Skywise wrote:
My point is, I see flying over gross weight as putting yourself
into a potentially unrecoverable situation.


Nobody wants to do it. OTOH, what do you do when you're flying Part 135; you're
given the load and expected to move it. Quit? Be out of work for several weeks
and have to move to find another job? I know the easy answer. I know the smart
answer. I also know the real answer.

Freight dogs do a lot of stuff smarter guys wouldn't attempt. Most of the time
we get away with it; sometimes we don't.

I worked for a company that had (among other things) a Geronimo conversion
Apache with 180 hp a side (compared to the normal Apache's 150 hp/side). My
boss wanted me to fly it but I was resistant, mostly due to its unconventional
instrument panel. ASI was on the far right, altimeter on the top left, etc... I
just couldn't see myself flying that thing IFR. He pushed, I delayed. Finally,
he sent his chief pilot down to Charlotte to pick me up in it one gray morning
and fly a load of cancelled checks to RDU. As it turned out, the load would put
us about 400 lbs overgrossed.

"Sheeitt.... you fly it to Raleigh and leave me behind", I said. "No need", he
said, "it can do it". Well, I was as nervous as a whore in church but I got in
and we took our place in line. To make a long story short, we were airborne
before I crossed the intersection of 5/23... a distance of about 1000 feet. Not
only were we airborne, we were climbing STRONGLY. "Hmmm.... maybe this isn't so
bad".

Of course, if an engine failed, I'd have been screwed. I knew that. I also
know if that airplane had arrived in Raleigh without me I'd likely be out of
work... and flying jobs in 1989 didn't grow on trees. You do what you do.

But every time a commuter or a freighter falls out of the sky I think about what
may really have happened that will never be discussed.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

VE