no loadsheet, no fly

[gurnzee]

here's a thought......you are on holiday somewhere and are taking an a/c transfer to your island, camp etc, say in a C-206. There appears to be no load and trim calcs done by the pilot so you politely ask to see the load sheet. He tells you he hasn't done one or something along those lines, but his experience tells him that having done this a thousand times before there will be no problem.
What do you do?????

[smallfry]

The old bush method of checking trim in a 206. Hang about 8kg off the tail tie down eye, and if the tail hits the ground its out of trim. If not, its fine!

[john_tullamarine]

It is going to be determined by the local regulatory requirements, especially in respect to whether the aircraft is small or heavy, RPT or other operation, etc., as to whether a formal load sheet is required. So far as the trim is concerned, for a smaller aircraft it is quite appropriate to consider the use of load rule scheduling which removes the need for routine calculations.

[gurnzee]

as a pax, will your 'insurance' cover costs if there was a legal requirement to carry a loadsheet, and one wasn't, or could you sue their a### if you had an accident?

[BlueEagle]

As a general rule if you are involved in an accident then you will get paid, it is called Accident Insurance not 'Totally Blame Free Insurance'. Only if it could be proved that you had in some way wilfully contributed to the accident could you be penalized, as a passenger that would be highly unlikely. If the carrying company have acted improperly the insurance underwriters will sort it out with them.

As I said, this is as a general rule and local conditions may apply.

[redsnail]

When I used to fly C206's and C207's we had to fill out a load sheet but not a trim sheet. A load sheet doesn't have to be flash, just a very simple column with the relevant figures in it.
Experience will tell you if you have loaded the C206 badly. I just used to keep covering trim sheets just to prove that using "x" load distributed "y" in the cabin/luggage compartment = in trim.

So, not knowing exactly what was said, he/she may have done a load sheet but not a trim sheet.

[Tinstaafl]

I used to calculate a standard load sheet.

As long as the load weight & positioning was within the parameters of the standard load then I was OK.

Did the same for performance using reasonable worst case criteria. Unless one or more criterion moved outside the worst case I had no need to recalculate.

[Genghis the Engineer]

How would you feel if, flying an identical load and an identical sector to one you've done hundreds of times before, a Pax you don't know from Adam starts sticking his nose into your planning?

You'd probably tell him it was all sorted out, and to sit down and let you get on with your job.

What was it he said exactly?

G

[GlueBall]

Weight And Balance

Unless you're putting several large rocks or bowling balls into the baggage compartment, a C206 is not likely to be out of the CG envelope. It's more about the potential of being overweight than about being out of trim! And when you're flying pax in a small single engine airplane you really don't need an abacus to figure your cabin payload. What are you gonna do...ask a female passenger how much she weighs? She wouldn't tell you the truth.