Aviation-related question for the pilots on my friends list.

[randomness]

This is kind of a basic question, but I thought I'd ask, because I can't find it in the reference I'm looking at.

I'm doing some calculations of wing loading and power loading for various aircraft. However, there's an important question: what weight do I use when I calculate it?

I've found a definition which says that wing loading is calculated with the loaded weight of the aircraft. However, it's from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_loading), so I thought I'd check around. :)

The corresponding definition for power loading (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_loading) is much more general and doesn't discuss which weight is used. It would make sense if it were calculated with loaded weight, but I choose to assume nothing.

Anyway, thanks for any light you might be able to shed on this topic.

Comments

[frotz.livejournal.com]

Using max gross takeoff weight is the usual. If you're calculating something which is relevant to a specific scenario, using actual or expected operating weight is apppropriate (for example, wing loading in the landing configuration in transport-category aircraft is an interesting number and will be based on max landing weight, which is often way below max takeoff weight), but if the numbers are being tossed around in isolation they'll be based on max gross weight (at takeoff if applicable).