Definition
A weight and balance computation technique in which the pilot uses pre-printed tables, supplied by the aircraft manufacturer in the Pilot's Operating Handbook (POH) or Aircraft Flight Manual (AFM), to look up the moment value for each loaded item rather than calculating it. The pilot finds each item's weight in the table, reads off the corresponding moment, sums the weights and the moments, and then checks that the totals fall within the approved loading envelope.
Plain English
A way of doing weight and balance where you look up the numbers in a table instead of multiplying them yourself. You find the weight of each item in the table, read the matching moment next to it, add everything up, and check that the result is within limits.
Context Anchor
Seen in weight-and-balance planning, especially in the aircraft’s Pilot’s Operating Handbook or FAA examples that show how to check a loaded airplane before flight.
Derivation
Table comes from an old word meaning a board or flat surface, later an arranged list of information. Method comes from a Greek word meaning a way or path to follow. Together, table method means a step-by-step way of using arranged information to get the needed loading answer.
Why Pilots Care
Allows rapid, precise performance planning directly from manufacturer data without the need for graphical interpolation.
Intuition Check
Do not read table method as any table or homemade chart. Here it means using the approved aircraft loading tables as the required procedure for the weight-and-balance check.
Example Sentence 1
Before the cross-country flight, she used the table method to find the moment for each passenger and the baggage, then added the totals to confirm the aircraft was within limits.
Example Sentence 2
At high density altitude the table method gave a more exact takeoff distance than estimating from the graph.