. If there are any more posts about guessing the size of my hips I will seriously strangle you all.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
What is the Chisolm trail?
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My reference was to point to the distinction in condition to cattle before and after the trail drive. The KC stockyards are still in use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chisholm_Trail

A closer to home reference for you would be to cattle from the "cow counties" brought to Stockton to feed the 49ers. Stockton used to be called Fat City because the cattle would be fattened after the trail drives and prior to sale.

/End history lesson
 
Richard said:
That doesn't prevent a mention of say, the Wright Bros.
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I'm just saying when she didn't get the reference to When Harry Met Sally, how on earth was she gonna get the Chisolm trail?

Gotta remember, she is in CA. Education has not been a strongpoint of this state.
 
Richard said:
My reference was to point to the distinction in condition to cattle before and after the trail drive. The KC stockyards are still in use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chisholm_Trail

A closer to home reference for you would be to cattle from the "cow counties" brought to Stockton to feed the 49ers. Stockton used to be called Fat City because the cattle would be fattened after the trail drives and prior to sale.

/End history lesson
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So are you saying our Chisholm trail is I-5?
 
shenanigans said:
My (Iowa) driver's license doesn't have a weight on it. Of course, my pilot certificate does but it's a self reported weight, so who knows if it's my actual weight? I'd guess if any drivers licenses do have weights on them, the numbers are equally questionable.
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Interesting, Colorado DLs have weights. As far as weights being questionable, weights that people tell you are going to be questionable too. The only way to know for sure is to have a scale.
 
In a ground school class I sat in on this year, we were discussing weight and balance. The teacher told of flying in Africa 30 years ago. Because of so much civil unrest in the region, he said he had to be prepared in case they needed to evacuate the people he was working with. He asked for their weights so he could plan loading arrangements of how many he could take on each trip, staying within W&B limits (I think he flew a 206 or a 210). One woman refused to give her weight, and held out for a very long time. She finally gave him the number. He said it was not an outlandish weight, but aparently she was very sensitive about it. I asked him if he still remembered that number, and he said Yes, only because she made such a big deal about it. But he could recall none of others.

Moral of the story--passengers who make a big deal about keeping their weight secret end up making it more memorable!
 
flyingcheesehead said:
To answer the original, more-ambiguous question, though - It's not that hard to determine your limits without knowing exact weights. For the planes that I fly, I've made spreadsheets for W&B and run a lot of different scenarios through them so that I don't need to know exact weights in most circumstances.
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+1. I've never had to ask anyone their weight yet in my Cardinal because I know they'd have to be at least 250 lbs in the front seat to push it out of the CG envelope, and the Branded Bird's climb performance is bad enough that I wouldn't fly him with more than one passenger anyway -- unless the extra pax was a child. (And as of today, I've had the rear seat removed, and don't plan to put it back in until bicycling season is over.)

I've only asked someone their weight once, in a Skyhawk a few years ago, and I'm pretty sure that person lowballed their weight by at least 50 lbs as our climbout with full tanks was, let's just say, interesting. :redface: Since they've gained at least that much since then and stand at over 300 now whether they'll admit it to me or not, that's one person who isn't going to be flying with me in my plane until they lose weight.

But not everyone does things the same way. Many pilots are anal about things like W&B, and circumstances change too. Ed's getting a bunch of new radios isn't he?
 
Richard said:
On a checkride with a woman examiner, I asked her weight. She glared at me! I glared back as I mentally calculated her weight. I said outloud that number plus 25. She shot back with her 'true weight'. I entered that number +10 in the W & B.
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:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Did she pink slip ya?
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
Sec. 91.15 — Dropping objects.

No pilot in command of a civil aircraft may allow any object to be dropped from that aircraft in flight that creates a hazard to persons or property. However, this section does not prohibit the dropping of any object if reasonable precautions are taken to avoid injury or damage to persons or property.
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Since you brought education back to this thread, :rofl: that regulation does NOT say that you CANNOT drop stuff out of the airplane. Just that it can't create a hazard to persons or property on the ground.

Having said that, I don't think throwing the Gatorade bottle out was the idea, just the contents of said bottle.:D
 
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