I am always within W&B....I do sometimes lose about 15 Kg though
Actually, joking aside, what determines max weight? I ask because I know I have flown over weight - or rather been flown in my aeroplane over weight. When I bought the share I did a test flight, all 4 of us went on the flight. Not knowing the aeroplane at the time, the owner said it'd be ok, and it was, we were off the ground in about 200m, 4 up (Rallye 160 HP). After buying my share and calculating W&B I found that 2 large adults and full fuel would put us at about MAUW, so we must have been over weight by 100 Kg or so. Despite being overweight the CofG was withing spec (which I'd say is more important).
However there was no noticable performance loss and I was amazed at how we had performed.......so who and what determines max weight? The Seneca in the USA has a higher MAUW than a Seneca in Europe so is it always dangerous I wonder, to fly over weight?