C-47 load adjuster booklet

[Guest altack]

Hi Guys,I recently got a load adjuster for the C-47/R4D (a slide rule dealing with the weight & balance of the aircraft) and I would appreciate to get a scan of the booklet of the load adjuster instruction that comes with the airplane. So far I have only the "Weight & Balance" chapter of the PTM as a guide but I am looking for further details about the operation of this slide rule.Thank you in advance,altack

[rambow 0]

Hi Altack,Comes with the airplane? Sorry, I don't personally know of such a booklet. I will ask Russ about this next time I go to the museum. Tell me, does the adjuster look like the one hanging on the pilot's aft bulkhead in our R4D and hanging on the radio rack behind the pilot's head in Briefing Time?Bill Rambow MAAM-SIM - Rambow, Visser, Banting, Young, Womack, Sodja & Beaumonthttp://www.fssupport.com/maam_sim/maamsim_logo.gif

[Guest altack]

Hi Bill,yes that's exactly what I am talking about. That's the slide rule in the leather cases hanging behind the pilot's head in the B-25. According to the PTM (W&B section) there should be a booklet always on board coming along the load adjuster. Perhaps it is with the F/E manual ???Regards,Francois

[rambow 0]

OK, Francois. I'll probably be going up to MAAM later this month, so I'll see what I can find. Bill Rambow MAAM-SIM - Rambow, Visser, Banting, Young, Womack, Sodja & Beaumonthttp://www.fssupport.com/maam_sim/maamsim_logo.gif

[Guest altack]

Great ! I checked in other forums but alas to no avail.By the way I received the BT cd-roms and I appreciate it very much. If you are happy with my previous work I can give a try on this manual...

[rambow 0]

Silly question - I'm delighted by your work and would love to see BT get the Mavel transformation. :-) Let me know what you need.In case anyone is in doubt about what we are talking about, Francois is the translator par excellance of the French Edition of the R4D/DC-3 User's Manual. There have been well over 500 downloads, so far, and that means that many happy French speaking MAAM-SIM customers. If there are any other volunteers who would like to translate our documents into other languages - Spanish, German, and Dutch come immediately to mind, just going by the nationalities on the address labels I make, but any langauge would certainly be welcome. We would be delighted to have them and post them on the MAAM-SIM webpages and upload to the major sites, where appropriate. Bill Rambow MAAM-SIM - Rambow, Visser, Banting, Young, Womack, Sodja & Beaumonthttp://www.fssupport.com/maam_sim/maamsim_logo.gif

[jchpa32 0]

I'd like to see any materials you folks may find on the load adjuster, I have one that I inherited from my Grandfather for the B-17G, complete with case, but no manual. And I'm too dumb to figure out how to use it. Maybe I can extrapolate from other manuals.He had one for the B-24 as well, but it apparently got 'liberated' during all the madness after his death.

[rambow 0]

Just got off the phone with MAAM President Russ Strine. No joy, gents. Russ has never seen a set of instructions for a load adjuster, either. He has been told they were printed on very thin paper, folded to fit in the case, which caused them to become tattered and torn by the instrument or easily lost in use. So, if anyone ever does come across a copy of this rare doc, we would like to get one, too.Bill Rambow MAAM-SIM - Rambow, Visser, Banting, Young, Womack, Sodja & Beaumonthttp://www.fssupport.com/maam_sim/maamsim_logo.gif

[Guest kennethg]

I have an answer for you. It's from a reprint of a B-25 manual I bought years ago and it details a step-by-step procedure for using a load adjustor. Basically, all a load adjustor is a slide rule that does addition and subtraction of a moment arm to determine the position of the Center Of Gravity of a plane.According to the manual I have, each load adjustor was assigned to an individual airplane by serial number. Start by setting the indicator (the slider with the hairline) to the index number found on the bottom frame of the adjustor. That sets the empty center of gravity of the plane. The slider (the long piece that moves under the indicator) has different scales that represent the loads that can be carried at different parts of the airplane. To use it during pre-flight planning, move the slider so the zero load of the desired compartment is under the hairline of the indicator. Move the indicator to the desired load as indicated on the scale of the slider (say 200 lbs for a crewmember).This moves the indicator either towards the Nose Heavy or Tail Heavy end of the slide rule. Continue to load the aircraft by positioning the zero of each compartment on the slider underneath the indicator's hairline, then moving the indicator to the desired load in each compartment. Be care not to let the indicator move while repositioning the slider, or else all your calculations will be thrown off.When all the loads are completed, the indicator's hairline will either be in the red Nose Heavy or Tail Heavy zones, or in the white, safe zones. If it's in a red zone, the aircraft's Center of Gravity is outside the safe zone and the load must be re-adjusted. Obviously, a white zone result is in the safe CG zone.The advantage of a load adjustor is that 1. it's a graphical way of doing what can be an involved mathematical excercise and 2. allows quick readjusting if the load changes. To readjust, simply remember the final index number you got at the beginning of the flight, position the indicator there, position the slider so the old load of the compartment in question is under the hairline and move the indicator to adjust the load.The only thing this device doesn't track for you is the gross weight, it only keeps track of the CG position. When using it, you still have to keep an eye on your total weight, since you can load up over the gross weight of the plane and still have a safe CG position.I'll look into copying the pages out of my manual, but it's an gluebound book that I bought way back in 1978 and it's kinda falling apart. It's also going to be tough because a lot of instructions are in black-and-white pictures that are hard to copy. I've always wanted to visit PA and MAAM. I'll talk my wife into a PA vacation and when I get back there I'll be sure to bring the manual with me!Ken G. in CA P.S. Sorry for the long post!!!

[Guest altack]

Hi Guys,thanks for your thorough answer ! That's basically what you can find in the C-47 PTM with an exemple (a tutorial we should say nowadays...). I am still looking for the booklet Russ told you about because there are several other indications on the load adjuster I want to understand (i.e: the figures on the back of the sliding stick). When I get one of these I let you know.Again, thanks for your time and efforts.Francois

[Guest kennethg]

>Hi Guys,>>I am still looking for the booklet Russ told you about because there are several other >indications on the load adjuster I want to understand (i.e: the figures on the back of the sliding stick). >FrancoisGood question: I just found my own adjustor which I bought recently at a militaria show. It's from a Douglas A-20 Havoc and it, too, has a bunch of numbers arranged on two scales on the back of the slider, with one titled BASIC WEIGHT and the other MOMENT/1000. After playing with it for a few minutes, I've deduced that it's used to calculate the starting index number for use with the adjuster, using the aircraft's empty (or basic) weight and moment arm as measured by the mechanic on the ground. This is a process that should be done whenever equipment of significant weight was added or removed. I learned how to do this as part of getting my A&P certificate and it's quite a complex subject, well beyond the scope of a BBS post (unless you guys really want a weight and balance essay here, which I doubt). If you're interested in how and why it works, I'd suggest going to either a pilot shop or the bookstore of a college with an Aircraft Mechanic's (aka Aviation Technology) program and buying a General A&P textbook OR I could directly email you with a description. The textbook won't give you exactly how the adjuster works, but it'll give you enough of the theroy that you should be able to deduce how to work it. :)Good luck! I'll keep my eyes open for a adjuster's booklet, but in 20 years of pawing through all the aviation books I see, I've never seen one.

[Guest altack]

Hi,while googling "load adjuster" I just found that manual:http://137.240.249.5/tild/to/11b50.pdfThe tenth chapter is interesting.Regards,Francois

[Guest kennethg]

Thanks for the link, interesting reading! You'll get the same thing from a civilian A&P Mechanic's General textbook, without all the Technical Order (TO) references and a lot more simplified. However, the technique described is exactly the same and this has a wealth of knowledge regarding all the gadgets and tricks.Neat find, thank you very much for posting the link!

[Guest altack]

You're welcome !regarding the back side of the slip stick you need to know first the basic weight and the basic moment of the aircraft in order to compute the basic index. I have a question for the R4D guru here, do we know from the aircraft.cfg file the basic moment ?I fond this line in the R4D aircraft.cfg : empty_weight_CG_position=-4.0,0.0,0.0does the -4.0 stand for meters, feet or an FS internal value ?regards,Francois