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4 Answers

Where do I find the empty aircraft ARM?

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General Aviation

I am a commercial pilot, but haven't flown in 3 years. I am preparing for my BFR in about a month and I am currently reviewing weight and balance. For the life of me I cannot find the ARM of the empty weight of the airplane. I have looked all over the POH, but I can't find it anywhere (its driving me crazy). I might be answering my own question here, but I seem to remember that it is in the owner's manual for the specific airplane I will be using and I just don't have access to it until I get to the plane.

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4 Answers



  1. Gary Moore on Aug 17, 2010

    It ‘should’ be in the Weight and Balance section (section 6) of the POH…depending on the year of the plane. I don’t think POH’s became regulated until sometime in the 70’s (but i’m not sure the date) – so POH before that time were essentially marketing brochures..

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  2. Brian on Aug 17, 2010

    “For the life of me I cannot find the ARM of the empty weight of the airplane.”

    That is because it is a useless piece of information. 🙂

    You’re right though, it will be on the W&B sheet for the specific aircraft. Off the top of my head, and without a POH handy, I cannot recall if it is regularly posted in the distributed (non-aircraft specific) POH.

    You can always find it though, right?

    Moment = Arm x Weight — Thus:

    Arm = Moment / Weight (If you don’t understand how I manipulated this formula to solve for Arm, say so and I’ll elaborate.)

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  3. Thomas Vaillencourt on Aug 25, 2010

    While empty ARM may not always be listed in POH W&B, the Basic Empty weight and Basic Moment are. Just devide Basic Moment by BEW, and you have the ARM.
    as stated above though this information is useless as you will never have to fly it this way. Its only use is to the A&P mechanic, and if you were generating limitations for a W&B calculator application.

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  4. John dixon on Jan 16, 2014

    It is not a useless piece of info it needs to be known to the pilot as the balance point of the plane so he knows how to load his plane so stall speed isn’t increased. Take offs and landings are precise and not hard on the aircraft, overtime this could payoff buy seating or loading along the balance point best as possible, there’s a reason the FAA wanted the a and p mech to give it to is.

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