Mooney put on some #

[A64Pilot]

ALL aircraft gain weight over time, sounds strange but they do. As Army helicopters are of a class that’s “easily loaded out of CG” we had to re-weigh them every three years or so, and they were meticulously washed, usually weighed full of fuel and the specific gravity of that fuel tested, and the scales were the type that fit on top of aircraft jacks etc. Usually not a lot of weight but they gain weight.

Ref this example, leather is heavier than you might suppose and if memory foam was used that stuff can really be heavy, very comfortable but heavy, so there can be more weight there than you might suppose.

Surely every aircraft manufactured by Mooney was actually weighed not estimated, I know every aircraft manufactured at the Aero Commander plant in Albany Ga from 1965 and onward was, FAA required it, I can’t imagine they let Mooney slide.

Repainting can add a surprising amount of weight, especially if it was a quality job with nice thick paint and more than two colors.

If you really want to know how much weight you gain or loose on a job, weigh the thing before the work, often EAA chapters will have scales you can borrow that don’t cost anything. Weighing it chock full of fuel is easier than draining the thing and since your weighing isn’t official why not full of fuel?

Army we could weigh them completely full or completely empty, I always weighed them full, I don’t know why you can’t do that with civilian airplanes, never has made sense to me.

 

[Jim Peace]

39 minutes ago, DXB said:

I distinctly recall your prior abhorrent experience with that particular MSC, which led me to stop using them.

there were two of them that I had issues with.....one near you and another down here....

[jamesm]

Do these new avionics make me look fat ?

 It does make me curious to know how accurate the scales were the the aircraft  was when being weighed or the ones used now.

It has made me wonder in my case a  Narco Mark12 with a tubed type power supply ~14 lbs removed and a KX155 goes in a '67C some how it comes out heavier?

Hopefully it's miscalculation over the years.

 

[0TreeLemur]

"Never weigh an airplane.  Nothing good comes from it."  - my dear departed A&P/IA Dave.

A basic paint job weighs at least 30 lb.   If not stripped when re-painted, this adds a lot of weight.

In my experience,  A&P's struggle to make accurate W&B calcs.   Probably because they don't have time to check their work.  I duplicate their work and catch mistakes every time.  

Digital scales sometimes lie, even when recently calibrated.

 

 

[Kelpro999]

Just removing an ADF loop gained nearly 25 lbs. useful. Did I reweigh ? No, I don’t want to know about having lost it somewhere else

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, 0TreeLemur said:

In my experience,  A&P's struggle to make accurate W&B calcs.   Probably because they don't have time to check their work.  I duplicate their work and catch mistakes every time.

Fifty or sixty years of rounding errors can add up. 

1 hour ago, 0TreeLemur said:

Digital scales sometimes lie, even when recently calibrated.

Or people don't zero them, or mismanage the tare weights, or don't take stuff out of the hatch, etc., etc., etc...

[0TreeLemur]

19 hours ago, 0TreeLemur said:

I duplicate their work and catch mistakes every time.  

 

Full disclosure.  When I duplicate my work, I often catch mistakes too.

Using spreadsheets created by others is risky.  Sometimes the sign in formulas (+/-) is the opposite of what the user assumes based on a column header.

[Jerry 5TJ]

On 5/16/2023 at 8:33 AM, ArtVandelay said:

I went through every W&B change made to my plane, put them all in a spreadsheet and found about 20 errors out of 100 entries.

I did a similar exercise on my first Mooney, a 64E, around 1990. All the prior calculations appeared to have been done by hand and many were in error.  Overall I lost a few pounds by correcting those errors.  Then I considered that in addition to the errors there was equipment installed in the plane with no W&B entry, too.   Weighing the plane corrected those past sins. 

[jamesm]

8 hours ago, M20Doc said:

I’ve never reweighed myself, in my mind I’m still a trim 175, despite what my clothes closet says.

 elastic banded and draw strings clothing are your friend

 

[Jerry 5TJ]

The doors on Mooneys seem to be shrinking, too.  I am sure they were much bigger 30 years ago.  

[Rick Junkin]

On 5/19/2023 at 11:54 AM, Jerry 5TJ said:

Weighing the plane corrected those past sins.

Good counter-point to "nothing good will come of this" 

My guess is a lot of us are flying over gross and unaware. Technically legal but still overweight.

Cheers,
Rick

[M20F-1968]

I have heard comments over the years that reweighing an airplane causes loss of useful load, suggesting that the factory may have been under reporting....

I have not data or knowledge to make me a believer or non-believer of these reports.

John Breda