hehe - someone told me of a story where a experienced 747 capt + 2 friends (also Airline pilots) came to our flight school and wanted to fly around a bit (dont know reason). The flight instructor who was selected to fly with them in a 172 at first refused to fly all of them at the same time because of W&B issues (or simply taking off dry (no fuel)). He said he was threatend with job loss, and said he should do whatever the 747 capt wanted to do. So reluctantly he went along. According to him they took up about 4/5 of the runway(5000ft) before taking off. The instructor advised him off the problem and the captain (who is at the controls), said this is normal and he always takes up so much pavement (in his 747 of course). Anyhow, they barely made it off the ground, did some flying and came back. Btw, the airline pilots were chinese or japanese. Dont remember. I thought it was funny
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Anyhow, i just wanted to say i aint never dumb enough to risk lives. If i would show up with 2 friends, and W&B is not okay i'd just cancel the flight or ask one to stay. Common sense, duh!
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......... Doesn't anybody here have a POH for some 172's? Surely someone does!