Skip to main content

Perfectly balanced, as all things should be

At least some of you are probably aware of an activity called wakeboarding. It's like water skiing, except you are on a single, wide board and the idea is to use the wake of the boat to launch you into the air and do various tricks. It's a lot like snowboarding on the water.

Something I discovered today is that there's a technique for adjusting the wake that the boat makes by changing the weight distribution of the boat. This is done by adding weight in the form of ballast to the boat in a particular location so it moves the overall center of gravity forward or backward. There are products available to make this easy. Some are containers for water. Some of those are even shaped to fit more easily into the various locations of the boat, such as the bow. Others are containers for solid material, such as bags of steel shot.

I bring this up because the Beechcraft Musketeer has one very critical difference from a Cessna 172. It has a markedly more narrow C.G. envelope. For example, if I were to take my wife flying with me, and she was in the right front seat, and the fuel tanks were full, the plane would be nose-heavy and outside the envelope. If she were in one of the rear seats, it would be fine. One way of addressing this is to put some weight in the baggage compartment to bring the C.G. rearward. It adds weight but, as long as it's below the maximum, and there aren't any issues with density altitude, runway length, etc., it's still fine.

When I was looking at the plane before purchasing it, the previous owner took me up for a flight to demonstrate how it takes off, handles, and lands. Because of the C.G. envelope, he put about 50 lbs of stuff in the baggage compartment to ensure the plane would be balanced. Although it's not what he used, he mentioned that a lot of Musketeer pilots will use bottles of water or sand bags for this purpose.

I got to thinking about what would work well and a bag of shot came to mind. So I started looking around for something that would work and came upon the bags of shot used to balance boats for wakeboarding. They are available in 25 and 50 lb. sizes so I ordered two 25 lb. bags. I figure I'll just keep them in the plane and take them out if I don't need them for a particular flight. They're compact, and they have handles for easy handling. They also have metal rings so I can fasten them down to make sure they don't leave the baggage compartment.

I've heard that there are also weights available that can be installed in the tail section. I may look into that as a potential longer-term solution since it will require a lot less weight, but these shot bags should work for now.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Approaching the annual

I know I haven't been posting much, but that's mainly because nothing much of note has been happening. I've been flying, but not really going anywhere in particular. The engine continues to run very well, and the plane is still solid. I was hoping to do more "destination" flying this year but, for whatever reason(s), it didn't really happen. Next year, hopefully.... On the horizon, though, is the annual inspection. It's already scheduled for mid-December, since the last annual is good to the end of that month. I've also arranged for it to be an owner-assisted annual. I'm told that every airplane owner should do this at least once and I can certainly understand why that is the case, even before I do it. I will be learning about my airplane in a way that nothing else will match and, incidentally, save some money at the same time. I'm looking forward to it. Leading up to the annual, I have been compiling a list of squawks that I want to take care ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Predicting the weather is hard

At least, it's hard for this region of the country. I like to say that predicting the weather for the Puget Sound region is far more an art than it is a science. Early last week, the weather forecast was for pretty much crappy weather for the foreseeable future. However, because of the chaotic nature of the atmosphere around here, especially at this time of year, the forecast is always subject to change. As it turns out, the weather was actually nice enough last Friday afternoon (December 17) that I was able to go up for about an hour and a half. One of the reasons I went up was because I had filled the tanks after the previous flight, and I wanted to burn off some fuel in case I was able to take my father flying while we visiting from Arizona. As I'm sure I've mentioned, the weight and balance of my plane is such that I'd be over maximum weight if I had a passenger in the front seat, the required ballast in the baggage compartment to stay within the forward CG limit, a...
1 comment
Read more

A digression, if I may...

The other night, after almost 50 years, the Saturn V was dethroned as the most powerful rocket ever successfully launched by humanity. I use the word "successfully" because the Soviet N1 rocket actually generated more thrust at liftoff, but all four launch attempts ended in failure. For the first time since Apollo 17, a true moon rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, carrying a spacecraft capable of carrying humans back to the moon. This Artemis mission is a test flight, so no astronauts are on board the Orion spacecraft. Despite that, it was a spectacular launch. Because the SLS launch vehicle has a higher thrust-to-weight ratio than the Saturn V, it rose from the launch pad much more quickly than it's predecessor. I think it's a bit heavier than the Space Shuttle, but it has more thrust due to an additional RS-25 engine, and more powerful solid rocket boosters. Watching it rise into the night sky, I was excited, but also a bit melancholy. This was ...
1 comment
Read more