Regarding earlier comment...
A tight rope walker uses a 30' balance pole, not a 2' pole. The large
moment makes everything happen slower, disruption AND correction.
Think of the stability of an arrow vs. a badmitton birdy. The birdy
always points into the wind, but any little disturbance causes it to
wiggle, like your C150 with the engine 3' from the CG, when you hit
rough air, the tail bobs around.

Regarding the fus. area in front of the CG, the Rotax engine is
smaller than the Lycoming its replacing, so you could make the cowling
smaller. And we're really only talking about 2' max on the extension.

Dave,
I think we're saying the same thing, moving a lighter weight out
further from the CG will increase the moment of inertia.



"nauga" wrote in message thlink.net...
Jay wrote:

And yes the longer moment arm will increase the time
required for spin recovery, but it will also make it a more stable IFR
platform in pitch and yaw.

Whoa there. A longer nose moment arm will _decrease_
stability, not increase it. As for spin recovery, increasing
or decreasing depends on the weight of the engine and the
moment arm (or arm^2, technically).

Dave 'sluggo' Hyde