bret

bret

Well Known Member
Working on the POH, what are folks putting in the sample weight and balance pages, the FAA 170 Lbs for pilot and passenger, or more realistic weights like, our own weight and what WE expect to carry?
 
I did three, one standard, one extreme fore and one extreme aft plus one gross, if neither is at gross.
 
I am trying to see what the FAA wants, some have said max aft, forward, gross weight, but I also read somewhere they want the outdated FAA standard pilot and passenger weights?
 
Not a big deal, but your POH is one thing and your W&B another. Your POH can simply be your ops limits, nothing more.
W&B is not a static thing as you know. Technically, you are supposed to do W&B calculation for your flight configuration before each flight. What many of us do is carry sample W&B across the spectrum of possible configurations which I believe is what you are trying to do. Theory is, you can demonstrate that your actual W&B for a given flight falls between one sample or another. I have never had the need to test this theory in front of an FAA inspector.
I chose to use my own weight as pilot, then configurations around gross weight, fore and aft c.g. limits, etc... for my samples, using worst case scenarios. the worst case scenarios are specific to each model and configuration. I grossed my 6 up 50# so I could carry full fuel, my wife, and full baggage. I was comfortable with that. It took four or five other configurations to cover the envelope.
So, long answer to your question is I would use your own weight as pilot and then adjust from there for gross weight configurations and c.g. limits if that makes sense.
 
The W&B I have in my POH is the same one that was part of my AWC submission. As such it contains all of the necessary info to calculate the W&B for any flight.
 
This is opinion only -- Use 170# for documenting, but know the actual numbers for every flight.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.