G 103 Twin II weight troubles...

On Apr 5, 4:31*am, Eric van Geetsum wrote:
The Twin II of our club has an empty weight of 415 kg wich, with a *max..
permitable total mass of 580kg leaves a max. payload of only 165kg..........

Now we are trying to solve this problem because we want to ad an extra
20 kg of payload. so the payload can be increased to 185 kg

the options are to:
replace the big heavy mainwheel and tyre by new TOST or Beringer
lightweight aloy wheels
Grind down the very thick (GROB style) gelcoat to a minimum
Replace the battery for a LiPO type
Remove radio and electro sink-clim indicator incl all electrica wiring.
Remove all pollstry.


The Beringer wheel/brake/tubeless tire (forget TOST for weight
savings...), LiFePo4 battery (not LiPo) like this:
http://www.batteryspace.com/lifepo42...rweight-1.aspx
(damn shame they are out of stock on these), less/different
instruments and wiring, skimping out on the upholstery will probably
buy you ~10kg, but it'll cost a few thousand Euros to make the glider
less safe/comfortable to fly, not to mention the EASA implications...
but grinding gelcoat to shave weight?? I suppose you can have it all
(mostly all) ground off and then refinished in PU for a scant 15,000
more Euros or so... but at that point you could just sell your current
ship and as is and upgrade to one with more useful load or different
type altogether.

Besides that you have Bob's skinny instructors and jsbrakes's
helium!

-Paul