Lighten Up

[Boatguy]

I was going through my just six month old DA62 today because the installation of radar required adjusting the W&B. I found myself removing some items to tweak the forward shift in the CG.

It brought to mind a legendary late 70's racing yacht named Imp. She was a revolutionary design at the time by Ron Holland and won everything in her class for a few years. The point of the story is that before heading off to the Admiral's Cup the owner had everything that wasn't bolted down removed from the boat and piled onto the dock. He was amazed at how much weight the boat had accumulated in two seasons of racing. Needless to say they were very careful about what went back on in order to keep the boat as light as possible.

Airplanes are even more sensitive to weight than racing yachts so it gave me something to think about as I considered what to put in the plane, and what to leave in the hangar.

[smoss]

First on my lighten up list was the hard copy of the AFM

[Colin]

The story of the Outremer sailing catamarans is that when you board for a race they go through your luggage with you and, for instance, cut your toothbrush in two so they can discard the wasteful half.

[Steve]

Time is the great 'weightener' and lightener for me. As I've aged, I picked up "several" pounds. But when I had a young family, I would dutifully load up wifey, the two boys, full luggage in the rear compartment, and fuel fuel. We would be within CG limits and below Max Gross.

Now, the kids are grown up and gone from home, and my wife refuses to fly with me due to her struggles with motion sickness. So, it is usually just me, or me and a buddy flying. Plenty of margin...