ORIGINAL: n233w
Actually, maybe i will ask a question or two about weight: If EP has to weigh with a battery why doesn't GP have to account for fuel somehow? Yes, I know it's volatile/messy/problematic to account for if you have to fill the tank for the weigh-in, but there could be a standard fuel weight based on engine size added to the total aircraft weight get around those logistics issues. Would doing so address burtona's suggestion about ''...weight disparity...'' without the radical step of throwing out the rule?
Bill
Bill,
This has been debated for many years with reasonable arguments presented by both camps.
About the only argument one may use for weighing empty, with no gas/glow fuel, is the fact that the fuel gets burned off. Can't say that with batteries....
One may consider the average weight of fuel (or around half the weight originally filling any tank) as an added weight to gas/glow planes for the sole purpose of assessing regality. It would be a contrived number. If we ever got to this, there are ways to get around most of the gas/glow fuel weight anyway. In truth, even the thirsty YS170-175's using the densest of fuels we use, 30% nitro, only use around 8 ozs of fuel for a competition flight. So out come the 20+ oz tanks and in go the 10ozs or maybe less. And in my case, I'd use a 6 oz tank since I fly gasoline (which is at the lowest density of any liquid fuel we currently use).
It gets messy.... you will wind up having to manage the different fuel densities people use and account accordingly, making things more complex rather than less.
So in the worst case and assuming half fule weight is adopted, those that run the YS with 30% nitro, will add maybe 3-4 ozs to their empty weight, and someone like me, would add around 2 ozs to my empty weight. Yes it's a disparity but in my view a really minor one