ACARS vs dispatch release
Had a flight the other day (fly CRJ-900) ..
Dispatch paperwork said planned takeoff weight was something like 74,200 lbs. Max takeoff weight 79,000lbs, roughly.
Loaded the numbers into ACARS.. said our weight was about 74.2.. as planned.. however it said our max weight was 74.7 or something like that. Why?
Am I missing something basic here? Let’s say we had extra bags and were overweight? We can’t go. But what if ACARS is in-op and we do paper w/b.. we could be several THOUSANS pounds over and be ok according to the release, right?!
Other question, re: required landing length.
We need a certain length to stop the aircraft, but we add 60% to be legal and safe. ACARS will say our min length is, let’s say 3000’ but 4800’ is the required. SO, if you if you get let’s say, a Spoileron fail caution or whatever, you add 20% to the landing distance. Is that 20% of the lower or higher number? (Read an ASAP where a crew couldn’t land in SBA because adding the 20% put them at needing more runway length than was available; they diverted)
If ACARS is in-op, we use the dispatch release which only has the distances with the 60% added already, correct? So if we had to add 20% do we add it to the release’s numbers? Or figure out what the min landing length is off that number and add 20% to that?