Hello. I have been doing various practice exams about the place and have come across what may just be an inconsistency but may be something I am missing. Some questions want me to move weight before I add ballast, some questions do not, unless the question specifically says one way or the other, what does CASA expect? For example, what is the minimum amount of fuel required in the main tanks as ballast in an ECHO loaded as follows: 1970kg and 475.66 index units, row 1 154kg, row 2 154kg, row 3 160kg and rear compartment 5 x 30kg packages with 5 kg sandbags available?
If I move one package from the rear to the front and then add three sand bags I get well inside the rear limit, but if I don't move the package from the rear I do need ballast fuel even with 40kg of sandbags in the nose locker. I had not seen the shift-before-you-add method until recently, is this the new thing?
Hi Jess,
I believe that CASA will specify what they require you to move, or add in terms of ballast. For example if you have a large piece of cargo in the rear baggage, it may be too large to put in the nose locker. The questions will be specific. So if you need to add ballast to the nose locker, remember to watch the maximum zero fuel weight, as once that is reached, the rest of the ballast must be fuel in the main tanks. This combination of adding ballast to the front locker, then ballast fuel if needed has been around for a long time. Also there is a limit to the amount of ballast fuel that be added, while not stated, it would be impractical to add full main tanks to get in balance. Cheers W
Casa loves the outside forward limit. But they do sometimes not explain it. So always look it up on the center of gravity envelope.
And remember when you do the PNR and CP to make sure you check effective airspeed on the flight computer.