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Old 16th Mar 2014, 05:59
  #4367 (permalink)  
opsmarco
 
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To all those who keep asking about cargo, who speculate on how much gold could have been carried, estimating it to 4300kg because of the 50 empty seats, etc.

- Full flights are rare!, and actually loadfactor wasn't that bad...

- Does any of you have access to the actual loadsheet, to confirm the aircraft was either limited to ZFW, TOW or LDW, and what was the actual underload? Don't think so, information must be protected, right now, anyway...

- Standby passengers (staff) are usually the last passengers accepted on any flight, their late acceptance, until proved otherwise, can be related to a long list of reasons other than weight limitations.

So HOW can any of you get any speculative figures regarding cargo, weight limitations due to huge cargo loads, or anything? I've read every single post that is currently present in this thread, as well as many more who got erased (including one that was mine), and I haven't seen any ACTUAL DATA on those matters! Particularly on a matter that keeps being discussed, again, again and again every 5-6 pages.

So, for those who don't know anything about weights, and in order to stop speculation without any single proof, let's do some calculations. I'm no expert on the 777-200ER (more of an Airbus guy), but, well, basic weight calculations are the same whatever aircraft you work on. Thru Google, I found DOW/MZFW/MTOW/MLDW for another operator's 777-200ER, and differences shouldn't be more than 2-3 tons, depending on the equipment and cabin fitting.

Let's assume a Dry Operating Weight of 150'500kg
A Maximum Zero Fuel Weight of 195'044kg
A Maximum Take-Off Weight of 264'897kg (there's a second variant just short of 300 tons, but let's do it with the short MTOW, here, since it's not that important as we'll see later)
A Maximum Landing Weight of 208'652kg
227 passengers, including 5 children (don't remember the exact figure, sorry)

Someone, maybe 1000 posts ago, said departure fuel should be around 50'000kg for this flight duration. Let's assume landing fuel should be at least 10'000kg, which makes a trip fuel of 40'000kg.

ZFW = DOW+222 passengers at 76kg (IATA adult standard weight)+5 children at 35kg (IATA standard as well)+30kg luggage per passenger (quite high, but, well, not that important = 150'500+16'872+175+6810 = 174'355kg vs. 195'044kg = 20'689kg underload

TOW = ZFW + Take-Off Fuel = 224'355kg vs. 264'897kg = 40542kg underload

LDW = TOW - Trip fuel = 184'355kg vs. 208'652kg = 24'297kg underload

Of course, the lowest underload is our actual true limitation, which means we have, available for cargo and according to our calculations, over 20.5 tons. Maybe some 777 jockeys would like to tell us how usual it is to carry that much cargo (again, never worked on the 777-200ER), but seems quite a heavy load IF weight was an issue on MH370.

And for purists, I know, not the right sequence of calculations, but this post isn't to train people on preparing loadsheets, it's just to provide some numbers to try and calm down speculation on cargo when no data at all is available.
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