Lead in the Nose, or as Ballast Mar 22 2017

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Pretty well every sailplane I have needed some lead in the nose to get the CG accurate. Casting lead for this purpose or for ballast can be quite easy.

Some just make a slurry of lead shot and glue. Stick on wheel weights can be bought these are 7 gram pieces, often though one finds a hollow cavity in the nose and a cast piece may be more effective.

Then of course there’s ballast, do you find your plane lagging when coming up wind or just getting blown around.

Consider adding some ballast at or slightly forward of the CG.  Make sure it’s secure with something other then a few pieces of foam, especially when there’s some mass there that has a huge Potential Energy just waiting to be released and create havoc

You won’t want to deal with that potential imbalance .

The Osprey 900 I am presently building will be able to accommodate 4  – 6 oz lead blocks and one 4 oz block. They will be anchored over the CG with a couple 6 -32 studs and wing nuts. That’s a ballast total of 28 OZ increasing the wing loading by 50% or more . Hope it stops on landing.

I will add an extra set of holes to move each piece forward 1/4 inch to get the plane a little nose heavy as well

Here’s what I did to form lead nose weight for a Falcon 880  LINK

and a LINK to a Majestic where I formed a mold from some 1/8 ” Light Ply

The important thing is take your Sailplane and fly it in all kinds of conditions and you’ll soon discover what you’ll need for Lead Nuggets that best suits your flying style 🙂

 

 

leadnugget-001

1 1/2 x 3 1/2 casting form is easily made with a piece of sofit aluminum. Just add the weight to the form and melt the pre-measured lead down

ev mo lead-001

mo lead-001

5 sticks