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New Weight & Balance Manual To Be Available At Brodhead

Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2019 1:03 am
by Terry Hand
I want to pass along some very important information. I am quoting from a notice that is in this month's BPA Newsletter, with the Associations permission. I am posting it here, in case you have not yet received your newsletter, and maybe have not downloaded the online newsletter. It may be redundant, but I wanted to post it anyway -

"With the assistance of a number of people from the Pietenpol community, We now have all the original weight and balance studies compiled into a single volume. This is not just a reprint of those original articles. Those have been available for several years. In this 2019 Weight & Balance Manual, the information has been brought up to date with new articles, explanations and examples. It is 60 pages of very good data. It will be available through BPA at Brodhead, with the proceeds benefiting BPA. Both William Wynne and Ryan Mueller will be on hand at Brodhead to cover the subject and speak with builders who may have additional questions. This is a great opportunity to get your project off to the right start, or make your flying Pietenpol a better flying aircraft, while also supporting the great work of the BPA."

As was written in the Newsletter, the weight and balance articles that were in the BPA newsletter several years ago have been updated and expanded and the all new Pietenpol Weight & Balance Manual will be available at Brodhead. William Wynne has done a ton of work creating this new 64 page manual. Lots of great info for anyone building or flying a Pietenpol. The price for those of you unable to attend is $20.00 plus actual shipping costs to wherever you are. If interested, please email Pat Weeden at BPA@pietenpols.org

One correction, though to the ad. William Wynne and Ryan Mueller will be available to answer your weight and balance questions at Brodhead, not me.

Re: New Weight & Balance Manual To Be Available At Brodhead

Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2019 4:44 pm
by Pat Weeden
The W&B Manual can be pre-ordered on the BPA website. Note that it will not ship until July 19.

http://www.pietenpols.org/store/

Re: New Weight & Balance Manual To Be Available At Brodhead

Posted: Sun Aug 04, 2019 10:51 pm
by taildrags
I received mine in the mail; thank you! It will be read cover to cover, and I will be pulling out my field notes and measurements from when my airplane underwent W&B after repairs and minor rebuilds during the repair efforts. The W&B was performed by three people, one of whom is an EAA Tech Counselor with extensive building and flying experience and the other of whom was a very experienced builder who had assisted that TC in performing numerous other aircraft weighings using the same set of calibrated digital electronic race car scales. I performed all of the measurements myself, using very simple tools... braided twine with a plumb bob on the end, blue painter's tape on the concrete floor of our hangar, a Sharpie marker, notepad, and a steel measuring tape. Both the weighing and measurements were done inside a closed hangar so there were no wind effects or outside disturbances. The W&B calculations were done using an Excel spreadsheet that is available in the Air Camper list archives and has been widely circulated. It is NOT a "one size fits all" spreadsheet and requires adjustments and inputs that are specific to each Air Camper that it is applied to.

While writing the W&B articles that have now become a part of the Manual that he has published, William contacted me about the W&B information on my airplane and I provided it to him for another data point. In his true and consistent fashion, to my knowledge he did not employ the data that I provided him, since his objective in preparing and publishing the articles and this Manual was to provide the experimental aircraft world with information and experience that he has personally gathered, experienced, calculated, tabulated, and correlated.

After reading and annotating the new Manual, I will critically review my airplane and its construction and may undertake corrections or adjustments that will advance NX41CC to a new level of safety and performance. It will be enjoyable for me to again be working on the airplane, although it might take the airplane out of service for a time and therefore ground me. THIS is the essence of experimental aviation!

Oscar Zuniga
Medford, OR
Air Camper NX41CC, A75 power

Re: New Weight & Balance Manual To Be Available At Brodhead

Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2019 9:00 am
by Terry Hand
Great comments, Oscar.

Re: New Weight & Balance Manual To Be Available At Brodhead

Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2019 9:50 pm
by gseiter
I received mine in the mail and read the articles. I found myself thinking "good point" and " will have to make sure I factor that in when I build my gear and mount my wings". Worth every penny