Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

National Programme on Technology Enhanced

Learning (NPTEL)

Introduction to Experiments in Flight

Prof.A.K.Ghosh

Department of Aerospace Engineering

IIT-Kanpur

Lecture-05
CG and Climb Experiment
So my name is Ajith Kumar and I’m a PhD student in the Department of the aerospace
engineering at IIT Kanpur. So today I will be talking about aircraft weighment and CG
estimation. So in this lecture we will try to learn how to weigh the aircraft and how do you
estimate the CG right, so the topic is aircraft weighment and CG estimation right. So let us
talk about the real aircraft. You know like we do the experiment in this lab, so I have taken
the example from the aircraft which is called Piper Saratoga.
(Refer Slide Time: 00:45)
This one and if you see the configuration it is something like this, so here is the datum line
and the datum line is 78.4 inches from the wing leading edge. So this distance from the refer-
ence line or datum line is 78.4 inches from this leading edge of the wing and if suppose your
nose landing gear is at this location and main landing gear where your left and right, both are
together in this location.

So I am representing by X and Y so for this aircraft Piper Saratoga we have X equals to 14.2
inches this distance and Y equals to 109.7 inches, which is this distance right, so now how
to weight this aircraft so if you see in this lecture I will just show you here by drawing here
in the board so your scale will look like this, so one scale will be placed here and these two
scales will be like this suppose now here you are putting the right wheel, left wheel and your
nose wheel from some distance.

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 (Refer Slide Time: 00:45)

(Refer Slide Time: 02:03)

So these are the weighing scale so you have to mount or your bring aircraft and align it as
per this weighing scale, so here you will be putting your landing gear nose landing gear, right
landing gear and left landing gear here. So this scale will show you the measurement of the
corresponding weights you know like at the nose you will be able to get the reading for the
nose landing gear, right landing gear and left landing gear. So if you perform this experiment
then you have to prepare a table like this.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:41)

So configuration and then you have to take the weight for the left wheel, right wheel, nose
wheel, weight, total weight and then XCG and so now how do you plan this experiment like
if you want to estimate the CG and you also want to weigh the aircraft in this fashion so how
will you plan it so. If you see the sitting configuration inside the Piper Saratoga, it will look
like this, so here you can see 6 passengers can be accommodated in this.

Basically p1 and p2 they are meant for the pilot and co-pilot and rest of the passengers they

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 (Refer Slide Time: 02:03)

can sit in this order like p3 , p4 , p5 and p6 yeah. So now you can also study like by putting
the weight or by removing the weight how your CG is going to travel how your CG varies
or changes so for this experiment we, we have suggested configurations in this way like you
take the empty configuration where there is no passengers like no p1 , p2 , p3 , p4 , p5 , p6 .

So I will make it as p0 , p0 when aircraft is empty. Empty in the sense like no passengers and
so in this table if you see p0 left side landing gear weight it came around 428 in kg, 393 kg,
321 kg and total weight 1142 kg and XCG , So I will tell you that how to calculate the XCG
so it is it will come from the very basic physics like if you have all the details there XCG can
be calculated very easily.

So you can write XCG is equals to weight of the nose wheel NW + RW + LW which will be
the weights of right and left wheel respectively. So if I can write right wheel and left wheel
and if you multiply this with the distance actually Y which is the distance between datum
line two main landing gear Y and divided by total weight which is your NW + RW + LW. So
this is very easy to calculate.

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 (Refer Slide Time: 02:41)

So you know like even get XCG by using these numbers so for from the experiment you will
get NW, RW and LW already. So already you know the value of X and Y which is equal to
14.2 inches and Y equals to 109.7 inches so you know this number and of course you know
these values. So for this row empty weight you will get 82.856 inches yeah so like that you
can plan other experiment when you put only pilot then co-pilot rest of the passengers so
configuration can be like p0 , p1 , p2 , p3 and p6 which means like all the passengers are loaded
actually all are sitting inside the aircraft right.

So once you have all the data, you fill the table from the data and then I will show you that
how your CG vs weight will look like. The whole idea is like we should know once you
change the weight in the aircraft, let say you remove, you add so how your CG is going to
vary. So if you see if I plot it here let us say, so I am putting weight in y axis so this is weight
so unit I have taken kg and here it is XCG unit will be inches.

(Refer Slide Time: 06:58)

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So zero one two three passengers four five and six it will roughly look like this. I’m not
putting the numbers since it is not exact so but to know the configuration I will right here p6
where all the passengers are there inside the aircraft. So from here what is the analysis like
what is the inference from this graph?

If you see how your CG is travelling you see like once you have empty aircraft without pas-
sengers then your CG is sitting somewhere here may be here so once you started loading
the passengers like once your passengers p1 and p2 are inside the aircraft you see that your
CG started travelling towards forward and then when you have other passengers, the CG is
travelling towards aft.

(Refer Slide Time: 06:58)

This is what we can learn from this experiment and we can do the analysis of the CG variation
with the weight. So now we will be talking about finding the rate of maximum rate of climb
using this aircraft right. So in the previous lecture we came to know how to find CD0 and K
using Cessna 206H aircraft. So now I will be talking about determination of maximum rate
of climb. So for this experiment also will use the Cessna 206 H aircraft.

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What is the task in this experiment? how will you find the maximum rate of climb? so for
that we know if you see the flight suppose now you’re aircraft is flying at this level and then
you have to climb at certain height may be he started with h1 altitude now you have reached
to h2 altitude.

dh h2 − h1
=
dt dt
(Refer Slide Time: 10:30)
So this will give you the rate of climb right so and of course you have done some climb here
at certain speed right. So this rate of climb will be for that particular speed. Now you got
this rate of climb at some velocity. So, now to get this maximum rate of climb it means we
should try to achieve the climb at different speeds so there you will get to know where is the
maximum rate of climb or at what speed you can achieve the maximum rate of climb.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:30)

So how will you plan this experiment so I will explain to you now, so it means if you want

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to perform this experiment then from the table if you see then we should know about at what
velocity we are going to fly and you are inside the aircraft with your pilot. So you will get to
know at what altitude it is being flown right so h1 , so you should know h1 and then till what
height you have to go so you have to plan for different height so that will be h2 .

So you know V, h1 , h2 and then you should sit with the stopwatch or you can use your watch
to note down the time, so that will be your dt which is time taken from h1 to h2 . Once you
have h1 and h2 , you calculate dh
dt which is essentially your rate of climb (R/C).

(Refer Slide Time: 12:32)

Now so now you see in this table, so its very simple experiment right so you have to note
down the velocity, h1, h2 and the time then you can calculate dh/dt. So here I will show you
one of the experiment so where you have velocity in knots 95, 100, 105 and then 110. So
initial altitude was 500 feet yeah feet and h2 was 1000 so 500 to 1000 feet 500 to 1000 feet
all the experiment right. So 500 to 1000 feet.

(Refer Slide Time: 12:32)

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Right you see now like here it is flown at the different speeds but it was 500 to 1000 feet, so
∆h or dh is 500 feet. They have maintained this. So time taken for each was 37.89 seconds,
42.27 seconds and 49.19 and 55.06 seconds. If you calculate corresponding R/C and you
have to be careful with the unit.

You can calculate dh dt here. So suppose if you have taken feet and then if you have noted
this in s, so it will become your feet per second right. So if you see your graph will look
something like this yeah if you see here dh
dt vs velocity so it should appear something like this
and now from the graph you can observe here at this feet maybe I should write V∗ , velocity
at which maximum rate of climb occurs.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:39)

So and in the previous class already we have talked about how to find CD0 and K, so from
here you got rate of climb so one other way to validate your result can be like this so during
this experiment you can also note down two more parameters RPM and MP. So with the help
of RPM and manifold pressure you will get BHP right.

(Refer Slide Time: 15:39)

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So we know rate of climb can be,
PA − PR
R/C =
W
So if you see here so for your power required will look something like this for this V and the
HP is power available here it will be here like this so if you see the difference between these
two.

Excesspower = PA − PR

Excesspower
R/C =
W
So from here also you can see like where your excess power is maximum for that you will
get maximum rate of climb so now you can validate your result with this V∗ and this corre-
sponding rate of climb but these two may not come same will not come same because here
the reading what you have taken or during the flight so this is basically your pressure altitude.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:56)

So you have not corrected it for the density so there will be some difference but you can have
some corrective action on it so you will be able to get correct results so that is all for this
experiment. Thank you.

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(Refer Slide Time: 17:56)

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