Airline Pilot Central Forums - Question for Dash-8 Drivers

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The DH8B (-200) will usually be able to accommodate a jumpseater from GUC. We are under no restrictions about bringing carry-on bags that have been gate-checked up into the cabin to help with weight issues. It was discussed in ground school as a tool to manage weight and balance issues.

I checked the paperwork for the first GUC-DEN flight today. The flight is booked full, but a jumpseater should be okay, so long as the number of checked and gate-checked bags is not crazy. The weight restriction is less than 1000 lbs below MTOW and the planned fuel is pretty low. An extra 1000 lbs of fuel could be carried without infringing on payload.

The Dash Whisperer

I was referring to gate checked bags guys. sorry I wasn't specific about that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by inverted pilot (Post 650928)

t207.... Maybe your company doesn't operate the same as mine.. but we are prohibited by TSA/FAA security regulations from bringing carry-on bags up from the cargo bin once they have been put there as this poses a possible security risk as they have now been with unscreened checked bags and out of possession of the owner. And checked bags can, of coures, never be brought to the cabin because they are not security screened. Not saying anyone likes leaving people behind, but the day a person looses their career for breaking federal regs .. that's the day that person will regret choosing to perform illegal actions just so a stranger can catch a ride 3 hours earlier. It's just not worth ruining your career to try to get that extra person on. Ask the guys who have tried it and are now jobless... i know one personally. Be safe out there all.. and use your heads.

My understanding is that it's not at all a security issue, since these bags are returned to PAX at their destination planeside - meaning the security chain would be broken if they're getting on a connecting flight. It's an FAA violation according to Piedmont's carry-on bag program because the bag has already been deemed too big to fit in the cabin and tagged, then it must remain in the baggage compartment (at least I think this is the reason). I don't follow the security logic. Either way it's one of those absolutely ridiculous rules that you should just follow to keep yourself from getting in deep with the company/FAA. The carry-on bag program where you work may also be different than ours.

You have to love the FAA. Bring a bag into the cabin and now it miraculously weighs nothing. I sure wish we could get away with that in the 135 world.

Figures Mesa would be a carrier that allows baggage to be taken out of the back and put in the passenger cabin. Doing that you are just taking the weight out of the back where it is counted towards weight and balance and putting it in the passenger cabin where it is not counted just so you can add more weight by getting another passenger/jumpseater on. Real smart especially when you have that pesky max takeoff weight limitation to deal with.

we do the same in the Brasilia... Its not just a mesa thing...

Quote:

Originally Posted by dashtrash300 (Post 653176)

Mesa is by no means the only airline that has approval to do this.

Don't forget when using average passenger weights, the weight of one carry on (10LBS) is included in this weight. So when the carry goes to the back it is adding the ten pounds twice, once for the passenger's average weight and once for the bag count.

All this is a moot point anyway because you really have no idea how much the passenger, checked and carry on bags weigh. It's just a guess

Quote:

Originally Posted by dh-98 (Post 653297)

The carry on bag program is supposed to account for the weight. It takes it out of the passenger (I think it adds a few pounds for the weight of their "personal item") and instead you count the carry on bag in the cargo bay as 20 lbs. I agree it's stupid to have to leave the bags in the back if they are smaller than a larger carry-on (e.g. rollerboard) and weighs less than that 20 lbs. Some people put yellow tags on the smallest bags. Either way we just play the game and leave it back there because there have been some cases where the FAA gets a bug up their butt about it and pilots have gotten in trouble. Maybe Mesa and other airlines have different carry-on baggage programs with different rules.

At QX we were able to subtract a certain number of CO's (the number being based on the the total number of pax on board) that were put in back from the total A/C weight. They had to be accounted for to ensure that we did not exceed the weight limit of the cargo compartment - but we could then subtract that weight from the total ZFW. This was a good solution to this problem and kept us from having to move CO bags into the cabin (something we did before we had the new procedure approved).

Speaking of ZFW - I'm not sure about Mesa's 200's but the ones that we had had QX were often restricted by max ZFW. If we had even a moderate number of bags in the cargo compartment, we could not take a jumpseater - and in some cases we could not even fill up the cabin. We were rarely limited by takeoff or landing weights, but the ZFW killed us.