Final Approach on the MD-80

[Boltonpilot]

Hey, Doug...I heard awhile ago that you nearly run out of trim to stabilize the MD-80 when on final approach. Does that pretty much happen to you every time?

thanks

[Doug Taylor]

Never run "out of trim", but the MD-80 series aircraft have a slightly negative stability when slow so it sometimes becomes 'untrimmed'.

Sorry for the misunderstanding!

[Tim]

Heck that planes out of balance sitting on the ground empty......I hate loading the -88 because its almost like a EMB/ATR and is so weight sensitive

[Doug Taylor]

Aww Tim, you know loading a few hundred pounds of sand bags is great exercise on a late June day in Atlanta!

[Tim]

I hate sandbags!!!!!!

You what makes it so bad is when you ask the gate agent if they are going to fill up first class with upgrades or non-revs and they say no and you ask if for some reason they do to call.. Then you load up the bins 1-4 and when you put the numbers in your aft index is a negative number. You call up stairs to only find out that they loaded up first class with 14 people and now you have a major out of balance problem. I hate agents when they do that. They rank below Leo at that point so frustrating. I will ride everything on the airport I can to that city to avoid sandbags.

[kellwolf]

Boy, am I glad the 737 is tough to get out of CG. You can almost load a 737-700 totally aft heavy, and she'll still do okay in the trim dept. The -200s and -500s tend to be a bit trickier, so you just jam as much as you can in the front bin. -300s go tail heavy, and it's not a problem. I've only had to use ballasts once, and that was on an ERJ-145 from MEM-EWR with two whole bags in the bin.