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In a message dated 1/30/0 9:39:53 PM, you wrote:

<<It does not take a rocket scientist>>

I love this expression because, you see, I AM a rocket scientist!  Although "rocket science" is actually very cookbook, we don't want the world to know how simple it is, or they wouldn't pay us so much and we couldn't afford Lancairs!

What they mean in the manual is to record the weight at each scale, not the actual gear weight.  In other words, the weight ON the gear at each wheel.  You have a scale under each wheel, no?  The total moment equals the weight on the nose gear scale times its distance from datum, plus the weight on one main gear times its distance from datum, plus the weight on the other main gear times its distance from datum.  You get the CG location by dividing this sum by the total weight.

Note that the "inches from datum" means inches aft of datum parallel to the longitudinal axis of the airplane, and not the actual distance from your datum point to the scale.  The spanwise component of distance doesn't matter. (I think you probably already knew that.)

- Rob

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