Fri Apr 09, 2021 10:25 am
#1839167
When I was in a 2-aircraft group, at one stage it was a Robin HR200 and a Robin ATL ('Avion tres legere' ). I loved the latter, but it was exchanged for a TB9 partly because our less 'lissome' members did their sums and worked out that with themselves and an adult male passenger (or the slightly 'well-built' tame FI we usually used for checkouts and biennials) it would be scarcely legal to try to take off with any fuel on board I was fine with another adult and full tanks, though: both performance and 'feel'.
[The other reason for the swap was that some members wanted a 4-seater, I was unconcerned, and took 3 others in the TB9 only once, one a child. I can't say it was 'sprightly' on that sortie]
Anecdote (longish ) from charter airline days in '60s:
I had paid for my PPL by working university long vacations for holiday airlines. By working all hours and not having any time free to spend my wages I was able to save a respectable amount to blow on some intensive flying at the end of the summer.
One summer I was at Prestwick, mostly doing a mixture of transatlantic 'Affinity Group' charters with B707-320Cs, and Mediterranean 'inclusive tours' with Britannias. One of the Affinity Group rules was that we could not charge for excess baggage (since the group had chartered the whole aircraft), only offload baggage. With mixed family loads to New York or Toronto the MTOW was usually no problem. However, we once had a group from a 'Scottish Golfing Society' from California, all adult US males (far from slim ), flying back to San Francisco after 2 weeks touring Scottish golf courses. They wanted to check in large heavy suitcases, the bags of clubs they'd brought with them, and in many cases more clubs they'd bought while in Scotland, and another (new, sturdy) suitcase full of souvenirs .. It was for a mid-morning take-off non-stop to SFO, warm day. It was one of my jobs to do the W&B, including bag and passenger distribution and maximum permissible fuel load, by hand using chinagraphs on a complicated template with sliding and rotating transparent overlays. I showed my sums to the Captain .. He decided it would be very bad customer relations to require passengers to abandon their luggage, to be airfreighted back at their extra individual expense. He worked out that if we assumed standardised 'adult male' weights (probably an underestimate given their typical girths) and a 'generous' taxi fuel burn to the holding point, and filing for Bangor Maine initially, hoping by careful fuel management to have enough fuel remaining on reaching Newfoundland to refile progressively further West in flight .. he might be both legal on paper on takeoff and make SFO non-stop. He signed off the W&B chart. As a further part of my job I went through to the airside lounge to make a Tannoy announcement to our passengers to explain that 'because of forecast winds' it might be necessary to make an intermediate refuelling stop 'somewhere in the US'. I could then see that many of them had by then bought 1-2 large bottles of Scotch in the duty-free. The aircraft was not only going to be heavier, the cabin was going to be full of flammable liquid if it crashed on take-off .... Anyway, that dispatch was my last duty that (extended night) shift, and I set off walking to my digs in Monkton (North of the airport) along the coast road which passed under the 30 climb-out. Our aircraft rotated VERY late, passed over the fence (and my head!) VERY low, climbed VERY slowly, and even seemed to roll slightly left to avoid the nearest high ground on Arran; but (as we checked) had made SFO nonstop, with presumably happy but oblivious passengers, likely to recharter us the following year.
[The other reason for the swap was that some members wanted a 4-seater, I was unconcerned, and took 3 others in the TB9 only once, one a child. I can't say it was 'sprightly' on that sortie]
Anecdote (longish ) from charter airline days in '60s:
I had paid for my PPL by working university long vacations for holiday airlines. By working all hours and not having any time free to spend my wages I was able to save a respectable amount to blow on some intensive flying at the end of the summer.
One summer I was at Prestwick, mostly doing a mixture of transatlantic 'Affinity Group' charters with B707-320Cs, and Mediterranean 'inclusive tours' with Britannias. One of the Affinity Group rules was that we could not charge for excess baggage (since the group had chartered the whole aircraft), only offload baggage. With mixed family loads to New York or Toronto the MTOW was usually no problem. However, we once had a group from a 'Scottish Golfing Society' from California, all adult US males (far from slim ), flying back to San Francisco after 2 weeks touring Scottish golf courses. They wanted to check in large heavy suitcases, the bags of clubs they'd brought with them, and in many cases more clubs they'd bought while in Scotland, and another (new, sturdy) suitcase full of souvenirs .. It was for a mid-morning take-off non-stop to SFO, warm day. It was one of my jobs to do the W&B, including bag and passenger distribution and maximum permissible fuel load, by hand using chinagraphs on a complicated template with sliding and rotating transparent overlays. I showed my sums to the Captain .. He decided it would be very bad customer relations to require passengers to abandon their luggage, to be airfreighted back at their extra individual expense. He worked out that if we assumed standardised 'adult male' weights (probably an underestimate given their typical girths) and a 'generous' taxi fuel burn to the holding point, and filing for Bangor Maine initially, hoping by careful fuel management to have enough fuel remaining on reaching Newfoundland to refile progressively further West in flight .. he might be both legal on paper on takeoff and make SFO non-stop. He signed off the W&B chart. As a further part of my job I went through to the airside lounge to make a Tannoy announcement to our passengers to explain that 'because of forecast winds' it might be necessary to make an intermediate refuelling stop 'somewhere in the US'. I could then see that many of them had by then bought 1-2 large bottles of Scotch in the duty-free. The aircraft was not only going to be heavier, the cabin was going to be full of flammable liquid if it crashed on take-off .... Anyway, that dispatch was my last duty that (extended night) shift, and I set off walking to my digs in Monkton (North of the airport) along the coast road which passed under the 30 climb-out. Our aircraft rotated VERY late, passed over the fence (and my head!) VERY low, climbed VERY slowly, and even seemed to roll slightly left to avoid the nearest high ground on Arran; but (as we checked) had made SFO nonstop, with presumably happy but oblivious passengers, likely to recharter us the following year.
Last edited by kanga on Fri Apr 09, 2021 10:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
(mere guide at) Jet Age Museum, Gloucestershire Airport
http://www.jetagemuseum.org/
TripAdvisor Excellence Award 2015
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction ... gland.html
http://www.jetagemuseum.org/
TripAdvisor Excellence Award 2015
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction ... gland.html