Weight and balance?

[Phil Rigg]

This thread is fascinating.

pd2 wanted to know why he was asked to move given his correct estimation of the virtually insignificant effect of moving his mass such a short distance on the overall weight and balance moment arm for the aircraft.

What he (and I in response to his asking the question) are looking for is why precisely did the CC member ask him to move an insignificantly short distance in an aparently ad-hoc manner? The reason stated was for "weight and balance" which to any reasonably educated pilot/engineer is clearly not the real issue. We are thus looking to hear a clear explanation of the real reason(s) why a CC member might make such a request including why they should choose to make up lies if the real reason is it makes cleaning the aircraft easier, etc. and in which case who in mangement has trained them to deliver such lies.

Instead of receiving the true and honest answers that we are looking forward pd2 has triggered an incredible series of responses, even one from the CC moderator whose response was "given anything to do with flight safety you do as I say even though I have absolutely no idea why I'm asking it" (even though if the passenger had been moved off the aircraft as suggested the CC member would have taken personal repsonsibility for making a far more significant change to the moment arm than their original request!), none of which have really answered his or her question to the full.

I am a GA pilot responsible for absolutely everything to do with the safety of any flight I make. No ops, loading or any other department just little ole me where the bucks stops.

Along with all other aspects, I have to calculate the weight and balance for every flight I make based on the actual weight of each pasenger and the seat I assign them to including the fuel load, dependent upon which tanks I load it, and the baggage load in the front or rear compartments.

The fact is that the weight and balance envelope is absolutely important in all phases of the flight and doesn't magically become insignificant after take-off. That is clearly some kind of old wives' tale that has been propagated among unknowing CC for some historically incorrect reason. I suspect it may be related to the normal process in most aircraft that the natural fuel burn-off during flight usually, but not always, makes the W & B envelope progressively easier to meet as the flight approaches landing.

As various posters have stated correctly, accidents have occurred in all phases of flight due to incorrect loading at any time including due to miscalculations during the fuel weight burn-off by the responsible person.

So to repeat the question to cabin crew. Knowing that you have no knowledge of the method of calculation or responsiblility for the W & B loading of an aircraft what are the various reasons (with an understanding of them or not) that you would ask a passenger to move a short distance and for each reason who exactly has instructed you to make this request and for what reason, true or false, did they give you for delivering the request?

pd2 and I would be fascinated to hear.......

P.S. I also find it unbelievable that with the majority of airlines assigning passengers to specific seats during check-in that it appears to be beyond the wit of man to build the W & B calculations into the seat assignment software!!