A question of weights?

[Vfrpilotpb]

Good afternoon Ppruners,
I fly RW, but have a little question that I thought may get an answer here,
When your passenger A/C is being loaded say with max seating of passengers and luggage, do you need to have a rough idea of weights re the pax, or is there a known average to work with, and if there is, is that used on the really big stuff as well?

[JuicyLucy]

Known average which changes with no. of seats and type of operation.
With small ( < 10 seats (ish) ) actual weights can be more useful, but less easy to obtain..

[eyeinthesky]

While common sense may agree that using a known average is easier and probably likely to be OK most of the time, beware of th UK AN(G)Rs which are quite specific about when you can and can't use average weights. (ANO Sect 3/1+). Bear in mind also that average weights may be higher than actual, so if you are MTOW limited you'd be better off with actuals. An example of this is according to the AN(G)Rs the assumed weight of a male passenger for a/c with 5 seats or less is 104kg (including 6kg of hand baggage).



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"Take-off is optional, Landing is mandatory"

[Tinstaafl]

Australia uses a sliding scale of weights, depending on circumstance eg pax, crew etc etc

These weights aren't for use on a/c with 6 or fewer seats.

[411A]

If flying an FAR23 piston twin, I would strongly recommend to use actual weights and be very conservative about it. These types have very limited climb ability (or none at all) with one engine inop. Turbine types do better.

[Vfrpilotpb]

Thank you all for your answers, on a lighter note( no pun) if the average for a male pax incl hand luggage is 104kilo, would that make a female 65kgs with 44 kgs of hand luggage? sorry ladies, only my humour thinking about the lady who controls my life and the state of her belongings!!!!!
My Regards

[flufdriver]

In my type of airline flying, (mostly tourist, 100 - 170 seats) I use a rough guide of 200lbs per passenger + bags, freight is additional. If the ZFW is significantly different from my ballpark figure,it warrants special examination (and not just the arithmetic)