refusing take off
"The POINT of this thread was that the crew of the aircraft in question did all the fancy math for the flight, loaded fuel, passengers in the back, baggage, freight, food, flight plan, and the other complicated stuff.""
Then they pushed back and started the engines......
Then asked "Any tall ships?"
Then they stopped and shut down and re-did all the fancy math.
The tall ships question should have come before the loading pax, freight, fuel, etc.
That is MY point."
UAL crews do not do the fancy math as you stated. On the Airbus all data for cargo compartments, pax on board, and CG come from central load planning which is sent by ACARS to aircraft. Then just add ZFW to current fuel load to get TOGW.
On taxi out, we usually ask if there are any ships in the channel off the departure end.
Take off data is based on NO ships in the channel. Otherwise, another set of data is required and sometimes BOS-SFO flights would be too heavy with a ship in the channel to be legal to depart.