Dan, Just curious, what did you mean by " I determined it to be un-safe at that point and for now have set the Gross Weight at 1145# which puts the CG at almost 1" aft of center." Was it really pitch sensitive or squirrelly or what was it that made you decide it was unsafe? I wouldn't think your plane should be any different that other KRs as far as CG range goes. The easy and most accurate way to determine where the CG is with full fuel in the landing configuration (three point landing angle of attack) is to roll it up on the scales without raising the tail as we usually would. It might be a good time to revisit actual CG verification, if it's been a while since you did that. Since most folks wheel land the KR though, I wouldn't expect it to change much during landing though. My wing tanks (all 24 gallons of them) extend full width of the distance between the main and aft spar, and I haven't noticed a difference...and I three point the thing just about every landing....worst case from a CG standpoint, if there is one. Of course I don't usually land it at full gross weight either, but I've done it on occasion.
For those who haven't seen it, I can verify that flying with a truly aft CG isn't just inconvenient, it's the quick way to kill yourself. See http://www.n56ml.com/wb/index.html for that story, as well as how to do a weight and balance (link to spreadsheet included). This is serious business... Mark Langford ML at N56ML.com website at http://www.N56ML.com --------------------------------------------------------
