PLT092: Weight and Balance Diagrams
What code PLT092 covers, why the FAA tests it, and how to study Weight and Balance Diagrams before your checkride.
Interpret weight and balance - diagram
What this means for your checkride
A weight and balance diagram, the loading graph and CG envelope, turns the numbers into a picture. You plot each station's weight to read its moment on the loading graph, total the weights and moments, then plot the result on the CG envelope. If the point falls inside, the airplane is within limits.
The graph is how most POHs present loading, so the FAA tests whether you can read moments off the loading graph and confirm the total falls inside the CG envelope.
Pilots read the envelope for weight only. The point must fall inside for both weight and CG together; a legal weight at an out-of-range CG still plots outside the envelope.
Where to study it
A code on your test report is an area of deficiency. An authorized instructor must review it with you and endorse that review before you take the practical test, and the examiner may revisit it during the oral. Study it until you can explain it out loud, not just recognize the answer.