Originally Posted by
Chris Scott
3) Remain a bit surprised that no ATC flight-plan was filed for the leg to Sedalia - a cross-country flight of about 500 nm, taking about three-and-a-half hours?
4) Yeah, any trim calculation is essentially a fairly crude matter, but seating the 10 pax as close to over-wing as possible would have made sense. On our C-47 operation - either front-to-back cargo or about 30 pax - we may have divided the cabin into three sections for trim purposes, and - as you point out - the aft baggage bay definitely needs to be taken into account. Stowing baggage and other equipment over-wing or at the front of the cabin seems impracticable.
MTOW was 28,000 lb for us, as we were in north-west Europe.
3) I used to launch from DFW to Detroit on good days and just hold a heading for six hours. If you saw Indianapolis go by you knew you were on course. Company operations would know to look for us after 7 hours. You can still call center for flight following.
4) Dug out a copy of the FAA DC-3 flight manual (amazing what you can find on the shelf when an operation shuts down.) The 26,900 came from a CAR 4 performance limitation. Above that you would have to calculate performance numbers. At or below that weight you would meet the required performance numbers up to 7500 MSL. I can't imagine weight would be an issue with 11 additional people and fuel for Sedalia. CG could be interesting