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Should I be scared -- C172 over Gross
On Apr 18, 1:27*am, Dudley Henriques wrote:
tman wrote: Flown C172's for quite a while, and never had anybody in the back. Now I'm planning on quite a trip, with 2 pax and luggage. When I fill the fuel to the *tabs*, calc everyone's weight honestly and consider baggage -- I'm 75 lbs over the 2450 gross on departure. *Maybe 100 over gross if I assume a "lie about weight" factor or some inaccuracy with filling the tanks. *Now I'm scratching my head about just how risky this is. *I know (others) have pushed over gross in these planes way more under worse conditions, and have almost always gotten away with it. *I'm inclined to just do it, and be cognizant that it will perform differently, i.e. don't expect the same picture on climbout that you would when solo. Risky? *Or just roundoff error on the weight? *Here are some other factors: This is the 160HP C172, standard. Departure runway is 5000'. No steep terrain to climb out of. Plenty of alternates along with the way with 3000 runways. Not particularly hot, humid, or high. *50 degrees at 1000 MSL for departure or any point of landing. I'm figuring I'm 3% over gross, causing most of my V speeds to increase 1.5%, so say -- instead of flying short final at 65 knots, I'd fly at 66 knots... OK wait I can't hold airspeed to +/- 1 knot on most days anyways. I'm thinking through many of the factors, and it is only a "little" over gross, only on the first hour or so of the trip. *What else should I be aware of? *Am I dangerous? T I never advise a pilot to load any airplane over gross. I will tell you that the big killer in these situations is the cg location, especially the aft cg. Tell you what; instead of my "advising you" on what to do specifically with this flight, let me suggest to you that you run a weight and balance for this aircraft at full tanks, THEN run the same pax and baggage loading figuring 1/4 tanks, just to see what this does to the cg. -- Dudley Henriques- Hide quoted text - I was taught to do c of g calcs with the fuel I was carrying and MT. For a while I did this religously , and then after making up my own weight and balance calculator and playing around for ages with different combinations of fuel , pax and baggage, I found that for the 172N and Warriors I was flying , you could not put the c of g outside the envelope by burning fuel. ( that is if the c of g is inside the evelope with fuel , it will stay inside as you burn fuel ). In both aircraft the c of g comes forward as you burn fuel but the allowable c of g also comes forward as you lower the weight. It may ( probably is ) different in other types. But you can learn alot by playing around with your aircraft weight and balance calcs. I broke mine down to a few simple rules 1. The no brainer, stay under MTOW for the density altitude , airfield available 2. If possible put more wt in front seats ( unusual not to anyway) If I dont have any baggage and I know I have met the above , I know I dont need to look any further. If I am carrying any baggage or want to have more wt in the back seats than front, I do the calcs ( ie hardly ever) OK I have one other very obscure rule, ( If I have a 400 pound sumu wrestler in the front with me, I might check the forward c of g. Terry PPL Downunder |
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