Pragmatic solution: tell them to stop being childish and just tell
me what they weigh, or else stay on the ground while I go flying
and have some fun.

Of course there are a number of mathematical solutions. Personally
I wouldn't trust my passengers to do arithmetic correctly if my life
depended on it!

John

"john smith" wrote in message
...
The Current Challenge (given February 22, 2004):

A private pilot has a four-seat plane, and he's offered to take three
friends up for a flight. To do his load and fuel calculations the pilot
needs to know the combined weight of his three passengers. Now, the
three passengers are sensitive about their weight, and none of them will
let anyone else know how much he weighs. And no scale at the flying club
is big enough to weigh more than one person at a time. How does the
pilot quickly get the accurate combined weight of the three passengers?

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