Hi Wally
My instructor did teach me to do it the manual way to understand exactly
what it was about . We did it numerous times using the r22 robbo manual
using the arms and calcs.So i did experience what you were advising , i was
just surprised to see it early on in my relatively early flying career . It
is something that i will pay alot of attention too .
cheers
Ben
"Walter Hawn" wrote in message
...
You need to learn to do weight and balance for yourself- without a
computer.
It's really very simple and painless using a calculator and/or pencil and
paper. The flight manual will have aircraft w&b, and then sum whats added
to
that for weight, and moments to the aircraft moment, divide by total
weight.
In the way back old days, I'd expect a student (or any pilot) to do one
longhand-manual calculations on paper. If you can't do this, you don't
understand W&B and you're an accident waiting to happen- Sorta like
relying
on a box to navigate for you-you're lost and don't know it until the box
dies...
Many flight manuals have charts that you move thru to compute approximate
w&b. In the end, if it's close you gotta compute it yourself. This is
especially true if you haven't the experience to know the danger zones.
Once
you know them, mostly it's load to gross and go.

And yes indeed, you can load a helo out of w&b... Weight's usually a
lesser
problem, unless your next landing is at a markedly higher altitude,
because
if you're too heavy, the bird won't aviate in power limits. Sometimes, not
at all.
The balance part is very dangerous- you have to be in flight to discover
you're out of control authority if you haven't computed it. The balance
might be off aft, forward or even sideways, limiting control authority-
you
can't stop the translation. It can affect yaw as well- that's affected by
control arm length, tail rotor from CG- I've never experienced it. Once
free
of the ground's restraint, and in flight, you're committed, it's a
question
of survival. Another very good reason for gradual liftoffs- if you hit a
control stop before the bird starts moving, you can put the weight back on
the ground and figure out what happened before an accident investigation.

Some helos can, normally loaded, move out of CG with fuel burn. It's
useful
to go thru and compute worst case scenarios and know where the potential
danger is if you're not using a load chart scheme.
Wally