Problem is not the inbound HAJ as going on now.
Things begin to go bad for the outbound legs.
All of these haj pax have gifts from Saudi Arabia to bring to friends and family back home.
Not to mention the 2 or 3 liters of Zam Zam water they all carry.
Planes are absolutely overweight.
You discover this near the end of the runway as you barely clear the lights.
Then your next clue is the aircraft barely climbs at max climb power.
We all called this the Rose Village departure, as we were very low passing over the compound where crews were based.
Not being able to reach the flight planned altitude is the final answer.
Even at a lower cruise altitude you are near MCT.
You run the performance charts backwards and see that you are 10-20 tons over max weight.
After you drop the pax at there destination it is amazing how the airplane flys exactly on the charts.
Dangerous operation, done many of them.
Not good for the new pilots, but you will learn a lot about aircraft performance, quickly.
Normal Haj operations, been going on for years like this.
Last edited by Earl; 28th Nov 2008 at 18:02.