by An Ol Timer » Wed Apr 26, 2006 1:33 pm
I'd like to bring up a couple of points about trailer weight and balance (W &B) and axle placement. First of all you can worry about the W & B thing if you are into the aesthetics of bigger wheels, different axles and their placement or where you want your doors placed, but the average new teardropper can just go with the purchased trailer as bought. It was designed to carry it's gross when properly positioned and therefore if you build and LOAD your teardrop properly it will do just fine.
I'm surprised that some of the pilots on the forum haven't already discussed the W & B theories as related to teardrops. First just because you setup your tear during construction and use a W & B formula it doesn't mean much after that.
An aircraft is designed and built using the formula to maintain a center of gravity. The center moves fore and aft, but has to stay within a small envelope for the craft to be flyable. (forget any fly-by-wire, etc) After the initial design is accepted, and the craft is built, then the whole thing is set. Now at any future time that any additional equipment is added to the craft a new W & B has to be done.
Now each time that you fly the craft it has to have another W & B done for each passenger and anything else brought aboard.
With your tear it will have a W & B deciding on where you placed it's axle and how you distributed the weight as you built it. Now it needs to be reevaluated as you place permanent things aboard it such as TVs, microwaves, etc. Now it's finally done.
Then you're gonna go camping so you start loading it with water, ice chests loaded with drinks and ice, clothing, etc. These should be placed to maintain your center of balance or in case of a tear your tongue weight.
Now if all this seems too much, your not alone, and if you're into building a tear for fun and camping, then don't worry about all this crap, just build it. Keep it below gross weight and shuffle things around to maintain a decent tongue weight.