Thanks for the comments. I am beginning to feel as if my initial post is
being interpreted as if I wanted to be "re-assured" that flying over gross
is okay. That is not what I meant to convey, nor is that ever my
intentions. I simply was having a discussion at work about weight in
aircraft, and it turned out to be a good discussion there, so I thought it
might be one here as well.

I know what is legal. And I also know that I never intend on flying over
gross. But, I would bet that there are alot of pilots out there that have
come up against the max weight, and struggled with this exact
decision......."I am only 25 lbs over the max.....will that be okay". Now,
if a pilot does that, and the plane fly's 'okay', then the next time, that
same pilot may say "well, it flew okay with 25 over, it will probably be
okay at 45 over....." and so on.

Fred


"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...
"Fred Choate" wrote in message
...
Here is a topic that was of discussion at work today:

How much is too much over gross weight? For example.....the 172 has a
gross weight of 2300 lbs, but what if you are 2345 at time of
takeoff.....is that too much over, even if you are going to be burning
enough fuel before your first scheduled stop to be under weight for
landing?

The "...you are a test pilot" phrase applies to many situations, including
going over gross weight.

Assuming a non-emergency situation, you fly the airplane by the book.
That means, even one pound over max gross is too much.

Let's say after landing at a remote airport, you stumbled upon an
organized-crime pot growing operation, along with a kidnap victim they
kept. Just as you are untying the victim, you are discovered. You and the
victim run to the plane, but just as you are getting ready to take off,
having narrowly escaped your pursuers, you realize that with your
additional passenger, you may be as much as 50 or 100 pounds overweight.

Do you at that point shut down the airplane, get out and let yourselves be
tied up again by the mobsters? I sure hope not!

There may be moments when being a test pilot is appropriate. In those
moments, you should be aware of the effects of the extra weight. To some
extent, if you've ever flown the airplane at max gross as well as at lower
weights, you already have an idea of the change in performance.

The 2% overage you describe will produce a noticeable reduction in
performance, but probably nothing that even an average pilot can't
accomodate (assuming you're not cutting things too close already). A 10%
overage is likely to create significant problems; one can prepare for them
(and many pilots have, for the purpose of ferrying airplanes long
distances for example), but should attempt only after calculating exactly
what the new performance figures will be, and with adequate planning for
the flight itself (assuming the drug runners aren't chasing you, that
is...in that case, I suppose you can just play it off the cuff ).

None of that implies that over-gross operations, even by a small margin,
are to be taken lightly. When ferry pilots operate over-gross, they do so
with a special exception granted by the FAA. This isn't a normal
operation, and the fact that some pilots do it doesn't mean it can be done
safely by any other random pilot (and certainly doesn't mean it can be
done legally).

Even ignoring the safety issues, I agree it was entirely irresponsible for
your instructor to teach you to fly over gross. And make no mistake, he
was *teaching* you to do that. It only makes it worse that he taught it
very poorly, not even bothering to address the actual performance issues
related to flying over-gross (other than to let you suffer through them).

I don't know what kind of discussion you were expecting, but IMHO for
standard operations, there is simply no amount of excess weight above max
gross that is reasonable.

Pete