Mass & Balance
The full EASA ATPL(A) Mass & Balance syllabus, taught properly: why mass and CG position are limited, the mass-term chain from basic empty mass to landing mass, structural and regulated mass limits, traffic-load and standard-mass calculations, datum, arm, moment and per cent MAC, aircraft weighing, load sheets and trim sheets for light and large aeroplanes, repositioning the CG by moving load or ballast, and the floor-load and running-load arithmetic of cargo handling — every learning objective explained and every calculation worked in full.
The two questions every loading decision answers: is the aircraft light enough, and is the weight in the right place? This module builds the case for both limits: how mass drives structural stress and performance, and how the centre of gravity position decides whether the aircraft is stable, controllable and efficient. The rest of the subject then teaches you to compute them.
Mass and balance is the smallest ATPL subject by page count and one of the most consequential in the aeroplane: an overweight aircraft flies worse in ways performance charts can predict, but a misloaded one can be uncontrollable in ways no chart saves you from. This first module explains why the limits exist. Everything after it is arithmetic in their service.
The working vocabulary and arithmetic of loading an aircraft: the mass terms from basic empty mass to landing mass and the fuel terms from block to final reserve, the structural and regulated limits that cap them, and the take-off and traffic-load calculations that decide, number by number, what a flight may actually carry.
Mass and balance calculations are chains of additions and subtractions, and chains are only as strong as the definitions of their links. This module builds the vocabulary first: what every mass and fuel term means and how the terms add up to one another. Then it caps the chain with the limits, structural and performance, and teaches the calculation the exam loves most: how much the flight is actually allowed to carry today.
Where the numbers come from: the datum, arms and moments that turn positions into arithmetic, the centre of gravity and the ways it is quoted, per cent MAC, the compartment and fuel-system data of the loading manual, and the weighing that establishes what the empty aircraft actually is.
The last module capped the masses; this one locates them. Every balance calculation needs a reference point, a distance from it, and the product of mass and distance, and every number it uses is printed somewhere specific: the flight manual, the loading manual or the weighing report. This module teaches the geometry first, then the documents, so that by its end a sample data sheet reads like a map rather than a puzzle.
The working methods of the subject: computing the CG by moments, reading it from loading graphs, compressing it into indices, filling and cross-checking the load sheets of light and large aeroplanes, working the trim sheet from zero-fuel index to stabiliser setting, and moving the CG on purpose with shifted load or ballast.
Everything the course has built, terms, limits, data and geometry, now becomes procedure. This module is the exam's calculational core: the three methods of finding a CG, the load sheets that industrialise them for light and large aeroplanes, the trim sheet that turns a finished loading into a stabiliser setting, and the repositioning arithmetic for the day the first answer comes out outside the limits.
The holds themselves: containerised, palletised and bulk cargo and what each is good at, the floor-load and running-load arithmetic in every direction the exam asks, and the restraint systems, latches, nets and tie-downs, that keep the load where the load sheet says it is.
One module remains, and it lives on the ramp. Everything the course has computed assumes the cargo sits where the paperwork puts it and stays there; this module covers the hardware and arithmetic of making that true, from the choice between containers, pallets and bulk to the floor limits and lashings of the holds.