Hi all

This might be a simple one but it's doing my head in a bit.

I have followed Q2 Exercise 5.10 through and got the correct answer of 68kg of ballast fuel to add. It's the same answer as what's in the book but I thought I would follow through further for my own benefit and confirm it is under the Max ZFW for this silly aircraft....but it's over by 8kg.

Am I right in thinking that ballast fuel added shouldn't exceed the Max ZFW or is there something I'm missing?

Third attempt at this exam after getting 64% and 68% so if Echo were a real plane...I'd burn it

Thanks

Catherine

If you read the page above Exercise 5.10 it explains that Fuel Ballast can exceed MZFW.
In Q2:
The aircraft still only weighs 2570 WITHOUT FUEL. The ZFW is unchanged if the extra weight added is fuel.

Hope that helps

Thanks for that.

So you really should use the maximum landing weight as a guide on your restriction for ballast fuel, because you won't be burning any of that fuel and land with it still intact?

Any chance you can answer another question?

Looking at Q1 5.11 the question states the row 3 seats have been removed so I've taken 10kg and 4.3IU away from the ZFW calcs. I worked through the question and found that there was a need for 31kg in the nose (30kg worth of sand bags) which meant 2.5kg ballast fuel. I looked through the working out on the answer page and there was no mention of the removed seats. Any ideas?

Cheers

Catherine

Hi Catherine,
The "BEW" referred to in the question really means the BEW minus the three seats which of course really means the "Operating weight" of the aircraft and not the BEW at all! The wording of this question was chosen because it matched the way CASA phrased this type of question in the exam.

However, it has been a source of confusion once too often now, so we will change "BEW" to "Operating Weight" in this question and update the errata.

Cheers,

Rich

Great that explains it better. Thanks Rich!

So in the exam if anything like that comes up, just roll with the BEW without worrying about the seats?
Are there any other situations which might trip me up like that?

Got about a week and a half to get this down pat.

Hi Catherine,

Just be careful when making assumptions. We aren't privy to the actual CASA questions so we can't give you hard and fast rules on how to interpret their choice of wording. This question may have been corrected since we heard about it so who knows if the issue of BEW will even come up.

However, general advice would be read the questions carefully and also read the answer options carefully. Students have lost heaps of marks over the years by calculating the correct answer then choosing the answer option with the wrong units e.g. getting "248 litres" as an answer then choosing "248 lbs" in the options because the number matches rather than "179kg" which is actually correct.

Make sure you understand what the question is actually asking and not what you think it is asking too. Just keep your wits about you and you'll be fine.

You get the idea

Cheers,

RIch

P.S. you've got to love the old Echo really, It exposes you to pretty much every loading problem an aircraft can have. If you can load the Echo, you will have no problems loading a "real" aeroplane. That should cheer you up

Looks like something clicked this time 90%!

Only 1 more to go!