Electronic Centre of Gravity Calculator

[Sam Rutherford]

Does such a thing exist? I have seen software for PDA's which claims to be able to do this, but wondered if there was a standalone machine? Obviously there would have to be a way of inputting a specific aircraft's COG variations post manufacture.

Just wondered, it would be a nice gadget to have!

Sam.

[S-Works]

ASA CX-2 Flight Computer

It is an E6B as well.

[18greens]

Are there any CE compatible phones or PDAs that would accept a spreadsheet?

You could map your cofg calcs into the ss and read off the results. Which phone though.

I read once if its in your phone you'll use it. If its in another box you won't carry it.

[IO540]

Most PDAs run Pocket/pc, a.k.a. Windows Mobile.

This comes with a cut-down version of Excel, and there are various aviation programs for it, many of them free.

I use an HP4700 PDA with a paid-for prog called Flightcalc. Like nearly all of them it is US-centric but one wouldn't use it for flight planning. It does all the calculations and does a nice graphical W&B display.

The only problem with PDAs used infrequently is that quite often the battery is found to have gone flat....

[S-Works]

You know I have had my CX-2 for five years and it still has the original batteries in it working perfectly!!

[draccent]

Pencil and paper typically work pretty well.

[IO540]

The CX-2 should do the job but according to its manual (http://www.asa2fly.com/files/support/cx_2_manual.pdf) it does not do a graphical W&B graph, which I find is nice to have and very instructive.

I guess that phones will be increasingly used for this function. They are getting more clever, can run applications, and everybody makes sure it stays charged all the time. This is why the PDA business is shrinking rapidly.

[Fright Level]

I searched the web, found a graphical Excel sheet for a TB20 and converted the sums to metric, modified it with the correct limits and envelope, hey presto, a graphical representation plus little "if greater than" alarms if I go overweight or out of the w&b envelope.

The 172 I fly has simpler limits, mostly MTOW and so I made up a little postcard size "manual loadsheet" and do the calcs on in a couple of minutes with a little "x" on the w&b graph beneath.

[PompeyPaul]

Does anybody recommend anything electrical ? I just bought the ASA CX-2 and it's really cool apart from the fact that pressure is all inches of mercury, rather than millibars.

Is there a more european centric version available ? Or anything that people recommend ?

[PompeyPaul]

Thanks G-EMMA that's what I've been doing until now. I would like though to be able to see when I hit enter, and get the value, that what I typed in looks sane. It's no biggie, but it's just mearly frustrating.

I'm using more for drift calcs anyway, so it's fine for that.

[PompeyPaul]

Someone is missing a big market for UK orientated pilot stuff in my opinion
Doesn't the whole of Europe fly with pressure in mb though ? Come to think of it, when I was in Canada it was kpascal which I believe is sort of mb. So really, it's only the US that flies "inches of mercury" ?

[philipnz]

Garmin 296 has a weight and balance calculator function.