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I'm a member of a PA28 facebook group and another member posted a picture of a crack on his floor right near the rear of one of the seat rails. Its something I've never thought about. But, people are generally larger today than they were when these airplanes were designed/built. These seats distribute all of the weight across four points, which is ultimately distributed into the two seat rails. But, if you look at a Cherokee floor, besides the seat rails, it looks like sheet metal down there. What actually supports the weight? You get a 280lb guy, lets say into one of those seats, each seat rail is pushing down on the floor with maybe 150 lbs of weight.
Most weight and balance charts refer to "stations" only - iow, front seats (pilot and pax) and rear seats, since they have the say arm, but not individual seats. I know cargo airplanes to have floor loading restrictions.
I am 220, but am tall. The guy I bought my plane from was 260 easily and owned it for 12 years. My floor looks fine from what I've seen. Has anyone ever experienced a crack in the floor or any other structural failure as a result of overloading a single seat?
I know these airplanes are designed to pull a few G's, especially in the utility category. Extrapolating, I would assume they've built up the floor to hold 3-5 the 1G weight.
I was just thinking about this last night.
I've got quite a list of folks who want me to take them flying. Some of them are fairly large and I worry even about how to get them up into the thing, honestly, never mind this seat concern. Perhaps I need an excuse.
Most weight and balance charts refer to "stations" only - iow, front seats (pilot and pax) and rear seats, since they have the say arm, but not individual seats. I know cargo airplanes to have floor loading restrictions.
I am 220, but am tall. The guy I bought my plane from was 260 easily and owned it for 12 years. My floor looks fine from what I've seen. Has anyone ever experienced a crack in the floor or any other structural failure as a result of overloading a single seat?
I know these airplanes are designed to pull a few G's, especially in the utility category. Extrapolating, I would assume they've built up the floor to hold 3-5 the 1G weight.
I was just thinking about this last night.
I've got quite a list of folks who want me to take them flying. Some of them are fairly large and I worry even about how to get them up into the thing, honestly, never mind this seat concern. Perhaps I need an excuse.
