Maximum passenger weight

[garyr78]

I've ordered my RV-12 empennage and plan to encourage my son-in-law to participate in the build. Part of the incentive would be to go flying in the finished plane.

He is about 6' 3" and 260. Height wise he may be a little cramped but I am more concerned about the weight. I weigh about 167. The two of us and full fuel would be pretty close to max gross weight. From a weight and balance perspective is this doable?

 

[Phantom30]

I've ordered my RV-12 empennage and plan to encourage my son-in-law to participate in the build. Part of the incentive would be to go flying in the finished plane.

He is about 6' 3" and 260. Height wise he may be a little cramped but I am more concerned about the weight. I weigh about 167. The two of us and full fuel would be pretty close to max gross weight. From a weight and balance perspective is this doable?

You would be right at max....in the old days....burn some fuel off. Give yourself some goals while building to each lose 20#s

 

[DaleB]

Gary, check your PMs.

 

[Mich48041]

Weight and balance calculator
Click on this link:RV-12 W&B Spreadsheet
CTRL-S will download the Excel spreadsheet. I forget who the author is.
You and your son-in-law will be within weight and balance limits. If max weight is not exceeded, the next concern with a heavy pilot and passenger is exceeding the forward CG limit when fuel gets low. People sit in front of the wing spar and fuel is behind the wing spar. As fuel is depleted, the CG moves forward. If the CG is too far forward, the airplane will still be stable in flight, but it might be difficult to flare for landing.

 

[garyr78]

You would be right at max....in the old days....burn some fuel off. Give yourself some goals while building to each lose 20#s

Thanks Ric. I am 5' 11" so losing another 20# for me might be a stretch... Though my son-in-law is working on it.

 

[Rik]

I'm 170 and I've had passengers 230-250 6'3" in the plane with full fuel. The plane is hard if not nearly impossible to get out of CG from the #'s in the POH.

There's no luggage, baggage or junk in the plane but I put 5 lbs into the calc's just for the flight bag, paper to write on, calculator and phones.

Also of note. The POH says allow for ZERO fuel for taxi, run up and take off. I choose to enter in 1 gallon into the calculations as it can take from initial fire up to taxi onto the runway 16 minutes of time as you have to wait for the oil temperature to rise to 122 degrees. This does cost something and you can allow for that in your W&B.

I don't think you'll have any problems but realize that the fuel tank is on the RH side and the heavier person is on the RH side so the plane will list to the right.