There is a trick to loading an airplane properly, especially for a long cross-country flight. Many pilots lack a practical understanding of the important concepts of loading. It is not the same as going out to the family SUV and throwing everything in and seeing if the door closes.
Aircraft weight and balance is one of those things private pilots learn about in ground school, but not really. They learn enough to pass the ground school course and their official FAA private pilot written exam, but when they start talking to the pilot examiner, sometimes things are often not quite right in the minds of a few.
Is it really that important where you put things in the airplane? Well, in a couple of words, it is.
That concept about the location of the center-of-gravity is important and does not garner enough attention from neophyte pilots. Just how important could it possibly be, you might ask. Well, look at it this way. It is life-and-death important. Unfortunately, I am not being overly dramatic in writing this: a search of the NTSB website for accidents with the key word, “balance,” reveals many accidents dating back to April 1965. Approximately two-thirds of those were fatal.
Many pilots have managed to turn aircraft into bent metal simply by failing to load their airplanes properly. If you read some of the accident reports, you can see similarities in the accidents. One disturbing aspect is the number of pilots taken by surprise in the accident. In other words, they started their takeoff roll and by the time they recognized something was amiss, they were at a point where they were unable to recover the airplane, save it, and keep the accident from happening.
For pilots, the emphasis of balance is the ability to control the plane. You have to keep in mind that with a forward center-of-gravity, the nose becomes very heavy, the pilot loses pitch authority, and the elevator control feels very heavy.
With the forward c.g., another control issue includes problems with being able to raise the nose to flare on landing. This is rough on the landing gear by touching down on the nosewheel first. Additionally, the airplane is probably unsuitable for landing on a soft, or grass runway.
With an aft center-of-gravity, the elevator becomes very light, pitch control is exaggerated, and it becomes easy for a pilot to over control the plane. As a result, a pilot can quickly and easily exceed the aircraft’s g-limits before he or she realizes what has happened.
Another consideration for the aft c.g. condition is the pilot’s inability to put the nose down for stall recovery. This can be critical, particularly when trying to recover from a spin. Keep in mind the loading of the airplane is only one issue about flying qualities.
Tomorrow, I will get into the problems of overloading the aircraft.
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©2011 J. Clark
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