In article 4aYfb.8917$La.749@fed1read02,
BTIZ wrote:
- On tow you won't be able to trim off the forward pressure

very true..


Before we re-covered it and pulled many pounds of dried mud out
of the tail, our 2-33 was much more tail heavy than the
many years old official weight and balance. I suspect our
case was not unique.

I now always put 20 pounds in the ballast holder up front if
the front seat passenger weighs less than 200 pounds. This has
really helped reduce the need for forward stick pressure when
flying from the back. It also makes the glider more stable
and a bit difficult to stall. Finally, it eliminated the
annoying tendency I had as a student of starting tow with
full elevator and then once tugged a little, having the tail
bang down and not have enough forward authority to get
the nose back down for a while. This takeoff porpise was
not a personal favorite.

I had considered it would be easy to do an amateur W&B check
by just using the wheel as a lever, and balancing a front
occupant(in the seat) with some weights/water on the tail.
Since I know what I weigh, if I measured to the horiz stab
and the wheel, and did a little algebra, I could find the
right amount of water to put in jugs to balance it based on
the official W&B. If I did this and it was still tail or
nose heavy, I'd know the W&B was off.

Having had problems myself, and having Mary Campbell's
(Soar Hawaii) story of a near fatal spin in a glider
with a twenty year old W&B, I am apt to check the accuracy
of W&B in any new aircraft I fly. I wouldn't suggest formally
doing this, however. My 172 gained over 100 pounds by my
A&Ps calculations, and a local rental cessna 150 became a
one-seater this way.

Mark Boyd