DA40 Max Landing Weight

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Rick
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Re: DA40 Max Landing Weight

Post by Rick »

It seems to me that a half-way decent landing with 100 lbs of "extra fuel" is going to put FAR less stress on the landing gear than many of the DA40 landings I have witnessed at the local flight school. :D
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Colin
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Re: DA40 Max Landing Weight

Post by Colin »

I agree. My first real flight in a DA40 demo plane I dropped it from six feet onto the concrete at LGB.

A month later I bought that plane.
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Lou
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Re: DA40 Max Landing Weight

Post by Lou »

I thought the certification test actually involves dropping the aircraft from a stipulated height. It has nothing to do with flight characteristics or braking. Perhaps someone else knows for certain.
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nathanda40
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Re: DA40 Max Landing Weight

Post by nathanda40 »

Rich wrote: Sun Feb 14, 2021 11:40 pm Before the MTOW/MLW change the numbers were:
MTOW: 2535 lb.
Max zero Fuel weight (irrelevant, though implicit and not reasonably attainable): 2535 lb.
MLW 2407 lb. (21.3 gal fuel burnoff required.)

After:
MTOW: 2646 lb.
Max zero Fuel weight now explicitly defined: 2535 lb.
MLW 2535 lb. (18.3 gal fuel burnoff required.)

I've flown other light aircraft where there was a difference. One example that comes to mind was a Comanche 260 with a 200 lb. difference. That had a knob on the panel you could pull to dump fuel in the air.

The guidance in the POH for above-spec landing weight amounts to "touch down gently" :D
If I may ask, any idea what the cost would be for just the MLW increase? What about both MTOW/MLW?
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Rich
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Re: DA40 Max Landing Weight

Post by Rich »

nathanda40 wrote: Tue Nov 30, 2021 9:27 pm
Rich wrote: Sun Feb 14, 2021 11:40 pm Before the MTOW/MLW change the numbers were:
MTOW: 2535 lb.
Max zero Fuel weight (irrelevant, though implicit and not reasonably attainable): 2535 lb.
MLW 2407 lb. (21.3 gal fuel burnoff required.)

After:
MTOW: 2646 lb.
Max zero Fuel weight now explicitly defined: 2535 lb.
MLW 2535 lb. (18.3 gal fuel burnoff required.)

I've flown other light aircraft where there was a difference. One example that comes to mind was a Comanche 260 with a 200 lb. difference. That had a knob on the panel you could pull to dump fuel in the air.

The guidance in the POH for above-spec landing weight amounts to "touch down gently" :D
If I may ask, any idea what the cost would be for just the MLW increase? What about both MTOW/MLW?
The lion's share was MLW, as it required replacing the two 19mm thick main landing gear legs with the 18mm. Here's the invoice, FWIW:
MTOW-MLW Invoice.jpeg
2002 DA40-180: MT, PowerFlow, 530W/430W, KAP140, ext. baggage, 1090 ES out, 2646 MTOW, 40gal., Surefly, Flightstream 210, Orion 600 LED, XeVision, Aspen E5
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Tom-B
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Re: DA40 Max Landing Weight

Post by Tom-B »

I had the same upgrade completed this summer and the all in cost was $6,600. More importantly this upgrade increased my useful load for my 2002 DA40 to 935.6 lbs.
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