Recently, I had an opportunity to take an Air Canada flight from Chicago (ORD) to Ottawa (YOW). On board, I picked up enRoute which I found to be a pleasant magazine.
As an engineer, I was interested in the technical specifications of the airplane, i.e., Canadair CL-65 RJ 50 (Bombardier Aerospace CRJ200). Here is what I noticed in section "Air Canada's fleet".
Cargo Payload: 106 lb/48 kg
The CL-65 is a much smaller airplane than the jumbo jet, but I was suspicious of the Cargo Payload number. So, I asked the flight attendant, who told me that the cargo area is indeed small, but she did not think it was as small as to hold only 48 kg.
After the trip, I checked the Aircraft Specifications on Bombardier Aerospace website <http://www.aero.bombardier.com/htmen/B1B.htm>, and here are the numbers that I found for the aircraft in question.
Maximum payload | 13 500 lb/6 124 kg
Payload with full fuel (series 200ER) | 6 445 lb/2 923 kg
Payload with full fuel (series 200LR) | 8 445 lb/3 831 kg
These numbers seem much more reasonable. Thus, I would suggest that the accuracy of the aircraft specification numbers in the enRoute magazine be thoroughly checked.
