Weighing Aircraft (was Sonex High Wing!)

[Bryan Cotton]

I was lucky that there is a guy in my neighborhood who has a real set of aircraft scales. He rents them out for $50 and uses the money to maintain and annually calibrate them.

[Sonerai13]

I was lucky that there is a guy in my neighborhood who has a real set of aircraft scales. He rents them out for $50 and uses the money to maintain and annually calibrate them.

Bryan, what does he use to calibrate his scales, and what makes them "aviation" scales? Not being a smarta**. Just wanting to know what criteria he is using to call them "aviation" scales.

[Bryan Cotton]

Bryan, what does he use to calibrate his scales, and what makes them "aviation" scales? Not being a smarta**. Just wanting to know what criteria he is using to call them "aviation" scales.

Hey Joe! He uses a service to calibrate them. I don't know which one but for our scales at Sikorsky we would call in somebody with a truck that had a bunch of calibrated weights. Basically everything had to be calibrated to a NIST standard. We needed the guy with the truck as the scales for a UH60 were pretty beefy. So the key thing is the paper trail, like a lot of things in aviation.

The scales I borrowed were a kit made by somebody and I'm sure in another life they could have been used to weigh potatoes or something. But this was a set of 3 scales, all plugged into one display so you could read all 3 at once. In particular the shimming on these scales were set up for an A36 Bonanza. On a level floor, drop the Bonanza on these scales and it was level. I had to do my own leveling of course.

[Sonerai13]

Bryan, thanks for the additional info. I asked because I have found that the same outfits that make the "aircraft scales" that Aircraft Spruce sells also make identical units that are sold through high performance auto outlets. The only difference is, the "aircraft" scales have only three load pads, and the "auto" sets have 4. Price is about the same either way, so a person is smarter to buy the auto set! (Besides, the extra load pad comes in handy if you need to weight a plane on floats or a helicopter!)