Come on , there is overweight and there is OVERWEIGHT !!!! No way would i take 4 gallons out....unless i was in a Robbo or in a very tight LZ requiring a high vertical take off. I flew quite regularly grossly overweight , for the conditions....Egypt ...hot etc, due to people forgetting to turn the pump off when putting the chemicals in.!! The aircraft should fly normally and if you have good long area to transition from /to forward flight there is no power issue. Obviously in the event of engine failure you may contact terra firma slightly harder and the cross tubes /skids may fail. As for wear etc what about all the trips you do solo with low fuel ? surely that takes the pieces out of the jar much slower ?
This is NOT advocating flying over MAUW but in a working environment it does happen, also as stated earlier ,the figure given is skid related and the aircraft is probably quite capable of lifting much more and flying safely.
