Home       Aeronca    Stinson                                                                                                               ... by John Baker

One of the keys to Stinson performance is weight control.  As we restore these old airplanes, most of us try to find the right balance between keeping our airplane's weight low and adding those "must have" goodies.   A bigger engine, a metal prop, a fancy paint job, and a panel full of avionics are nice, but they do add to the empty weight, impacting payload and performance.  On this page I will be adding information on some "real world" figures achieved by Stinson restorers as they have completed the restoration of their 108 series Stinsons.  In order to do that, please let me know what your Stinson weighs and what equipment, covering, engine, prop, and other details contribute to your empty weight figures.  Just e-mail me with your information and I'll update this page to reflect the additional information.

I found it interesting to learn recently that many aircraft have never been weighed.  Some aircraft leave the factory with just the 'calculated" weight based on a standard figure, and over the years, the weight and balance is adjusted by adding and subtracting, without the plane ever being put on the scales.  It would be instructive to see how such calculated weights compare to actual aircraft weight (using certified scales) after 60 or so years.

To start off this discussion of weight, let me quote some figures for stock, original aircraft.  The empty weight figures are from Juptner's  U.S. Civil Aircraft and are probably not "real world" figures.  The gross weight figures are normal category numbers from the type certificate, ATC #767.
 

When my aircraft, a 108-3 Station Wagon, was delivered in 1948, empty weight was listed at 1320 pounds.  When the airplane was weighed in 1988, the plane weighed 1383.4 pounds.  This included a metal prop, too many coats of paint, and a fair amount of dirt as well as a loran, transponder, encoder, and ELT.  I'll be adding other figures to the table below as I receive them.  Send in those numbers!