Our flight school is getting rid of its two-seat trainer airplanes. At least half of the new students, with an instructor, will be over the payload limit. The Katanas hold 400 lbs. with full fuel and the Piper Tomahawks around 350 lbs. with tab fuel. At 200 lbs. I certainly am using up my full share of the payload. How will beginners learn to fly? In four-seat airplanes such as the Piper Warrior. Two present-day Americans are about the same weight as four Americans were back in the 1950s when these airframes were certified.
5 thoughts on “How many seats does an airplane need to hold two modern-day Americans?”
Comments are closed.
Yup, learned in a Warrior. And it would have been a tough call some days with my instructor to get into a Katana. And I’m down around 175. (He makes up for it.)
I often see people cite the increase in average weight over the last 50 years as proof that Americans have become obese. A large part of this weight increase has to do with the increase in stature due to better nutrition. I’m not saying that America does not have a weight problem, but I know my father told me that one of his friends was heavily recruited for the basketball team in high school in the early 50’s solely due to his 6 foot height. Today, 6 ft tall high school students are extremely common and you need to be at least 6’ 5’’ to be considered “tall”.
Dan: The increase in height only accounts for a third of the increase in weight. According to this CDC press release, American males are on average an inch and half taller than they were in 1960 (5 foot 8 vs. 5 foot 9.5) and 25 pounds heavier (166 vs. 191 pounds.) Body mass index has increased from 25 to 28. If we accept the assumption of BMI that weight will increase quadratically with height, we would expect weight to have increased by 4.5 percent, but it has instead increased by 15 percent.
Your anecodotal evidence seems pretty questionable too. Look at a growth chart such as this one. Assume that the average has changed but the variance hasn’t, and look at heights for 18 year old boys. Six feet tall appears to be low 80’s percentile today and maybe low 90’s forty years ago. Six foot five is pretty far off the charts in either case. I doubt a substantial fraction of high school teams have even a single six foot five player. Mostly perceptions have changed. In 1950 television didn’t show high school basketball players being recruited by the NBA. Furthermore, kids today reach final heights earlier than they used to, so they’re closer to final height at 15 or 16 when they’re being recruited for high school basketball.
But of course, one shouldn’t interpret Phil’s post too literally. 2 average adult American males today only weigh as much as 2.3 average 1960 American males. And more of us hit our head on the ceiling.
I wonder if the spike in obesity in the US could be corelated to the switch from cane sugar to high fructose corn syrup as a sweetener in sodas and juices.
The FAA thinks 150pounds is a good ballpark for an average pax.
I’d be curious how much more inaccurate this has become over the last 10 years.
-nopzor / PPAMEL