It is N-reg but it was previously registered in Germany, for a long time. Most of the paperwork is in German.
I don’t think there is any obligation to re-do all the old documentation when you register it with FAA.
It now has all the logs in English, but the old entries weren’t translated.
I think that @Mooney_Driver is being unfair in slapping down so hard someone who is asking a sensible question of his knowledgeable peers, rather than just trying it.
I agree with the general tenor of responses that being overweight causes performance problems and that being outside the CG limits causes control problems, and also with the view that manufacturers will have done their best to convince their test pilots to push, particularly MTOM, to it’s highest safe figure, to boost sales, so there is unlikely to be much slack in that figure.
But, equally, you might ask, how is it possible for anyone to get a 10 or 15% ferry permit if the aircraft is going to plunge, stall warner squealing, into the sea if they go 1Kg over MTOM? There must be some give and it is perfectly reasonable for @AlexTB20 to ask his friends what it is like in that grey area (the answer, as others have stated, is that, derr, the aircraft performs worse, and you have to go faster to take-off and you will climb slower, so need much longer runways and more forgiving terrain.)
But there is also the question of CG and, I agree, no-one in their right mind would set off knowing that they were outside CG limits. But, fortunately, there is still some experience available. I have accidentally been outside CG limits a couple of times.
The first time was in HS125 when a cargo securing bolt broke from the floor in turbulence and two tonnes of mail bags walked to the tail. The result was that the autopilot disengaged and the aircraft became longitudinally unstable, requiring the pilot continuously to move the nose up and down to counter instability. This is horrible.
Thank goodness, we were two crew and, as the PNF, I was delegated to go to the back and manhandle the bags to the front and secure them again. Hands up anyone who, even as a young man who goes to the gym every day, has moved two tonnes of cargo in a cabin altitude of 10,000’? No, I thought not. Well it took me over an hour, I was absolutely exhausted and pretty much fainting. Only by regularly going back to the flight deck and using oxygen was I able to do the job at all. Don’t fly with a CG outside rear limits.
The second occasion was more recently in a Chieftain. We had removed the seats to load cargo, but the first flight was positioning to collect the cargo. I, stupidly and unthinkingly, carefully did the W&B on the cargo leg, but forgot on the empty leg to remove the seats from the calculation, meaning that we had about 150Kg less than normal empty weight, all of it behind the spar, some of it several metres behind the spar. ILAFFT.
On take-off and for most of the flight, the boss sat in the one remaining seat in the back to do some work, but he moved forward for the landing.
Two crew, even with the seats, is close to the front of the envelope, so, without the seats, we ended up with a very forward CG.
Presumably because he was in the back, I noticed nothing on the take-off and climb, nor in the cruise or descent, but when I applied full flap for landing, at about 300’ I had to trim a long way back, right onto the stops. With the trim on stops I was able to perform a half-decent landing, but it was a big effort.
When on the ground and settled down in a nice restaurant in Coburg, I called my friend, the late and much lamented Dave Philips, to ask him what he thought what might be the issue and it was he who spotted that I had removed the seats without accounting for them (again, derr!!). On the next flight, with cargo, it was fine, of course, and then, before the last positioning flight, I bought four 25 litre plastic jerry cans to fill with water and put in the back.
So, my experience is the same as what others here say, a little overweight probably won’t kill you, any amount of outside CG may well do.
But at least you now have a couple of datapoints of real world experience.
Very good points Tim.
Let me add that if you are overweight, you can more easily compound the two situations: overweight + CG out of lims, since the aft and front limits are likely to more restricted the heavier the aircraft is, so you should move away from the normal CG limits when flying overweight.
