Flight Testing Ballast?

[NWade]

If you use bags of anything, be *EXTREMELY CAREFUL* that they are secured in a way that will not allow them to shift!

I know a pilot who used sandbags as ballast in his tandem-seat aircraft and used the seatbelts to secure them, only to have turbulence cause a bag to shift and slide partly free of the belts. It prevented him from getting full stick-travel and being a tandem-seat arrangement he could not reach back to fix the bags... in the pattern he could only really turn one direction and then slowly level out - scary stuff!

Our side-by-side seating is a bit different, but trying to manhandle a heavy object (especially if it’s amorphous) while seated and controlling an aircraft that can’t really be flown “hands off” for very long is still challenging.

Be careful out there,

—Noel

[Rynoth]

Thanks for the tips! As it happened, I had several 40-lb bags of water softener salt in my basement. They did the trick!





They stayed in place very well, and actually kind of made the cockpit more comfortable. Nice to have the armrest. No issues with full control deflection.