Originally Posted by
Chesty Morgan
One of the biggest threats operating at low weight is the narrowing CofG envelope. You can quite easily find yourself outside the allowable envelope unless you keep an eye on things. Particularly with multiple thrust limit lines.
About 35 years ago, I was flying from Denver to Seattle - a huge snowstorm had hit Denver and everything was massively fouled up. My incoming flight arrived several hours late, which caused me to miss my connection, so I was on multiple waiting lists trying to get on a flight to Seattle. Finally hours later - around midnight - I found a United flight that would take me. Amazingly, with thousands of people stranded and huge waiting lists to get to Seattle, the DC-10 was nearly empty - maybe a dozen people in coach.
As we were preparing to take off, the pilot came on and said he needed
everyone to move to the front of the aircraft (including the flight attendants) to get the CG right for takeoff. Up and away we could move anywhere we wanted so long as we stayed out of first class...