A Lieberman wrote:

My thoughts were that I would be burning off 120 pounds of fuel, so the CG
would shift gradually back. I didn't want to be far aft CG if my flight
went much longer, and as it turned out, it was 2 1/4 hours.


Study your POH for the forward limit. At lighter gross weights, it
moves substantially forward. For a real shocker, look at the limits in
Utility and Acrobatic category.


Bottom line is you are correct, in that flight, I should have figured both
the take off CG and landing CG to ensure that the W&B truly balanced.

That envelop for W&B in my Sundowner is a very narrow window.

Not true on ours (a '76 C23-180). It's very difficult, in fact nearly
impossible with full fuel and a typical male pilot, to make that plane
tail heavy and still be under max gross. Only the forward limit is a
pain. That plane LOVES rear seat pax.

On our own, we've flown ours out of limits forward. It still rotates
well off the runway, trims out nice, recovers from stalls, and handles
well. The real effect is stabilator authority in slow flight, which
could cause a pilot to run out of flare during a landing. At a lower
gross, you need less pressure on the stabilator, hence the substantially
more forward CG limit.

I suggest always flying by your POH, this is for discussion and
educational purposes only.

Are you a BAC member? They have some incredible expertise with the
Sundowner, Sierra, Musketeer series of airplanes, including folks who
were actually there during the FAA certification processes.