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Old January 13th 12, 03:56 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Hagbard Celine
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Posts: 58
Default Measurement of CofG

When we did my ASW-15 we took the weights just balancing the wings
level, no stand. Fore and aft level was done as you describe (my
manual has about the same information as yours) with the exception I
noted about using a digital protractor instead of making the triangle.
As my ship was exported from Germany in 1998 we had copies of the
W&B's they did there for my maintenance engineer to use as a guideline
for making the new W&B and equipment list. The records that
accompanied my ship when it was exported show that the W&B was done
every second year when it was in Germany! I could get you scans of the
forms though being of German origin they would be useful as a
guideline at best.

Sometimes you can get a surprise when doing a W&B. My club has a Grob
102 Standard III. When the A.D. requiring the installation of lead
mass balance in the control system was done we naturally had to
reweigh the glider. The last time it had been weighed was by a
previous owner many years before we bought it. The new weight was
about 80 pounds LESS than the last one. Aircraft generally don't LOSE
weight over the years, especially when you've just bonded a bunch of
lead to them. The maintenance shop double and triple checked their
procedures, recalibrated their scales and reweighed the glider several
times. The new weight was accurate. We're still trying to figure out
what the hell was going on with the previous weighing. Water ballast
left in the tanks maybe?

On Jan 11, 8:51*pm, RAS56 wrote:
Hagbard Celine;807559 Wrote:

If the shop has a digital protractor you could also convert the rise/
run to degrees, put the protractor on the specified part of the tail
boom and raise the tail until it reads the correct angle.


Arctan(rise/run) = angle in degrees


About 2.1 degrees, sloping down towards the tail in this case.


Same question, hopefully same answer...could use a little more info.

I'm trying to put together a W&B event at our club, we're bringing in
outside help from another club with a set of scales and the experience
of knowing what to do.

WRT positioning the glider at the correct angle, my ship is an ASW-19b.
Although my owners manual has a page dedicated to CG info, there's
nothing in there about what procedure to use to actually weigh the
thing. It's just a page with a CG envelope on it.

Now I did find on page 30 of the manual (a page that has general
dimensions as well as specs for control deflections) a side view drawing
with info presented as the thread starter discussed, mine says 1000 by
45.

SO, to do the procedure correctly, construct a small triangle with those
dimensions, inflate the main wheel to proper pressure, put a level on
the triangle, then raise the tail till I get a level bubble? It would
seem to make sense that this is done with wings level laterally as well,
correct? Lightly (fingertips) or is a wingstand under a tip ok? THEN,
take the weights?

Finally, this will be the 4th W&B for this glider. All the ones done
previously have had a "form" with a glider drawing on it and appropriate
spots to fill in main wheel/tail wheel weights, etc. Where can we obtain
"blanks" to fill in our ships for our event? We will have an A&P IA
overseeing the process and signing off logbooks. As I said, I'm
coordinating, so I'm trying to get all the info/materials each owner
will need to have on hand at weigh-in so the event goes smoothly.

Thanks much,

Rob
ASW-19b
ZAP

Ps-sorry if this double posts...

--
RAS56