Piper Archer (PA-28-181) Weight & Balance Calculator

Through the stabilator's authority against CG position: aft loadings (rear passengers plus that generous 200-lb baggage shelf at arm 142.8) reduce stick-force gradients and static stability — the aircraft feels lighter in pitch, trims differently, and flares with less effort, which is pleasant right up to the aft limit and unairworthy past it. Forward-heavy loadings do the reverse. Run YOUR aircraft's numbers (sample values here are placeholders for the POH and weighing record) and check both ends of the flight: takeoff and landing CG after fuel burn.

So the arithmetic demonstrates correctly before you customise it — but the samples are typical published Piper PA-28-181 Archer values, NOT your aircraft: empty weight and arm differ per serial (every repair, avionics change and repaint moves them), and the legally controlling figures are your aircraft's current weighing record and POH limits. Treat the first edit — replacing the empty-aircraft row — as part of using the tool, and keep the page with your real numbers in your flight bag.

Yes — fuel burn moves the CG (toward wherever the tanks aren't), and several types are takeoff-legal but landing-illegal on the same flight plan. The two-minute habit: compute takeoff CG, then zero (or reduce) the fuel row and read the landing CG. If either end sits near a limit, the loading needs rethinking before engine start, not in the flare.

No account and no connection are needed once the page has loaded — records live in local storage on your device and every calculation runs in your browser. Data doesn't sync between devices, so export the CSV when you want to move or archive your records.

A plain CSV with one row per entry and labelled column headers — the most portable format there is. Spreadsheets open it directly, most specialised software can map it on import, and a printed copy is perfectly legible to a human reviewer. Nothing proprietary means your load sheet is never trapped here.