Route plan question

[Beefitarian]

Pick your favorite female and leave the other 2 passengers home. She will be happy to hear she can bring one extra outfit.

[PilotDAR]

A few years ago I took a friend on a quick fuel run to Orillia. As we stood and enjoyed a nice day, a fellow finished fueling a 172 floatplane at the dock. He was a person of generous proportion. He then boarded two adults (who appeared to be husband and wife). It was a hot, still day. I did the mental math, and commented to my friend that he would have trouble getting airborne, nothing was working in his favour that day. One of the few things he could control - his fuel load, seemed to be heavy.

He ran that poor plane most of the length of Lake St. John trying to get on the step. No luck. 'Turned around, and ran back, again, no luck. He offloaded the male at the dock, and staggered the plane into the air. I took my friend home, then returned to the airport to see that the male passenger actually did get picked up - he did.

But, after two long, hard takeoff attempts, I bet that the engine was cooked, and the prop thrashed. The plane was certainly overloaded, though all seats weren't filled. The pilot should have done the math, but he wanted to take two adults sightseeing.....

[455tt]

Even scarier would be if that plane had just barely taken off.

[Posthumane]

Perhaps some people are getting hung up on the wording "use the standard passenger weights." Perhaps a better way for an instructor to word this is "in this scenario, after weighing the people you discover that they happen to weight exactly the same as standard AIM weights." This way it satisfies the decision making aspect of the question without giving the impression that standard weights are a good way to go for small aircraft.