That interior is legit. The Piaggio is an amazing aircraft. The performance and space is amazing. I love the look.


Mike

Hi Everyone,

I'm in the process of buying a used Evo with an AUX tank. I'll share more details after it's finalised next week. Presently, I have one concern.

BEW 8106.86 lb and CG 213.28 in.

It is out of balance standing on the apron with no fuel and terribly out of balance with full fuel. It looks like I would need 400 lbs in the copilot seat to be at the rear CG limit when taking off single pilot with full tanks.

What do you recommend? How much ballast can be added to the nose? Under the pilot seat? In the cabin? Sometimes I'll be flying with family, and then the CG looks OK. With permanent ballast, I may not be able to take everyone. Would you rather exceed MTOM or the CG? What is the limiting factor when establishing the maximum rear bias during certification?

Also, how do you prevent your planes from tripping when parked? I've seen a damage report on one plane that tripped in a storm. Structural analysis of the tail, rear bulkhead and a damaged propeller. Serious stuff.

All suggestions are appreciated.

Person I know w Evo took a small ladder, wrapped top in foam, and wedges under tail when parked to keep from tipping.

He assured me he is ‘always’ within CG too…

When I redid my panel I had 200lbs of lead put in nose. It’s easy to add 200 lbs in lead shot bags under pilot and co pilot seats and around step into cockpit.

I fly solo a lot and this setup works well. If I had to add more ballast I would just line the first few feet of aisle with the weight. Given the cabin is a foot bigger than a Citation losing 2” of height where no one stands anyway is not a big deal

I actually thought about having a ‘flat floor’ carpeted box made to put in the aisle to hide everything.

I have been told you can get a bunch of weight under the divan as well.

Hi Tomasz,
That is definitely a substantially aft CG, the most I have seen. I feel mine is a bit too far aft and my BEW is 8116 and CG 210.99. With the EVO I assume you have the PL21, which may limit the amount of space you have in the nose (the Garmin installs in the Avanti I remove a lot of nose avionics).

Here are things I would check:
- Piaggio sold a weight kit that could be added to the tail cone to move the CG aft. The kit included a small placard that would go on the pilot instrument panel to the effect ballast was added. If you have such a placard, that’s a good hint you may have weights in the tail cone. Easy to visually check by glancing at the panel.
- Even if you don’t have the placard, I would check for weights in the tail. You can see them by removing the aft-most fairing on the LH side of the airplane at the base of the vertical stabilizer, it’s maybe 15 or 20 screws at most. Well worth the look.
- obviously if you have such weights, remove them.
- Regardless of whether you find aft ballast installed (and after removing it if you find it), I would get the airplane carefully and correctly weighed before I added any ballast. That means weighed with fuel emptied, ensure the plane is leveled per the maintenance manual procedure. It is pretty easy and common to have weighing errors in aircraft, especially those that were ever weighed with full fuel. It is a pain to defuel, so often they get weighed with full fuel and the attendant errors.

If you do those things and verify the CG really is that far aft, these wakeboarding ballast bags are easy to work with. I keep one under each pilot seat. If I need more (full fuel), up to 4 of them can fit under the side couch behind the copilot, if that’s the interior you have, or as Anthony said, they can sit in the aisle.

If my CG was as far aft as yours, I would also try to get at least 50 lbs as far forward in the nose as possible, perhaps structurally mounted on the forward wing area. Here is a bracket they were building to add ballast to an airplane at IJSC in Tulsa when I happened to be there this summer for example. This was an Avanti I.

Person I know w Evo took a small ladder, wrapped top in foam, and wedges under tail when parked to keep from tipping.

He assured me he is ‘always’ within CG too…

When I redid my panel I had 200lbs of lead put in nose. It’s easy to add 200 lbs in lead shot bags under pilot and co pilot seats and around step into cockpit.

I fly solo a lot and this setup works well. If I had to add more ballast I would just line the first few feet of aisle with the weight. Given the cabin is a foot bigger than a Citation losing 2” of height where no one stands anyway is not a big deal

I actually thought about having a ‘flat floor’ carpeted box made to put in the aisle to hide everything.

I have been told you can get a bunch of weight under the divan as well.

Before you do anything, get it weighed properly.

W&B often have serious errors. Don't trust the paperwork, especially if you are outside the norm for the type.

Make sure you have a problem that needs solving.

Mike C.

Did some video the other day on the way back from maintenance.

Here is a quick one that came out decent https://youtu.be/hNzRDDXw7uI?feature=shared

The others will take some post processing

Amazing footage! How slow were you? I can see flaps out.

Great footage Matt - really cool to see your striking bird in flight….

Hands down the best looking GA plane in flight. So cool.

Funny thing is some people don't think so. Last trip I took in Raghu's plane, one fellow came along (also a pilot) and although super-impressed with the aircraft, he thought it was dead ugly. "Love the aircraft, but I don't think I could ever get over the looks of it", he said.



Horses for courses, I suppose.

Funny thing is some people don't think so. Last trip I took in Raghu's plane, one fellow came along (also a pilot) and although super-impressed with the aircraft, he thought it was dead ugly. "Love the aircraft, but I don't think I could ever get over the looks of it", he said.



Horses for courses, I suppose.

Was a topic earlier, and while I was picking up my plane from maintenance ( new steel brakes finally came in ), was able to look at 6 others that were passing through as well. Here are some pictures from an Avanti I solving for the CG..

Weights in nose - https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ADCreHc9E7bVR_aIaKi_PFWB-Dd6FXIKnKh_KYsVwbLdnZoC4YezYn8jnICY_dYF5pX6kBL1Qk_YwR9K9akJn2ADDDvH2D13VZ5yNvu-fZOWsHALG2hjMSE2ujkzH_6rDvuIIwbTpFPRC61ibRHlkiWL8hGSs0MiSOtSYZzxaFdOvvaz0qFphf3rt6gW5GRB5FbRR_9elsd34A9B0zBg5k4jhvJXS1Oa5xTLDCwoUHaP0MWXA80SPkq6oe00xwxMsS_PYlWYbaQG93oTmVXe8ToSBuzex2JhOhUESb_jOFlLqDKdlmlyhV99vZlP96oa7IKtkaSPedw_5J-ZJ77yOcWGYvgl3NihsRMTnAWSf3f3KAR3u6V9_MwlKX4VwEkHHd5fA5_dX-mMXZJMP6AhpGmCY5j8rQsW4E0SsCEX_TGk_y7Dj8EvOVsGHazamlanSqP18vyRIY4LLwX4TaroN8O-cBvu_OzYBFMNF8cR0B1x6uElBxgTW-jMjE_q_0bOzYkY8eL9jcGxvj_lWm2MUYpQtSTe621ikWlareVpeaE9vXlrkpcv4n0SAQvCjegA0oE5IemrREiiXmRfLDuXSAosyft74cqr5O2f3er9uufBuLlKfJWIjeukc-gX_6eifSRw5sHnDqNtPcRzn4BB2N2-vUNw7g2Tio9tdoWAyaSSMHkNfeNFo0KGjA57BYEB7Um8rAaLz9jq0JfLQ1kd0R1pMNUmbiWzoyYI3NI_j8ekAFASg3tIZmC0Gp-Kek9eDG-tDBuhCaUhYTvb6wKt55AEqQ42W9ixGMo6Mbduu3hZPOEu8Hl6ngzVwnl4kFfkhd_lgTLE9qeWrjfsyH7lgotva2RErTN0_f6VPiUTehvtijHkOtjQoSqBl_eHkzQTcqKM6AMbeKOseUO-aGZ0IeBxVFc=w940-h1254-s-no-gm?authuser=0

Bag Weights for under co-pilot seat - https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ADCreHfoDLwdvTZeIVb2d8kgo0zjAW3DBM4ByEbneKbWMyrLzsqJjnNnjJRTBTUL18us0PIr18j-6rcCqJFE5bGebYXB9AYiONNEYXRbS9j9bgbtto3kLx8y4sM8NMJ76tHcaMCGO5CAJIc8xHMLYpRzhl3I4R-cWpBMuNcC_qsXqSvCANb9Xmus6C4XOJpWT5RlGX1dlop_cgjyTsEOuhdYVSyiHBBIlR-7fnxuVvzvN_q8e6-UOyhbbqdmYnYVbMZ3W-ewze90XH3MPRDNAYq9Arb2jS9RMoDqxlYWd78kD5G4gZ6DLmHlZM2TVQ2vkDZOVx_XtYuxF_zz57v8gOjmbzgcNAHnDZu3iYTHzIeJdMAye8zpiAIC8vYa-IB4dCFRytnpA4Inol7HGq3W1SyfQPODeZOSd6O6wqXxzAs5QJaazzi7bJFm6FtNzWY16zytv-3UtnXZWQlxsoc9ia9M5MkbVs-QBFrK_bbNdu-WGgH4bY3go4XtABMdGLUKz1Hs4ZKqejSGHgEHAhNTHwhXS0jkoVsFst-TbNd5bgmEAzmE72_NOGM0Di_OOGV2Ze5eO-NHtStIShdAh50XzhEgEkG1zXgbQbw8YrZpC-Wvl3lEkmrkdxz-v76y_H8JpxnzexiGXyKJTeWbyxwoYpgMp5807cCrJE1MgQa5DgdVeyDtNOCW99bm1KHjQr1NJf0c3qLBFATLTQu4TrTpT3t1Bkfn7EuFa7wphgOxsnqM-8hlyRoMYM2p1CLsADP4RDVoEblwakO4Bx0xfsL5Ra0-oKiUUhwAv0sgK5kwCaxm0pkmrbLXjhwWDDJF0IxGYe19PO_hpaA9meoovsd061h5lkxtjxo-YmOaoeHCq9qrHm-tBM_Cvh5q2rhnh5u4cHAEhprOroaXWUAWK9UV9kJD1Y0=w1671-h1254-s-no-gm?authuser=0

No need to use the URL tags (which i removed here from your above post) when posting a link, it also then gets shortened automatically.
You can also edit your post, to make corrections that include currently having to scroll left & right.
The 'preview' button/box (rather than post) is handy for checking the effect of changes.

FWIW, all 4 of those bags can fit under the couch by simply removing the beige cover that’s just visible in that photo, mine is just Velcro’d, and sliding them under. Takes a little careful positioning but doable. Then no one trips on them or even sees them. Harder to get in and out if you’re doing it frequently though.