Dylan Smith wrote:


Tiedown attached
----------------
AS A BEECH C23 Sundowner took off from Aldergrove, ATC saw an object
dangling from the tail. It was a car tyre filled witih concrete which
has been used as a tie down. The pilot landed safely after a normal
circuit.
During the pre-flight inspection, the pilot had removed tie-down weights
attached to the wings, but hadn't noticed the weight attached to the
tail.

I have to imagine the flight characteristics of a Sundowner with 50lbs
of concrete hanging off the tail had to be 'squirrely'!


I saw this on the Beech Aero Club site a while back.

Any Sundowner owner will tell you that it's almost impossible to make
her tail heavy. With myself (240) and my co-owner (180), we fly with 65
pounds in the baggage compartment, and still have a CG slightly forward
of published limits, that comes into limits as we burn fuel. With a
480-500 lb front row, we fly with 135 pounds of ballast in the baggage
compartment to balance.

That tire may have helped! G