Marcware Weight and Balance
Marcware Weight and Balance is a free application for the Pocket PC that performs Weight and Balance calculations for light General Aviation airplanes.
Download Marcware Weight and Balance
Capabilities
The program provides the following features:
- Multiple Airplane Profiles
- Calculation of the Takeoff, Landing, and Zero-Fuel Weight
- Calculation of the Takeoff, Landing, and Zero-Fuel Center of Gravity (CG)
- Graphical CG Envelope
- Warnings when the Weight or CG is out of the specified limits
- Fuel Calculator to convert US Gallons to Pounds
Limitations
It currently has the following limitations:
- The Fuel Calculator only supports conversion of US Gallons to Pounds.
- Entry of station moments is not supported.
- The Takeoff, Landing, and Empty Fuel stations are assumed to be at the same arm (no sliding fuel moment).
- It does not ship with a database of airplane profiles. You have to create your own from your airplane's POH
Usage
To create a new airplane profile and calculate the weight and balance:
- Click the "New" button from the Airplanes list to create a new profile.
- Enter the Tail Number of the airplane.
- Click the "Limits" button.
- Using the Weight and Balance chart in the Pilots Operating Handbook (POH), enter a Weight and Arm value for each point (vertex) on the chart. The "CG Envelope" will be drawn as you enter the points. When you are done entering points, the CG Envelope should look the same as the chart in the POH. The "Max Weight" will default to the greatest of all the weights entered, but you can provide a greater weight. Click OK when you are done entering limits.
- Enter the Basic Empty Weight and Arm.
- Enter the Takeoff Fuel Weight and Arm.
- Click on the Fuel drop-down and select "Landing Fuel". Enter the Landing Fuel Weight. The Fuel station only has one arm value, so changing the arm for the Landing Fuel will change it for the Takeoff Fuel, and vice-versa (see Limitations).
- Enter the Pilot's Weight and Arm.
- Enter the remaining station names, weight, and arms.
- When you're ready to compute the weight and balance, hit the "Calc" button.
- The Weight and CG Arms will be displayed for Takeoff, Landing, and Zero-Fuel configurations. If you have entered limits for the airplane, values will be GREEN if they are in limits, and RED if they are outside of the limits. The CG Envelope will be displayed, and the Takeoff, Landing, and Zero-Fuel points will be plotted on the graph. If a point is inside of the graph, it is within limits, and if it is outside of the graph, it is outside of the limits.
- Click OK when you are done
As an alternative to steps 6 and 7, you can use the Fuel Calculator.
- Click the Fuel button
- Enter the Takeoff Gallons (US)
- Enter the Gallons Consumed (US), which is the quantity of fuel consume en route.
