My first Annual and Weight and Balance

[jmurtap]

My mechanic and I have just finished up my first annual and a new weight and balance. We removed quite a bit of old/unused stuff requiring a new W/B. The annual went great only finding a broken muffler support rod, and it's the last year for my seat tracks, and new brake pads were required. I saved enough with the owner assisted annual to purchase BAS tail pull handle which we just got done installing. The great news is my new empty weight is now 1,214lbs!!! For a useful load of 986lbs, I couldn't be more happy with that!!!

[Onewinglo]

Good for you Jason!
My first annual is in October and it will be owner assisted also. I'm glad you brought this up because I have an old NDB (or is it ADF) radio and antenna that should come out. It's the old radio that will receive AM stations. I'll talk to my mechanic about removing it...
JP

[robw56]

1214lbs sounds very light, If that weight is correct then that is by far the lightest 170 I have heard of. Does that weight include the 30lbs unusable fuel per the TCDS. Did your weigh it with tanks drained or did you fill them and subtract the 37 gallons of useable fuel from the weight. I did just about everything I could to keep the weight down on my 170. It has 8.00s with double puck brakes, I removed the old ADF and VOR antennas and wiring, removed both venturis vaccum lines/regulator/suction gauge/old DG and artificial horizon, it has a minimal panel and very lightweight utility interior, no side panels or headliner, removed the overhead speaker, replaced the heavy carpet with 4lb rubber flooring, Atlee dodge rear seats, removed springs from front seats and covered with nylon bladders, kept the center strap windshield because it's 4 lbs lighter, odyssey battery, removed 60 years of gunk out of the belly, stripped all the paint off of it, now it's bare aluminum with red trim. It does have an extended baggage area which weighs 11lbs and a sportsman STOL kit which weighs 15lbs. After all of this my plane weighs 1307lbs, I reduced the weight of the plane by 60-70lbs. If I take the rear seats and belts out its down to 1285. If I put on the 26" bushwheels and big tailwheel it adds 29lbs.

[jmurtap]

I weighed it with the tanks full and subtracted 37 gals, 6 qts of oil, and 6lbs of wheel pants. We were both scratching our heads, as the scales are certified aircraft scales. We double checked everything was tare'd correctly, and triple checked the math. 1214 is the number we got over and over with CG of 40.65. Upper door sill was leveled with very accurate level.. We couldn't find anything else to argue with, It did seem light to us as well.

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

Do you think maybe those BROWN 170s are as light as GREEN examples are fast?

[cessna170bdriver]

My brown one weighed 1358...

[daedaluscan]

I saw this on Facebook and I was also surprised by the low weight. Congratulations

Im at 1341 with Atlees and 8.50s

[pdb]

I am at 1,353 with no paint, original starter, 35 amp generator, ELT, strobe, venturis, single Atlee Dodge rear seat, , 8:50x6s, glider hitch, and an 8042 prop. The belly is revolting so there may be a few lbs there.

[jmurtap]

I think at some point I'm going to reweigh it with different scales, maybe next year. I still think that number is too low. But as of now it's the best number I have to go off of.

[johneeb]

Jason, can you post a table which shows us the weight and balance calculations for your aircraft?

[Ryan Smith]

56D weighs 1305. Two colors of Imron, 35A generator, Delco Remy starter, leather interior (seats have the original springs and padding in them), strapless windshield, original gear legs, full gyro panel (VFR), King KLX135A and Narco AT150 with an AR850 encoder. I expect there to be some variances in materials...but metal will be way more consistent than wood. I would really love to know how Cessna certified the airplanes to get the empty weight what they claimed. The mind boggling thing to me are hearing about 1300b airplanes with no paint...internal primer or external finish.

[DaveF]

I'd gladly reduce my useful load by another 100 lbs if I could have a Continental IO-360 with a CS prop hanging on the front!!!

You can, and you don't even need to go through the IO-360 conversion! My '54 with a Lycoming O-360 with CS prop weighs 1408 empty, including paint, heavy front seats from a '75 172, full interior, etc. I went to Leadville on Sunday with two aboard and full fuel, climbing to 15500 on the way!

[blueldr]

The Lycoming O-720 is way to heavy.

Try a TCM TIO-360 instead!

[bagarre]

Might need to add some lead to the tail.

[DaveF]

Back on topic, Is there enough crap you can move to the tail in a C-170 to install that engine and stay within CG?

Almost! I'd love to ditch the Hartzell for an MT.

You even make having cowl blisters seem bearable with that kind of performance

Hey, let's not go overboard here!