Did my weight and balance today. I used heavy duty bathroom scales and it went fairly well, they were all within 1 lbs of each other when I calibrated them. I weighed twice and took the average (they were each off ~+/- 1 lb between tests). My total weight is 836.4 lbs and GC is at 10.4. Once I get up and flying I plan to get it reweighed on some real aviation scales but there are not any I have access to close by. The trickiest part for me was accurately marking the tail wheel position on the floor when it was up on a stand so a plumb bob couldn't be used.


Right Wheel Left Wheel Tail
Weight #1 385 386.6 65.6 837.2
Weight #2 384.4 385 66.2 835.6
Average 384.7 385.8 65.9 836.4





ARM -1.6875 -1.96875 154.0625

I also ran some trail weight and balances for the first time, my take aways were:

-adding or subtracting fuel has very minimal effect on cg. Min 30 min fuel at 7.26 gallons per hour (Rotax 912is) or max fuel only moves the CG a fraction of an inch.
-even adding passengers has minimal effect
-cargo has of course the largest effect
-with full fuel and two 190 lbs passengers and 150 lbs of baggage I am still 25 lbs under 1550 but my cg is behind 16 (@16.62) which means I will only be able to carry 120 lbs cargo in that configuration. And considering subtracting fuel has little effect that seems to be my max cargo weight. Does this make sense?

Excuse my novice understanding, but it seems the stol guys are always trying to get the CG farther back. This doesn't seem very difficult so why is it such a topic of concern. What does seem difficult is to get an empty CG forward enough to be able to utilize the full cargo capacity.

Now that I know I'm likely to always be under 1550 Im considering springing for the Airmaster, which would put a bunch of weight on the nose so that my cg moves forward. Thoughts?