When is an aircraft overweight?
When is an aircraft overweight
Gosh, rubbish New Years Eve bash- got home early. Didn't even stay up for Rick Astley cos we get New Year 2 hours earlier in Cyprus and here I am, clear headed, focused and enjoying my daily stroll around PPrune. ....................Bort.........................blimey. 3 pages on and only one getting close.
The opener asks for overweight. Er, what weight ? TOW. LW, ZFW ?
Of course he/she means TOW. Manufacturer will get certification for that after serious peer review. That is the CERTIFIED maximum Take-off weight. You could probably exceed that at seal level, 15c, Max HWC, and end endless flat runway- don't try it though -. ACTUAL TOW will have to be modified for several reasons and results in a REGULATED TOW. That becomes the "maximum" for that operation. In nearly all cases, it will be Landing Weight plus burn off. Nothing to stop you exceeding that on take-off but you will then be too heavy to land.
Civil regulation charges Air Traffic overflight based on a "declared" max TOW. One Operator I toyed with decided to declare ithree aircraft to be much lighter than the Max cert TOW. in order to get reduced ATC overflight charges.. Looking trendy in their Lone Ranger/Tonto outfits, they then assigned these aircraft to long routes where that weight needed to be, regularly exceeded. The logic(yeah-right) offered to us was that these over declared weights were not exceeding "certified" criteria. Oh dear. I left. Looked silly. in my Tonto outfit anyway.!
Gosh this is sad. Going up to the Lithos Taverna to see if anyone is around. Happy New Year everyone.
The opener asks for overweight. Er, what weight ? TOW. LW, ZFW ?
Of course he/she means TOW. Manufacturer will get certification for that after serious peer review. That is the CERTIFIED maximum Take-off weight. You could probably exceed that at seal level, 15c, Max HWC, and end endless flat runway- don't try it though -. ACTUAL TOW will have to be modified for several reasons and results in a REGULATED TOW. That becomes the "maximum" for that operation. In nearly all cases, it will be Landing Weight plus burn off. Nothing to stop you exceeding that on take-off but you will then be too heavy to land.
Civil regulation charges Air Traffic overflight based on a "declared" max TOW. One Operator I toyed with decided to declare ithree aircraft to be much lighter than the Max cert TOW. in order to get reduced ATC overflight charges.. Looking trendy in their Lone Ranger/Tonto outfits, they then assigned these aircraft to long routes where that weight needed to be, regularly exceeded. The logic(yeah-right) offered to us was that these over declared weights were not exceeding "certified" criteria. Oh dear. I left. Looked silly. in my Tonto outfit anyway.!
Gosh this is sad. Going up to the Lithos Taverna to see if anyone is around. Happy New Year everyone.
Lose a piston engine even at max authorised weight and you've had it. To the immortal "Brevet" thread which has been honoured by being made a sticky at the top of Military Aviation, now active again with a brilliantly vivid account by P/Off Ron Homes describing takeoff in his 101 Sqn Lancaster, overloaded with half a ton of jamming equipment as well as a full load of bombs.
"The flight engineer takes over the throttles and holds them fully forward, “full power skip”. Both hands on the control column now, keep her straight, the aircraft is throbbing, the roar from the four engines is deafening. Airspeed is building, 60, 80, 90mph is called out by the flight engineer. The runway roars past but the massive weight of 2000 gallons of fuel and six tons of bombs makes itself felt through the controls and the end of the runway gets nearer and nearer. If one engine fails now we shall run off the end and the whole lot will blow up and leave a nasty big hole in the ground ... "
"The flight engineer takes over the throttles and holds them fully forward, “full power skip”. Both hands on the control column now, keep her straight, the aircraft is throbbing, the roar from the four engines is deafening. Airspeed is building, 60, 80, 90mph is called out by the flight engineer. The runway roars past but the massive weight of 2000 gallons of fuel and six tons of bombs makes itself felt through the controls and the end of the runway gets nearer and nearer. If one engine fails now we shall run off the end and the whole lot will blow up and leave a nasty big hole in the ground ... "
