I'm glad I'm not going to be on that airliner!

Seriously though, before I bought my CJ3+, I looked seriously at Gamin-izing a CJ2. One of the planes I looked at, still with the Collins equipment had a BEW of 7,717. Isn't the ZFW of a CJ2 9,700 lbs? That is almost 2,000 lbs of available payload, to put in 8 seats, or an average of 250 lbs of body and bags per person. If one person made the difference, that must be a BIG family.

Snip:Vmo is determined in part by the airframe's ability to accept specified vertical gust loads. If you load the aircraft to a higher ZFW than it was originally designed for (with no additional structure to support the higher weights), you may increase bending loads on the wing structure beyond design limits. By lowering Vmo when ZFW is increased, you are decreasing the potential bending loads from vertical gusts back to their original design limits.

Greg

Piaggio has a SB that increases MZFW from 9800 to 10,200. The changes to apply are to update a couple pages in the AFM documenting the new limits. That’s it. So when I bought the plane, I said sure, why not “apply” that SB (manual pages got a fresh update anyway as they aggregate manual updates). No real cost or downside, it’s just a log entry. That much cabin load would rarely come up but… no downside.

The following year, they release a new SB saying that any airframe which had the new MZFW would required a new NDT inspection of some area of the wing structure. Of course it is repetitive if you keep operating with the higher ZFW, and you get some credit for “erasing” the change by documenting it as such in the mx logs. So I just entered an entry in the logs stating I was the sole operator since the MZFW SB was applied, and I attest that it has never been operated above the old ZFW. Which is all true. I believe that will relieve me from the repetitive inspection. So much for “no downside”.

Yup.

For my plane, a 16,300 gross weight increase is available. No change to the airplane, just paperwork. No downside, right?

Nope, the main gear is life limited to 1000 fewer landings if you had the mod at ANY time. My plane, thankfully, doesn't have that mod!


As a part 91 operator, you are not required to comply with SBs or new inspections after you have selected your inspection program in your records. So that SB would not have affected you unless it became an AD or if it ended up in chapter 4 of the MM. But the next owner would be affected per FAA policy as it stands (which I think is illegal, but I digress).

Mike C.

Cj3 drivers. How often can u get fl450 flying west?

The range appears to drop way off if you are stuck at lower.

I've never had an issue not getting fl450 in any of the planes. Very few people up there.

CJ2 zfw is 9,300. The 2+ bumped it up to a much more useable 9,700lbs.

Yeah, agreed, but... A) Piaggio is under EASA, so many of these tend to become EASA ADs, which due to reciprocity become FAA ADs, and B) when they put it in the inspection program, even if not Ch 4, you gotta argue with your mechanics every year about whether it's really required...

I'd prefer to treat the airplane as if the MZFW was never increased and so have the whole thing not apply. Which physically is true.

Yup.

For my plane, a 16,300 gross weight increase is available. No change to the airplane, just paperwork. No downside, right?

Nope, the main gear is life limited to 1000 fewer landings if you had the mod at ANY time. My plane, thankfully, doesn't have that mod!


As a part 91 operator, you are not required to comply with SBs or new inspections after you have selected your inspection program in your records. So that SB would not have affected you unless it became an AD or if it ended up in chapter 4 of the MM. But the next owner would be affected per FAA policy as it stands (which I think is illegal, but I digress).

Mike C.

When the year actually ends and I have a moment of clear free time to compile it.

This is supposed to be my "big" year, phase 1-5, which only occurs every 6 years under the LUMP. It doesn't feel particularly big, however. TR bucket was $5K, shimmy damper $2K, CBS28 exchange $2K, and everything else was pretty minor though it does add up.

So far, the shop hasn't billed me for the phase 1-5 inspections done in August. They are very slow about these sorts of things for some reason. if I don't actually get the bill this year, then it will be on next year's expenses, cash accounting rules. The parts I bought for the work will be on this year, though.

Mike C.

When the year actually ends and I have a moment of clear free time to compile it.

This is supposed to be my "big" year, phase 1-5, which only occurs every 6 years under the LUMP. It doesn't feel particularly big, however. TR bucket was $5K, shimmy damper $2K, CBS28 exchange $2K, and everything else was pretty minor though it does add up.

So far, the shop hasn't billed me for the phase 1-5 inspections done in August. They are very slow about these sorts of things for some reason. if I don't actually get the bill this year, then it will be on next year's expenses, cash accounting rules. The parts I bought for the work will be on this year, though.

Mike C.

Signed off in Sep, so 3 months ago.

It isn't ideal, but isn't atypical for them. I think they make sure all their expenses trickle in and are settled before billing, such as any core charge backs, but there shouldn't be ay of those in my case.

Their runway was out of service for a while, just opened yesterday, so the shop had been operating temporarily at another airport, so things are probably a bit more chaotic than usual.

Mike C.

I prefer vendors that never send me bills.

I prefer vendors who stay in business by charging a reasonable amount for good work.

Mike C.

Just remember that I said it was a red flag.

This right here is one of the hardest situations in a small corporate operation. Especially if you are the sole pilot, scheduler, trip coordinator.
Nobody to back you up and the owner or pax cannot understand why the airplane has X number of seats but cannot take X number of people and bags.

Good for you for not caving in to the pressure. It is especially tough if you are the one that sold them on a particular airplane type as an upgrade in the first place and now they find there are limitations.