Question for Dash-8 Drivers
 

I am needing to get from GUC-DEN and was wondering if the Dash-8’s have weight restriction problems as far as taking a jump-seater is concerned? Also, GUC is a mountainous area so specifically for you Mesa guys who operate the flight: Do the mountains put a weight restriction on the flight that would no allow a jump-seater to get on? It’s scheduled to be a full flight so just trying to figure out whether or not I need to make alternate plans.

Thanks in advance

Depends on what type of Dash 8 it is. Usually the 100 is the most restricted because of the underpowered engines. The 200 is better because it has the 300 type engines on it. For example, with Piedmont, we can fill all 50 seats in our 300 plus a jumpseater. The most we can get in our 100s with no kids is 35 ish.

pretty sure mesa operates only dhc8 200s so the jumpseat weight shouldn't be an issue.

I have never operated a flight where we had to leave a jumpseater, if it comes to the worst we will move a bag or four out of the baggage compartment and put it up front with the pax.

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.

Yeah you don't want to mess with that stuff. Couple of people have gotten fired for doing that stuff at Piedmont

Umm...how is moving carry-on bags from the cargo pit to the cabin a security risk? If they stayed in back, those same "tainted" carry-on bags will be handed back to the passengers at the end of the flight.

I guess some evil genius could train a monkey to hide in their checked bag, wait for their carry-on the be put in the back, transfer the weapon of choice to the carry-on & hide again in the checked bag. Then when weight and balance is a problem the "tainted" carry-on gets put in the cabin. Brilliant!

We are able to move carry-ons back into the cabin to help with weight and balance. Your FOM may not allow it but I don't think it is breaking a FAR.

I remember bringing bags up front pretty regularly, never was an issue. When I was at Mesa GUC, DRO, ASE and HDN all seemed to have weight restriction issues but it was hit and miss depending on the day but we always did seem to work it out with jumpseaters, I would definitely plan for the worst though.

Are we mixing up checked luggage with a green/orange tagged carry on at the plane side?? I can see the argument for checked luggage.

Thats what it was! Many people just throw their luggage on the cart even if its a purse.

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.

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...

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

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.

ZFW's in the 100's are 31300 and 31400 depending on mod all of pdt's are 31400 supposedly there is a mod that can bring that to 31900 but involves changing the spar on a 100 to a 200 spar.

ON our 200's the ZFW is 32000.

Does anyone know why changing to a -200 spar would change the ZFW? I would think that spar would be beefier than the -100 spar since it strengthens the wing to hold -300 engines and go faster. Maybe I'm just too tired and not seeing something obvious with the airframe strength relating to ZFW?

I seem to remember that QX's 200's had a max ZFW of 32400. I'm surprised that you guys are usually able to take a jumpseater then - maybe your average BOW's are less but don't Mesa's 200's have APUs? They weren't installed on the QX 200's and max ZFW was still a problem and that's with 400 more available lbs.

Max landing weight was 34500 - you could always take 2100 lbs of fuel + burn + 100 lbs for taxi. It's been a little while now, but that's one of those numbers I will probably always remember :)

It's the MAX ZFW that is the issue. The wing has to carry the load of the fuselage and this leads to bending stresses in the wing, especially at the wing attach points. By strengthening the wing it can handle an increase in these stresses. Since the fuel is carried in the wing its weight does not add to this flexing at the attach point and thus can be carried in excess of the max ZFW.

Having said this - I doubt that swapping a Q200 wing spar would be much of an option. The spars are (usually two spars - front and rear) an integral part of the wing and the wing would probably have to be disassemble to replace the spars. A major undertaking to get only 500 lbs more allowable ZFW. A more likely scenario would be to add to the existing spar to beef it up a bit - still, a costly solution but a bit more doable.

I think the program is part of the Dash 8 q1 update program if you are going to gut the flight deck replace the gear beefing up the spar probably will be worth it.

Mesa counts every bag in the cargo compartment as 30 lbs, even carry ons. So that is 190lbs of pax + carry on + 30 lbs in the back if they check the carry on.

Why, for the love of all that is holy, are some people criticizing doing what it takes (2 minutes to move 3 or 4 bags up front) to get a brother or sister pilot in the jump?

Because the Feds do not allow you to move bags from the cargo bin to the passenger compartment.
Please be careful posting on public forums.;)

And that is written... where exactly? You're not allowed to move CHECKED bags from the cargo compartment to the passenger compartment but you MAY move already screened carry on bags (which have a special ALREADY SCREENED neon green tag in united) from the cargo compartment to the passenger compartment.

Not only would I say this in public, I would do it in front of a safety inspector grinning the entire time. Besides, most of the time they're not even in the cargo compartment yet -- they're on the rack.

It is in my FOM page 13-5 & POH 10-9!!
I am not trying to get in a p*ssing match with you or tell you how to load you A/C .
But I have read FAA AC 120-27E. And always leave room for error. Thanks for the insight. Dash:cool:

Unless things have changed since I left the 121 world a couple of years ago. what is being described is completely legal both via FAA regs and Mesa's Ops Specs. I can't speak to what Piedmont has written in there valet checked bag program approved by the FAA (as many airlines have different policies and ops specs all legal once the FAA gives their stamp.) Back to the topic at hand I did the exact thing that was described taking security screened bags from the cargo bin and placed in the cabin to accommodate for weight. Oh and who was I doing this for it was to get a FED on the jumpseat. :eek: He was appreciative and had no problem with what I did. FWIW

Neither am I (trying to get in a ****ing match) and those limitations are not in Mesa's GOM or OpSpecs. That was my point -- just because an airline does something differently does not make that "WRONG". So please try a more diplomatic course in the future right off the gate... maybe something like 'Wow, thats interesting... at PDT we're not able to do that.' rather than something like 'YOURE GOING TO FAA VIOLATION HELL!!!'

Mesa Dash-200s do not have APUs. Some of the old ex-PDT aircraft have the switches for them but the actual APU has been removed.

We did operate like you before the Crash of your sister airline B1900 in Clt. Then we went to this more restrictive operation. Anyway safe flying;)