Can you really weigh a plane without scales using the displacement of water?

Question

You can only do this with an object that is floating in the water. And you need a pretty big tank filled to the brim and zero surface tension because a tank that big could support a lot of airoplane just with the surface tension. Archimedes law was dealing with objects that did not float. This was a method to determine the volume of gold and its purity in a crown of gold. A cubic foot of gold and a cubic foot of aluminium will both displace a cubic foot of water if immersed in a tank of water. The displaced water only measures the volume displaced. If you also know the weight of the object you can know if it is 100% gold or if it gold plated over a base metal. In the RAF they actually weigh a plane to know its weight and its centre of gravity by using lifting jacks and a load cell to measure the force at each lifting point. There is no way to weigh without a scale. But perhaps you know a way?

Answer 1

no not really, unless u completely drain the plane of fuel and oil, open all doors, etc etc, and then put it in the water, but even then no, coz the metal and other fabrics have a different weight, even if they take up the same vloume, they both weight different, so neh

Answer 2

Here are some ideas ive come up with because i will be flying soon as well, 1. SLEEP (sleeping pills work) 2. Music player such as ipod or mp3 player 3. Read a magazine or book 4play with playdough ( before you leave on your flight make a list of rabdom things, the.pn try to create the with playdough) 5. Brush your hair ( whenever i get bored i alway brish my hair or try new hair styles) 6. If you flying with someone play games like flash 7. Bring cards 8. Try to remember every thing that you packed (make a list) 9. Play any game on yoir phone or ipod 10. Bring paper and try to do origami 11. Start a journal or auto biography 12. bring colored pens or markers and tatto yourself 13. Print out logic puzzels 14. Try to make upa secret code 15. Tell people you are older than you really are 16. Draw or scetch 17. Try to count to 1000 18. Try to write your name using 25 different fonts 19. Think about stuff 20. Come up with your top 50 baby names

Answer 3

if the item sinks, like Archimedes crown, the displaced water only measures volume.

if the item floats, like a ship or plane, it will only displace its weight in water. the amount of water displaced is weighed, and that is the weight of the plane.

If Archimedes had put the crown on a toy boat, (after weighing the boat by itself first), he could have measured the weight of the crown by the water displaced when floating.

Answer 4

you need to know all the materials used to make the plane and the percentage volume of the plane made from each material. The latter would require examination of each individual component (there are alot....) From this, work out the mean average density of the plane.

Then, all dead air spaces would need to be opened to atmosphere, to allow them to flood when the plane sinks.

Now when the plane is sunk, measure the volume of water displaced and multiply it by the mean average density of the plane to get the weight.

Answer 5

Yes as long as it floats
Weight of water displaced = weight of object

Answer 6

If it floats you can, because if you know the volume of water displaced and the temperature etc. you can calculate the weight.

If it doesn't float you can't.

Answer 7

really long shot here , something like , you have pressure sensors on the tyres,you calibrate the tyre with progrssive wieghts up to something like 1/3rd of guess at aricraft weight,then you measure the pressure in each tyre whilst airborne , then again statically parked.multiply by number of tyres?. Not wonderfully accurate but , top of my head stuff