Thu Jul 18, 2013 5:39 pm
#1184529
Having flown this plane fully loaded hundreds of times, I did my usual W & B calculations from the usual calculator on our flying group website.
On the day of flying I was told the shorter cross runway was the only one available for use that day.
Then someone in our group pointed out the plane I was going to fly was almost 200 lbs heavier than the other ones in our fleet!
I was incredibly surprised by this, partly because I reckoned I had taken off without any incident on the shorter runway before on this plane, but I then realised I may have used another nearly identical plane in our fleet, also fully loaded on this runway. I also discovered the W & B data on the website hadn't been updated with the new figures after it got re-painted.
As a result I could have been quite overweight if I wasn't careful.......
Making sure I refuelled less, the flight proceeded without incident.
What I learnt:
1. Every Cessna 172P, even if they look the same and are equipped with pretty much the same stuff, has a different empty weight, and can differ by some 150 - 200 lbs.
2. Not to blindly rely on a calculator which I've used hundreds of times with a pre-filled in empty weight, but to properly look at the aircraft's weight schedule after something has been done on it that could affect its W & B.
On the day of flying I was told the shorter cross runway was the only one available for use that day.
Then someone in our group pointed out the plane I was going to fly was almost 200 lbs heavier than the other ones in our fleet!
I was incredibly surprised by this, partly because I reckoned I had taken off without any incident on the shorter runway before on this plane, but I then realised I may have used another nearly identical plane in our fleet, also fully loaded on this runway. I also discovered the W & B data on the website hadn't been updated with the new figures after it got re-painted.
As a result I could have been quite overweight if I wasn't careful.......
Making sure I refuelled less, the flight proceeded without incident.
What I learnt:
1. Every Cessna 172P, even if they look the same and are equipped with pretty much the same stuff, has a different empty weight, and can differ by some 150 - 200 lbs.
2. Not to blindly rely on a calculator which I've used hundreds of times with a pre-filled in empty weight, but to properly look at the aircraft's weight schedule after something has been done on it that could affect its W & B.