Hmmm, is a "big strapper" a good thing or a bad thing?????

I've been semi-lurking the last couple of days. I'm playing "hired gun" in another forum this weekend.

So if I understand the question he wants to know if he should balance with the wheels up or down. I think it was said earlier but from what I understand he has retracts that have a fore-aft motion, meaning they fold up to the rear (Dave correct me if this is wrong). If that is the case then you need to understand what happens when you fold the landing gear up. Look at the attached drawing for this. With the landing gear down the main portion of the weight (the wheel) hangs straight down from the wing, but when you retract the gear that large weight shifts further back on the wing. Therefore the CG of the plane should shift backwards. If you balance the plane with the wheels down then the plane will become tail heavy when you lift the gear up, and since you will be doing most of your flying with the wheels up this probably isn't something you want to do. But instead, if you balance with the wheels up the CG of the plane will shift forward when you drop the gear making the plane nose heavy. A nose heave plane is always better to have. Remember the saying "A nose heavy plane flies poorly, a tail heavy plane flies once!"

So to sum all of that up quick and easy, you want to balance your plane with the landing gear up.

Hope this helps

Ken