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Haley Center Basement / Re: Hey Fat Asses
« Last post by Snakebite on May 07, 2024, 06:41:18 AM »Reminds me of the first time I flew into Maine. Nobody told me you flew to Portland and drove anywhere else. We took a flight from Boston to Augusta. It was like the airport in Wings. The gate agent was also the TSA agent and the baggage handler.
When we left there there were some hippos going with us. The pilot asked this woman who was at least 300 her weight. She said 119. They told her they needed an accurate number to distribute the weight in the plane or it was at risk of crashing in takeoff. She screams that her license says 119!
It took them 20 minutes of moving luggage around and moving the rest of us around until the pilot eyeballed it and deemed it close enough.
I was white knuckle until we got in the air.
One of my jobs in the Chair Force was to load plan aircraft to achieve “Center of Balance” for optimized flight. This was done with cargo, passengers, and fuel in mind. There’s a sizable target window that you aim for, but it still can take some playing around with all the variables. Got especially tricky when transporting hazardous materials, as their position was by a door that it could be kicked off the aircraft in flight should something go wrong.
I say all that to say that it is very impressive that a lot of pilots can do it on the fly, whereas load planners need a computer program & a rule book to reference. Hope you all clapped once you landed!