Of Weights And Flights

Here comes my heavyweight amiga with an unfinished issue about weights and airplanes. Still can’t take that it is easier to regularly visit the gym and ’eat right’ so she can fly sexily without much of the fuss!

“What’s with that weight thing anyway? Isn’t that damn plane rated to fly at its maximum capacity? Mine was not a full flight, you know. I think it wouldn’t have mattered if I was 65 or 85 kilograms”.

That’s what my palangga of a friend had to say when I started expounding (in the previous story). My answer was “you are 88 kilograms not 85… shut up and listen” heee hehe! Yeah yeah, familiarity breeds contempt. The closer you are to people, the easier it is to lambast them even in public! We do that to our real brothers and sisters, right? Yep, that’s how cruel we mere mortals are hahaha! Anyway…

Here are more details:

I said in that previous story that the smaller the aircraft, the more there is a need to get the actual or nearest to actual weights, right? Here is the reason…

Smaller airplanes

All aircraft are rated to fly at the declared gross weight that it can carry (I mean declared by the aircraft manufacturer, not the airline). And gross weight means anything at all that anyone want to put in that plane – like passengers, cargo, baggage and fuel combined with all other things such as the airline’s crew, water, food and pantry equipment etc etc.

However, there is what they call a “balance” consideration so that the plane can fly safely, comfortably and economically. Meaning? Meaning why tax the engine/s so much and let it roar to the max to guzzle up more fuel when there is really no need, right? So the airline balances the location of all loaded weights, including us passengers – for that thing to lift off smoothly. It cannot be too heavy at the front with nothing at the back nor could it be the reverse being too heavy at the back with nothing up front.

If its heavy up front (called “nose-heavy”), the ‘weight & balance officer’ (yes, there is such a thing) will ask airline staff to load more baggage and cargo at the back. That is if there is any more space (big aircraft), or if at all there is somewhere to load things at the back (smaller aircraft), or if at all there is anymore cargo and luggage to load at the back. Sometimes, even that is not enough – like when there are only a few of you who have luggage and there are no cargoes. Alangan naman kumuha pa sila ng sankaterbang bakal at bato para lang bumigat sa likod, di ba?

Because of this, sometimes passengers are even “controlled” to sit at the back just to compensate for that weight/balace requirement. In our above scenario, the easier way is to spot the heavy weights like our palangga, and let her sit at the back hahaha! Otherwise, your plane will nose-dive unto the end of the runway instead of take to the skies. Do you like that? This is part of the reason why sometimes we are told at check-in that no more seat up front is available, though when we board, we see that there are so many! Have you experienced that? Am sure you have at least once! They are not really fooling us, they just don't have much time explaining all of the above to you and me!

The reverse is true. Meaning, if the craft is perceived to be too heavy at the back portion (called “tail-heavy”), staff will try to compensate by loading more passengers and baggage at the forward section of the plane to achieve the right balance. Otherwise, your plane will literally sit on its butt and wont be able to fly – ever! Imagine a bird trying to fly and you step on its tail. Ganyan!

But what has that got to do with weighing our dear sexy palangga? Well…

Aside from the balancing act above, the total load to be carried by the plane is taken into account so the airline can decide how much fuel to load since the whole thing can only be this or that heavy. This involves some quirky arithmetic that most of us would not like to do nor even hear. At least I, don't hehe!

But let’s try to simplify this. Say, the plane can only carry 1000 kilos of everything inclusive of fuel, passengers, baggage and cargo. Say further that to fly from Cebu to Iloilo and back requires 300 kgs of fuel (yep, fuel in the airline industry is measured in kilograms even if it is a highly volatile liquid that easily evaporates when you open the container). Then let us say the plane is carrying 200kgs of cargo. So we are left with just 500 more for a combined weight of all passengers and their baggage. But there 10 passengers checking in. At 75kgs each (that’s how some airlines estimate the weight of adult males that would be 750kgs. Overload! What would they do then? Offload some cargoes.

But each passenger is carrying a handcarry of 10kgs each! Ah, offload more cargoes hehe. So you see, for small planes, they need to weigh everything up to the nearest to accurate count so they’ll know how many more to load or not to load. Something like that! And dont take the number seriously, I just used smaller figures to make the description easier :|

Now what? Ah well, if you are that heavy, lugi airline hehe! But now you’ll know why airlines sometime put you on a seat that you do not like. They need to balance the weight and the bigger you are, the better for them to use you as the balancer - I think they call it ballast. So you sit at the back you ballast hahaha!

Mag-exercise tayo tuwing umaga, tuwing umaga, tuwing umaga!