WHY the Airlines might Soon WEIGH You! March 17, 2024, by Mentour Now.

[southwestforests]

Just saw this.
Expect it will generate some emotions in the public who are not informed about how aircraft flight specifically, and aviation generally, work.

March 17, 2024 Has this happened to you? Sometimes, airlines or airport authorities announce that they will be weighing passengers, before boarding. And this isn’t always voluntary – sometimes you HAVE to step on that scale!

I know that some of you already have a pretty good idea of what this is about, but in this video I will also show you an example of the kind of safety margins that we have, and how important they become when the weighing process… goes wrong!

On the other hand, if this is news to you and you want to find out whether or not you should let airline staff weigh you…

 

[publiusr]

Now…bleed air for liposuction…might take 4 APUs for me…good fat have better btu’s? One tube for oxygen..another for dialysis…

 

[CJGibson]

Wouldn't you prefer the crew had a better idea of the actual take-off weights? We've been weighed before helicopter flights for decades. Porkers Broad-shouldered people get a nice checkered armband and told where to sit.

One thing I have noticed is the discrepancies between airport weighing machines. One airport showed my bag to be 6kg, but a few hours later at the heliport it was 8kg. At home it was 8kg. There must be a gravity anomaly north of the Tyne.

Chris

 

[Richard N]

It there any technological barrier to measuring actual aircraft weight through pressure transducers on the landing gear? That would also give you a way to check actual aircraft CG.

 

[southwestforests]

It there any technological barrier to measuring actual aircraft weight through pressure transducers on the landing gear? That would also give you a way to check actual aircraft CG.

My first though is that I do not want to be the guy who does the calibration compliance precheck on each and every one of those sensors on each and every airliner on the ramp at the King Khalid airport in Riyadh Saudi Arabia in July then gets transferred to Yakutsk Airport in Siberia to do those prechecks in January.

 

[XtraSaltee]

Hey I mean people have the opportunity to lose weight, so if they have a problem they have a way to fix it.

 

[southwestforests]

Hey I mean people have the opportunity to lose weight, so if they have a problem they have a way to fix it.

Be careful with applying that as a universal thing, since becoming part of the disability community a couple decades back I've crossed paths with many people who have gained sometimes quite a bit of weight from the medications which keep them alive.
Even in the decades prior I had crossed paths with people in the same situation.
Among them 2 friends and a neighbor who had gained significant amounts of weight from the steroids which helped keep them breathing.
There are at least several life saving medications where the Side Effects should more realistically be named Collateral Damage.

 

[uk 75]

My first trip to the Continent since COVID in September I went by bus from Victoria and cross channel ferry. I did it over night and arrived in Rotterdam the following morning ready for a whole day.
Yes it took much longer than flying but there was no hanging around and only a brief passport check at Dover, no security nonsense. Took my own food and drink at supermarket not airport prices.
Now I wont have to join another line to be weighed. Never flying again.

 

[TomS]

My first trip to the Continent since COVID in September I went by bus from Victoria and cross channel ferry. I did it over night and arrived in Rotterdam the following morning ready for a whole day.
Yes it took much longer than flying but there was no hanging around and only a brief passport check at Dover, no security nonsense. Took my own food and drink at supermarket not airport prices.
Now I wont have to join another line to be weighed. Never flying again.

It would kind of limit my options. Oddly, work are not fond of the idea of me taking a slow boat to Australia for my next round of meetings.

 

[DWG]

Be careful with applying that as a universal thing, since becoming part of the disability community a couple decades back I've crossed paths with many people who have gained sometimes quite a bit of weight from the medications which keep them alive.

BTDT, GP insisted I switch to gabapentin* for a while, due to external pressure insisting long term opioid prescriptions are bad news. I immediately started putting on half a kilo a month. Went back to her after a few months pointing out the other side-effects and was switched back to opioids. Immediately started losing half a kilo a month. No change in diet or activity levels during any of this.

* Notorious for its sheer variety of side effects.

 

[DWG]

Oddly, work are not fond of the idea of me taking a slow boat to Australia for my next round of meetings.

There was a story a few months ago about someone working for, IIRC, the World Bank as a travelling eco consultant to governments who'd decided to do that. The story was about them sacking him for refusing to fly back from one the Pacific islands and insisting he should take a ship instead.

 

[uk 75]

Advantage of being an old fossil is that I no longer travel on thr company or in my case thr UK taxpayer's tab.

 

[riggerrob]

I vote for weighing every passenger - and their luggage - before boarding.
At 6 feet tall, I work to keep my weight healthy below 200 pounds. Weight was important when I worked full-time as a skydiving instructor. Any heavier than 190 pounds and I struggle to fall at the same rate as my lighter students.
Yes, my weight once ballooned up to 230 pounds, but that was when lawyers decided that zero money for post-olerative therapy was the best way to heal from major surgery.
Please do not ask me to explain lawyers’ logic.
After that my family doctor told me that I was pre-diabetic. She told me to lose weight by eliminating most sugars and carbohydrates from my diet. I lost 30 pounds over that winter.

Everyone else should be held to the same standard.
My pet peeve is being crammed into an airliner beside a person who considerably out-weighs me (sometimes double) but is not much taller.

 

[riggerrob]

It there any technological barrier to measuring actual aircraft weight through pressure transducers on the landing gear? That would also give you a way to check actual aircraft CG.

That sort of weighing system was installed on the landing gear of Lockheed C-5s many decades ago.