Fatal crash in California on July 15

[GeeBee]

There are many reasons why but the most common reason why we can't fill every seat and fill the tanks is flexibility. They build the airplane to fill a variety of missions thus they give it more seats than tank full capability and they give it more tank than it can hold with full seats. I don't know of any airplane that is not built that way and it is up to the operator to balance the two out.

Some other reasons go to manufacturing. The A330-200 if you filled all tanks could not even cary the crew, because they placed the A340 center tank in the airplane for manufacturing commonality. It will however go a long ways, Singapore to ATL with just the crew.

Airlines have got surprising accurate on weights in part to tech, in part to 9-11. Believe it or not, where I worked we began to use actual baggage weights. Thanks to bar coding, RFID and the TSA who scans every bag, every bag is weighed, its location known. As to passenger average weights, an audit is performed twice a year. The result? We now have weight accuracies on the order of 0.1% and that is accounted for in the performance programs.

As to accuracy of your own airplane? I'm not shy. I weigh everyone and everything. I have a calibrated scale in my hangar. I prepare a load sheet when I am carrying an unfamiliar load and I email it to myself for posterity and the NTSB. Operational discipline.

[Urs_Wildermuth]

14 minutes ago, GeeBee said:

Airlines have got surprising accurate on weights in part to tech, in part to 9-11. Believe it or not, where I worked we began to use actual baggage weights.

What about handluggage...

 

15 minutes ago, GeeBee said:

As to passenger average weights, an audit is performed twice a year. The result? We now have weight accuracies on the order of 0.1% and that is accounted for in the performance programs.

Do you know what the current averages are? And how are they determined?

[aviatoreb]

They fly cape air around here, still with the Cessna 402 which is really a standard unpressurized ga twin but flying scheduled service with 5 rows of seats for 10 people, including pilot(s).  Sometimes they fly with 2 pilots and sometimes one pilot and a passenger is allowed to sit right seat with the pilot (but not allowed to touch anything - on the honor system).

So with that kind of small airplane and so many people, they are really very tight in making weight and balance.  They actually weight everyone on a scale to get actual weights, and they weight all luggage, hand bags etc, and of course they carry actual fuel needed and no more for the very short flights.  They will sometimes leave a passenger or two behind fo the next flight if weight requires it.

[A64Pilot]

Strict adherence to weight won’t really protect you, there are many times when you can be within gross and just not have the performance required, just as there are many times where you can be way over gross and have enough performance.

‘Give me 5,000 paved on a cool day at sea level and she will fly just fine way over gross for a ferry flight with extra fuel etc. 

‘Often it’s just experience that allows you to determine how far you can push things, of course good performance charts also help. There can be significant difference between identical airframes too.

One thing that really surprised me coming out of the Military is there is no computation of any form to determine engine performance (health) that I’m aware of for GA aircraft, but it is what it is.

You should work up to higher weights slowly and also different DA’s runway surface types, barriers etc.

Some types of flying the gross weight is purely performance determined, the average Ag plane is properly loaded when the wheels just touch the trees at the end of the strip, Vietnam Huey pilots would have the crew chief and gunner run along beside of the aircraft until they hit ETL as they couldn’t hover with them on board.

Being an old guy who flies out of a grass strip with an uphill runway and trees depending on wind direction, I leave a lot on the ground sometimes, just cause the worry isn’t worth it, Could I carry it? Probably, but why stress yourself, just don’t push the airplane.

As a kid I would have pushed it, part of getting old I guess.

I see our J model as being like the Miata we have, same capacity. If I wanted an SUV, I would have looked for a 206.

 

However be real careful with CG, too far aft can really cause problems

Edited July 18, 2021 by A64Pilot

[arikanoandy]

I’m very respectful of this machine.  I came from a Comanche 250 with a fresh mill and a Black Mac prop that leaped off the runway.  The J model doesn’t like to do that, and I could only imagine the underwear shitstains that would persist if it was HHH (high, hot, heavy).  RIP to our fellow flyer and his passengers.  

[arikanoandy]

On 7/17/2021 at 10:41 AM, bradp said:

Sorry for this loss.  
Often hear “he was such a cautious / careful / meticulous pilot” after a tragedy like this. 
Apparently and unfortunately not in this case. 

In the Army, we called the cavalier helicopter pilot types “Airshow Dan(s)”.

[arikanoandy]

1 hour ago, A64Pilot said:

Strict adherence to weight won’t really protect you, there are many times when you can be within gross and just not have the performance required, just as there are many times where you can be way over gross and have enough performance.

‘Give me 5,000 paved on a cool day at sea level and she will fly just fine way over gross for a ferry flight with extra fuel etc. 

‘Often it’s just experience that allows you to determine how far you can push things, of course good performance charts also help. There can be significant difference between identical airframes too.

One thing that really surprised me coming out of the Military is there is no computation of any form to determine engine performance (health) that I’m aware of for GA aircraft, but it is what it is.

You should work up to higher weights slowly and also different DA’s runway surface types, barriers etc.

Some types of flying the gross weight is purely performance determined, the average Ag plane is properly loaded when the wheels just touch the trees at the end of the strip, Vietnam Huey pilots would have the crew chief and gunner run along beside of the aircraft until they hit ETL as they couldn’t hover with them on board.

Being an old guy who flies out of a grass strip with an uphill runway and trees depending on wind direction, I leave a lot on the ground sometimes, just cause the worry isn’t worth it, Could I carry it? Probably, but why stress yourself, just don’t push the airplane.

As a kid I would have pushed it, part of getting old I guess.

I see our J model as being like the Miata we have, same capacity. If I wanted an SUV, I would have looked for a 206.

 

However be real careful with CG, too far aft can really cause problems

The ETF system on the GE700 engines is very nice.  I’ve been flying the Airbus EC145 for a few years now in and for the Army, and we have no HIT numbers for it.  It either passes it’s 100 hour power check, or it doesn’t.  You have no idea was percentage of a baseline engine you are flying with. -former CW4 H60 SP/IE and EC45 FCP

[kpaul]

This is a great conversation for everyone headed to OSH this coming week.

I have weights for my wife, daughter and myself.  Don't tell the girls but I added 5lbs to all of our weights just to account for daily weight fluctuations. I also have a luggage scale and have weights for everything going in the plane.  

We will be shipping 50lbs of stuff to OSH.  It all would have fit, although not comfortably for the rear seat passenger. But I wanted to carry 50 gal of fuel.  I could have gone down to 40 gals, but that would have added an extra fuel stop to the trip in order to carry legal reserves. 

My home field is 3900 MSL with an 11,000 MSL MEA for eastbound IFR flights.  Luckily, I have a 9000' runway.

 

[A64Pilot]

1 hour ago, arikanoandy said:

The ETF system on the GE700 engines is very nice.  I’ve been flying the Airbus EC145 for a few years now in and for the Army, and we have no HIT numbers for it.  It either passes it’s 100 hour power check, or it doesn’t.  You have no idea was percentage of a baseline engine you are flying with. -former CW4 H60 SP/IE and EC45 FCP

I’m not sure what your talking about, initially all T-700’s in AH-64’s were assumed to meet spec, and we checked for min performance during test flights, later we did test flights and computed ETF’s (engine torque factors) and the average was the ATF (airframe torque factor) when the aircraft was being flown heavier and up higher and hotter than originally planned. 

Baseline hit was calculated after the test flight to determine ETF and once established HIT checks had to be plus or minus 20 degrees to fly. A model was a chart in the logbook and D models was if memory serves computed by the aircraft.

For those wondering HIT is (health indicator test) and amounted to 60% torque on an engine, and a graph that had PA and OAT would give you a target ITT, you had to be within plus or minus 20C of the target temp to fly, the target temp was adjusted for each individual engine after the test flight ensured it made spec power, so the limits may be +10 to -30 etc.

‘I Retired in 02 as a CW-3 AH-64 A&D MTFE so I don’t know how much has changed.

‘I had to look up EC-145, Airbus threw me, I thought you were flying an Airliner.

GA fixed wing aircraft, even turbines as far as I know have no equal procedure, they are allowed to slowly deteriorate in power I guess until finally it gets so bad it goes into maintenance, problem is you often don’t pick up on a slow degradation, you adjust for it.  

Even piston engines have pretty large variations in performance, there really is a difference in a proper “performance” engine if done right.

All the performance charts for an aircraft model are derived from one aircraft, it would seem to make sense to be several and an average of them all, but it’s not. Change aircraft in the middle of a Certification, and you will start over.

‘Then sometimes an engine manufacturer will send you an engine for Cert that is a ringer, that is it’s very much at the top of the average performance. The first GE H-80 engine on a normal day would carry 800 SHP to 12,000 ft, average is maybe 8,000 ft.

‘So it’s no wonder why an average aircraft won’t make “book” numbers, the aircraft the numbers were based on may not have been average

Edited July 18, 2021 by A64Pilot

[RobertGary1]

8 hours ago, Urs_Wildermuth said:

This is a major problem and, as a former loadmaster and load controller, my pet peeve, something I've never understood.

What is the point having 4  or 6 or whatever seats in an airplane when you can't fill them. Yes, with my experience I do know that the idea is that you do your calcs, don't lie about your weight and weigh down everything bla bla, but the harsh reality is, even those who do a WnB document before every flight would get a lot of it wrong if the plane was put on a a scale before departure. As one other guy here said, human nature. There is 4 seats, so it must be good for 4 people. Only that very few planes are. But yea, you can take 2 adults and two kids, so those two seats do have their function at times, but most of the time, they are just a vain temptation to do the obvious.

Passenger weights on GA planes (and your own): You have to ask. ok. What are they goona tell ya? Even if they are honest, they will tell you what they weighed last time after shower and toilet in the early morning in their flesh. What about clothes, what about the fact that you gain weight during the day? How many will actually fly naked to have the proper weight? If you have not done it, do a quick check and step on your scale once fully dressed and ready to fly, with all the stuff in your pockets, your coat, hat, shoes, walking stick and 3 work and private mobile phones in your pocket?.... 10 kgs on top? Easy.

This starts with the obvious C150, which has a full fuel payload of 150 kg, which is exactly 2 IATA of 1980's standard weight males. And there are such, but unfortunately few and far between. Add the tremendous baggage space and voila, I'd claim that a huge number of those planes even on standard training sorties are flown overweight.

Mooneys are excellent 2 seaters with full tanks, some are not even that. I've seen Acclaims and Ovations which can not be legally flown with full fuel by two even average people. There are Jetprops which have a full fuel payload of 100 kg, that is ONE guy at best. That plane is a 6 seater! What good does a plane do, which, fully fuelled must be piloted by an infant? Or, worse, is overweight fully fuelled without anyone sitting inside? Yes folks, that exists. Also airliners exist which have such funny arrangements.

And then: What about all the nick-nack stuff in the plane before even one guy sits in it? 20 kg? Optimistic maybe. Tool box, covers, this, that, head sets, replacement oil bottles, what else not, do they ever find the way into your loadsheet? If so, congratulations.

Yes I know all the haarumph about it, of course you can use the filler neck on some planes, of course you can calculate properly, of course it can be done with 1- 2 hours of fuel, but let's get real folks: Way too many won't.

The situation is not better in airliners either, only those beasts will not fall out of the sky so quickly. Still, it's worth looking at.

Being out of the airline business for 20 years by now I don't know what todays IATA standard pax weights are, only that they have gone up over the years. When I started, they were 75 kg for males (yes really), 65 for females, 35 for kids and 10 for babies. The calculatory hand bag was 3 kgs (yes, T H R E E) . Honestly? When I left, most airlines had gone up to between 78 and 85 kgs but now included hand luggage. Seriously?

Handluggage: Airlines today say 6 kg. ROFLOL. Yea right. I'd say 99% of the roller bags nobody weighs or counts are 15 kg or more. The only airlines who do weigh and cash on them are LLC's, like Ryan Air or some similar outfits. Get it: even if we assume that the average they use for load sheets including the 6 kgs is remotely correct, a 300 pax airliner will be 3 tons overweight only from excess handluggage, duty free, nick nacks and burger bags. Every day. Any full 737 at max TOW will be 1.5 tons over gross. Every day.

When I was in dispaching, we counted 100 kgs per passenger including baggage. Given that the standard bag allowance is 23 kgs, that is 77 average weight. If we get a plane  with 50/50 male females and a couple of kids, we MAY achieve that. More likely not. Handbaggage? See above.

If that was me, I'd be planning the average adult today with 90 kg dressed, 20 kgs hand luggage and 23 kgs check in baggage for the airlines. That is 133 kgs and that is what most people drag on board a plane. For light planes, plan with 100 kg per person and 50 per kid.

If we look at the real world, the only way to stop people flying overweight is to put a sensor in each landing gear and have an indicator in the airplane which gives you a clear indication and inhibits engine start if overweight.

And I am sure: If such a system would ever become available or mandated, many of us would get the shock of a lifetime the first time we use it.

 

(BTW, preciously few people are aware that also cars have maximum allowable weights.... and it is the holiday season. Every year in Europe, thousands of cars get weighed at border stations and get taken out of circulation because the family has once again overdone the holiday baggage BIG time. Most cars are not better than planes, only nobody cares. But if you have an accident and the lawyers start doing what they do best...... you'd better care even there. )

Don’t ding the Mooney for having large tanks. I’m going to try to get an stc to full 1/2 the tank with a foam to reduce the capacity for those that want full fuel and 4 People. In 20 years of Mooney ownership I can count on one hand the number is times I filled the tanks. But for extended range it’s nice. Probably most of my flights are with 4 onboard. But not fuel for 6 hours. 

[donkaye]

While not totally analytical, a good gauge of engine/prop performance is to check maximum ROC on your plane.  Then compare it with book value.  This should be done regularly, especially if you are planning any flights into high DA airports.  It's best to do it at GW or adjust for your current weight.

[OR75]

I met a Henry at a Mooney gathering in Santa Inez years ago.   I had just installed a scimitar prop and he had one so we talked about that. Nice gentleman. I was hoping it would not be him involved in this accident until I saw his full name. Sad. RIP Henry. 

Edited July 19, 2021 by OR75

[GeeBee]

5 hours ago, Urs_Wildermuth said:

What about handluggage...

 

Do you know what the current averages are? And how are they determined?

Yes and no. There are audits done several times a year of passenger averages which include carry on luggage. Passengers are directed over a ramp with load cells and the de-identified data recorded. Last I looked domestic summer was about 195 average, this includes carry on. Once you get above about 75 passengers the bell curve becomes quite accurate.

Also within the weight and balance averages is performance data which is actually quite buffered. For instance it allow a 3% margin of error, either way on weight. It also allows for a 50% headwind decrease margin and a 70% tailwind increase. IOW, if a particular power/flap combination requires a headwind, the headwind could die off by half during the roll and the numbers are still good. If you are good with a 5 knot tailwind, you could experience an 8.5 knot tail wind and still be good.

A mention was made of Cape Air. They do it right. When the rewrite of Part 135 was done in the early 1980's the Alaskan operators (its always the Alaskan guys) talked the FAA into allowing average weights. I and numerous other people in the public comment period tried to tell the FAA this was a bad idea. The statistical averages only work when the sample is large enough. The Alaska types talked the FAA into it anyway, and they have a. smoking hole filled with a PA31 for the effort. The NTSB said, "what were you thinking" and the operations specifications quickly removed  for small aircraft to use averages.

[arikanoandy]

11 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

I’m not sure what your talking about, initially all T-700’s in AH-64’s were assumed to meet spec, and we checked for min performance during test flights, later we did test flights and computed ETF’s (engine torque factors) and the average was the ATF (airframe torque factor) when the aircraft was being flown heavier and up higher and hotter than originally planned. 

Baseline hit was calculated after the test flight to determine ETF and once established HIT checks had to be plus or minus 20 degrees to fly. A model was a chart in the logbook and D models was if memory serves computed by the aircraft.

For those wondering HIT is (health indicator test) and amounted to 60% torque on an engine, and a graph that had PA and OAT would give you a target ITT, you had to be within plus or minus 20C of the target temp to fly, the target temp was adjusted for each individual engine after the test flight ensured it made spec power, so the limits may be +10 to -30 etc.

‘I Retired in 02 as a CW-3 AH-64 A&D MTFE so I don’t know how much has changed.

‘I had to look up EC-145, Airbus threw me, I thought you were flying an Airliner.

GA fixed wing aircraft, even turbines as far as I know have no equal procedure, they are allowed to slowly deteriorate in power I guess until finally it gets so bad it goes into maintenance, problem is you often don’t pick up on a slow degradation, you adjust for it.  

Even piston engines have pretty large variations in performance, there really is a difference in a proper “performance” engine if done right.

All the performance charts for an aircraft model are derived from one aircraft, it would seem to make sense to be several and an average of them all, but it’s not. Change aircraft in the middle of a Certification, and you will start over.

‘Then sometimes an engine manufacturer will send you an engine for Cert that is a ringer, that is it’s very much at the top of the average performance. The first GE H-80 engine on a normal day would carry 800 SHP to 12,000 ft, average is maybe 8,000 ft.

‘So it’s no wonder why an average aircraft won’t make “book” numbers, the aircraft the numbers were based on may not have been average

My mistake in explanation.  As we say in the instructor world…words have meanings!   I was referring to 1.0 spec, or 100% of what the engine was supposed to make.  In the 60, we could accept a minimum ETF OF .85 (85% of spec), or a minimum ATF (average of the two engines) of .90.  I agree that there is nothing similar in the world of airplanes that I’ve seen, other than compressions, which can be misleading.

Edited July 19, 2021 by arikanoandy

[steingar]

I truly hope I'm mistaken about the accident pilot.  I didn't know or meet him, and am only going by what has been said here.  I really do hope it was catastrophic malfunction that brought down the airplane, though I doubt it strongly.  Most of our systems are quite robust.  Usually its the bug driving the airplane.  Occam's razor and all that.

I've lonely once flown into a heavily occluded 2500 foot strip. I looked at my performance numbers carefully, and made damn certain I was light.  Too light, only had gas enough to make it to nearby airports.  Had we not fixed the pump where I landed I'd still be there.

I sometimes a 2200 foot strip, when I can land on the unoccluded side I do so.  Won't land that strip over the tall trees.

I lost a good friend to this.  If I don't learn from it his demise might as well have been in vain.  If I ever crash feel free to discuss my shortcomings at length.  If someone doesn't crash because of it at least some good will have come from my dark fate.

[Hank]

As a new pilot, I built a spreadsheet for various loading scenarios and figured the CG of each. Touchy ones I put in red. Then I did landing CGs for each, with fuel in 10-gallon increments (40, 30, 20, 10), colored the same way.

I was going to post it here when I noticed that both front seats were at 36.5" or full-forward, which is not where I fly. So I'll update it and make the color-coded cells by formula instead of manually changing them . . . .

[A64Pilot]

1 hour ago, arikanoandy said:

My mistake in explanation.  As we say in the 8 strut or world…words have meanings!   I was referring to 1.0 spec, or 100% of what the engine was supposed to make.  In the 60, we could accept a minimum ETF OF .85 (85% of spec), or a minimum ATF (average of the two engines) of .90.  I agree that there is nothing similar in the world of airplanes that I’ve seen, other than compressions, which can be misleading.

Identical numbers for the 64, I had quite a few 1.2 engines, but we were only allowed to record 1.0.

[RobertGary1]

31 minutes ago, Hank said:

As a new pilot, I built a spreadsheet for various loading scenarios and figured the CG of each. Touchy ones I put in red. Then I did landing CGs for each, with fuel in 10-gallon increments (40, 30, 20, 10), colored the same way.

I was going to post it here when I noticed that both front seats were at 36.5" or full-forward, which is not where I fly. So I'll update it and make the color-coded cells by formula instead of manually changing them . . . .

One reason I like Garmin pilot. You save your load sheets and apply them to each flight to verify w&b for each flight. Some places I fly require a w&b submitted for each flight before release. 

[carusoam]

1) WnB apps work really well…

2) Getting it set up properly with accuracy is worth the extra effort…

Inviting friends aboard… I typically ask for their total weight, not individual weight… scale in the hangar if they don’t know…  spreading their total weight out over the back two seats… helps make the feel a bit more comfortable…

3) Knowing the health of your engine and plane has two methods…

• Climb rate vs. book.  Rough numbers if using the VSI, Greta numbers if using a JPI or other EIS to record flight performance…
• T/O distance vs. book, using a WAAS source to collect data with CloudAhoy.

4) How close to book values do you get?

5) There is a video of an M20K that runs out of runaway… the two health checks above would have not allowed this accident to occur… The engine health was a known issue by this K pilot…

6) Book values are not as bad as they have been made out to be…

7) If your engine doesn’t provide the performance with your plane…. You now have real data, for your plane, to work with…

Thank you to all who have added to the conversation…

PP thoughts only, putting an MS idea in play for A64… 

Best regards,

-a-

[Shadrach]

On 7/18/2021 at 7:13 AM, Urs_Wildermuth said:

This is a major problem and, as a former loadmaster and load controller, my pet peeve, something I've never understood.

What is the point having 4  or 6 or whatever seats in an airplane when you can't fill them. Yes, with my experience I do know that the idea is that you do your calcs, don't lie about your weight and weigh down everything bla bla, but the harsh reality is, even those who do a WnB document before every flight would get a lot of it wrong if the plane was put on a a scale before departure. As one other guy here said, human nature. There is 4 seats, so it must be good for 4 people. Only that very few planes are. But yea, you can take 2 adults and two kids, so those two seats do have their function at times, but most of the time, they are just a vain temptation to do the obvious.

Passenger weights on GA planes (and your own): You have to ask. ok. What are they goona tell ya? Even if they are honest, they will tell you what they weighed last time after shower and toilet in the early morning in their flesh. What about clothes, what about the fact that you gain weight during the day? How many will actually fly naked to have the proper weight? If you have not done it, do a quick check and step on your scale once fully dressed and ready to fly, with all the stuff in your pockets, your coat, hat, shoes, walking stick and 3 work and private mobile phones in your pocket?.... 10 kgs on top? Easy.

This starts with the obvious C150, which has a full fuel payload of 150 kg, which is exactly 2 IATA of 1980's standard weight males. And there are such, but unfortunately few and far between. Add the tremendous baggage space and voila, I'd claim that a huge number of those planes even on standard training sorties are flown overweight.

Mooneys are excellent 2 seaters with full tanks, some are not even that. I've seen Acclaims and Ovations which can not be legally flown with full fuel by two even average people. There are Jetprops which have a full fuel payload of 100 kg, that is ONE guy at best. That plane is a 6 seater! What good does a plane do, which, fully fuelled must be piloted by an infant? Or, worse, is overweight fully fuelled without anyone sitting inside? Yes folks, that exists. Also airliners exist which have such funny arrangements.

And then: What about all the nick-nack stuff in the plane before even one guy sits in it? 20 kg? Optimistic maybe. Tool box, covers, this, that, head sets, replacement oil bottles, what else not, do they ever find the way into your loadsheet? If so, congratulations.

Yes I know all the haarumph about it, of course you can use the filler neck on some planes, of course you can calculate properly, of course it can be done with 1- 2 hours of fuel, but let's get real folks: Way too many won't.

The situation is not better in airliners either, only those beasts will not fall out of the sky so quickly. Still, it's worth looking at.

Being out of the airline business for 20 years by now I don't know what todays IATA standard pax weights are, only that they have gone up over the years. When I started, they were 75 kg for males (yes really), 65 for females, 35 for kids and 10 for babies. The calculatory hand bag was 3 kgs (yes, T H R E E) . Honestly? When I left, most airlines had gone up to between 78 and 85 kgs but now included hand luggage. Seriously?

Handluggage: Airlines today say 6 kg. ROFLOL. Yea right. I'd say 99% of the roller bags nobody weighs or counts are 15 kg or more. The only airlines who do weigh and cash on them are LLC's, like Ryan Air or some similar outfits. Get it: even if we assume that the average they use for load sheets including the 6 kgs is remotely correct, a 300 pax airliner will be 3 tons overweight only from excess handluggage, duty free, nick nacks and burger bags. Every day. Any full 737 at max TOW will be 1.5 tons over gross. Every day.

When I was in dispaching, we counted 100 kgs per passenger including baggage. Given that the standard bag allowance is 23 kgs, that is 77 average weight. If we get a plane  with 50/50 male females and a couple of kids, we MAY achieve that. More likely not. Handbaggage? See above.

If that was me, I'd be planning the average adult today with 90 kg dressed, 20 kgs hand luggage and 23 kgs check in baggage for the airlines. That is 133 kgs and that is what most people drag on board a plane. For light planes, plan with 100 kg per person and 50 per kid.

If we look at the real world, the only way to stop people flying overweight is to put a sensor in each landing gear and have an indicator in the airplane which gives you a clear indication and inhibits engine start if overweight.

And I am sure: If such a system would ever become available or mandated, many of us would get the shock of a lifetime the first time we use it.

 

(BTW, preciously few people are aware that also cars have maximum allowable weights.... and it is the holiday season. Every year in Europe, thousands of cars get weighed at border stations and get taken out of circulation because the family has once again overdone the holiday baggage BIG time. Most cars are not better than planes, only nobody cares. But if you have an accident and the lawyers start doing what they do best...... you'd better care even there. )

You don’t understand the idea of having a flexible payload?

What I don’t understand is the ridiculous obsession with a meaningless number like full fuel payload. I think comparing full fuel payload is a fool’s errand and I don’t know why so many publications do it. The measure of an airplane’s practical performance is its full cabin range. Who the hell flies max distance legs on a regular basis? Almost no one. Why do we care. What we need to know is how far the plane will go with the cabin full. Everyone should know their numbers. My airplane will take 800 pounds of people and bags 500nm with VFR reserves in still air. I think that’s pretty good.   However, I still like having the option to easily go 800 nautical miles with 670lbs in the cabin. Or better yet launch out of a shortish strip after tankering full fuel with 200lbs in the cabin and still being nearly 500lbs under gross. A Mooney is reasonable at fulfilling multiple roles but you can only ask so much of it.

I have never flown my aircraft over gross but I except that experts in various pilot lounges that have never seen my W&B numbers have probably commented about the people piling in or out of my airplane and how I must have been "over gross". 

I don’t know what bit Henry. It was likely a number of factors. There’s a lot of speculation that he was over gross but no one knows. One thing is for sure; the reputation that you cultivate (earned or otherwise) when you’re alive will define you after you’re gone 

Edited July 23, 2021 by Shadrach

[carusoam]

One thing for sure…

If we MSers are unable to tell if the flight was operated over MGTOW…

There isn’t anyone in the general population that can determine that either…

 

There are many better things to speculate about…

1) How hot was it?

2) What was the DA?

3) What was the length and altitude of the runway?

4) How much weight can be carried in the plane for a successful departure using the entire runway…

5) The runway is short enough to make me want to do my paperwork exercises…

6) The temp was warm enough to have me run my finger down the graph for T/O length…

 

7) High DA, and full-ish seats, and short-ish runways, is why we have the memory of Patrick….

8) Patrick only had three on board, after he added fuel… but didn’t use the whole runway…

9) Missing the details of what everyone weighed… kind of adds unknown quantities to the calculations…

10) Missing the detail of how much fuel on board… adds to the unknowns…

11) Flying a Mooney doesn’t have to end in disaster…

12) Engine health example… if my engine (IO550) loses 10% of its max hp for some reason… it’s T/O length goes from 800’ to 1200’…. Lightly loaded on a cool day near SL…

There is an example around here, where somebody turned the T/O calculations into an excel spreadsheet… then optimized that to be run on any i-device…. That, was a different Patrick…

 

If there was something that I would gladly buy from Mooney… is WnB and T/O and landing calculations that can be done digitally from an iPhone… and Hank’s phone too… 

Make it so easy… you run the numbers because you can…

Everyone could have this…  for every model of Mooney… it has the same accuracy as carefully doing the calculations long hand… with fewer chances of making an error…

With a WAAS source and CloudAhoy, you can check your numbers to see how well your plane is performing against the POH numbers…  T/O length to the foot… with a picture by Google maps of what it looked like in case you don’t recall…

When you run enough numbers… you will get a feeling of how many variables are in control…  and as all the sliders are pushed towards the max… the required runway length increases exponentially…

If you can remember Patrick…  you can remember what to do when you find yourself in this situation here…. 

Some good can come from this discussion…

Best regards,

-a-

 

[Shadrach]

1 hour ago, carusoam said:

One thing for sure…

If we MSers are unable to tell if the flight was operated over MGTOW…

There isn’t anyone in the general population that can determine that either…

 

There are many better things to speculate about…

1) How hot was it?

2) What was the DA?

3) What was the length and altitude of the runway?

4) How much weight can be carried in the plane for a successful departure using the entire runway…

5) The runway is short enough to make me want to do my paperwork exercises…

6) The temp was warm enough to have me run my finger down the graph for T/O length…

 

7) High DA, and full-ish seats, and short-ish runways, is why we have the memory of Patrick….

8) Patrick only had three on board, after he added fuel… but didn’t use the whole runway…

9) Missing the details of what everyone weighed… kind of adds unknown quantities to the calculations…

10) Missing the detail of how much fuel on board… adds to the unknowns…

11) Flying a Mooney doesn’t have to end in disaster…

12) Engine health example… if my engine (IO550) loses 10% of its max hp for some reason… it’s T/O length goes from 800’ to 1200’…. Lightly loaded on a cool day near SL…

There is an example around here, where somebody turned the T/O calculations into an excel spreadsheet… then optimized that to be run on any i-device…. That, was a different Patrick…

 

If there was something that I would gladly buy from Mooney… is WnB and T/O and landing calculations that can be done digitally from an iPhone… and Hank’s phone too… 

Make it so easy… you run the numbers because you can…

Everyone could have this…  for every model of Mooney… it has the same accuracy as carefully doing the calculations long hand… with fewer chances of making an error…

With a WAAS source and CloudAhoy, you can check your numbers to see how well your plane is performing against the POH numbers…  T/O length to the foot… with a picture by Google maps of what it looked like in case you don’t recall…

When you run enough numbers… you will get a feeling of how many variables are in control…  and as all the sliders are pushed towards the max… the required runway length increases exponentially…

If you can remember Patrick…  you can remember what to do when you find yourself in this situation here…. 

Some good can come from this discussion…

Best regards,

-a-

 

Indeed. I should hope the NTSB will conduct a thorough and competent investigation (that’s another thread) with a comprehensive summary that includes W&B estimates.  What’s most certain (if not the loading of the aircraft within legal limitations) is that the margins were thin.  Non-pilot passengers are ill-equipped to make go or no go decisions. The PIC gets to make the collective risk assessment.  The magnitude of that responsibility was not nearly as obvious to me in my younger years.  I still believe that Patrick misunderstood his position on the field out of confusion or perhaps had a stress induced misfire. 

Edited July 21, 2021 by Shadrach

[carusoam]

The math isn’t linear…

As all the risks get added up…

We get closer to the edges of the performance envelope…

The required length of runway increases… a lot.

 

Kind of like flying in the mountains… with super long runways…

Best regards,

-a-

[mike_elliott]

6 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

The only difference between the accident plane and the later planes was the plastic curved wingitps.

I have been told there was a tubing thickness change also by a Mooney engineer.

[mike_elliott]

On 7/21/2021 at 12:28 AM, carusoam said:

If there was something that I would gladly buy from Mooney… is WnB and T/O and landing calculations that can be done digitally from an iPhone

Anthony, here ya go from one of our Aussie brothers...Thanks Patrick

 

M20R_WandB_PerformanceCharts_rev2.2.xlsx