The g limits of 3.8 for normal and 4.4 for utility are arbitrary numbers. They have been determined by years of experience to provide a reasonable margin for every day operation by your average pilot. If you are over gross and your limit becomes 3.6g for example, i would not expect your airplane to be falling out of the sky. Now do that and fly at Vne in gusty conditions at aft cg and yank hard on the stick......As in the case of the guy who did long distance flights in a 4, or the rutan voyager, these margins can be eaten into if due diligence is exercised. However since the vast majority of us do NOT have a sound grasp of all the technical principles involved, we have to ask ourselves if we are equipped to push these limits.
In industry we fly outside of weight and cg limits during certification flight testing regularly. Our pilots have an army of stress, systems and handling qualities specialists to guide them and a lot of training to allow them to do it safely. Can you do it without that support and training? Perhaps, to a degree, you can. I.e. Flying on a calm day in the cg range but 50 lbs over gross, knowing you have slightly less structural margin, and modifying your flight profile accordingly, is a risk you are comfortable with. On the other hand you can probably pull the wings off an RV from inside the weight/cg envelope if you really really want to.
To the gent from the u.k. who said that he had read many accident reports where a crashed occurred due to being over gross, I don't doubt it. But there numerous other accident scenarios where people exceeded any number of other limits of their skills/knowledge with the same result, be it crosswinds, weather, aerobatics (within the wtcg env) or anything else. Some pilots get in trouble doing things that others can do safely.
It all comes down to your level of technical understanding and your comfort level with risk. It can be done, to a degree, if you are careful and you know what you are doing. If you aren't and you don't you can kill yourself.
In industry we fly outside of weight and cg limits during certification flight testing regularly. Our pilots have an army of stress, systems and handling qualities specialists to guide them and a lot of training to allow them to do it safely. Can you do it without that support and training? Perhaps, to a degree, you can. I.e. Flying on a calm day in the cg range but 50 lbs over gross, knowing you have slightly less structural margin, and modifying your flight profile accordingly, is a risk you are comfortable with. On the other hand you can probably pull the wings off an RV from inside the weight/cg envelope if you really really want to.
To the gent from the u.k. who said that he had read many accident reports where a crashed occurred due to being over gross, I don't doubt it. But there numerous other accident scenarios where people exceeded any number of other limits of their skills/knowledge with the same result, be it crosswinds, weather, aerobatics (within the wtcg env) or anything else. Some pilots get in trouble doing things that others can do safely.
It all comes down to your level of technical understanding and your comfort level with risk. It can be done, to a degree, if you are careful and you know what you are doing. If you aren't and you don't you can kill yourself.
