Need suggestions for ballast testing of production aircraft.?

Question

We are going to be flight testing our production aircraft. I would like suggestions from people with ballast testing experience as to what would be best to use, the types of configurations and/or equipment available for either securing to the seat mounts or into the seat itself. We would prefer to not use water as the weight, but are open to everything right now.

To help clarify, we are looking for ballast testing ideas with the CG neutral and most importantly... imbalanced forward, backward, left side and right side.

Answer 1

Do you want to be able to rectify the imbalance in flight? I'd go with a fuel imbalance for lateral testing, and have few 50lb plates of steel with holes for the seatbelts if you really want them in the seats. I just used sandbags for experimental

Answer 2

I have worked on many aircraft and R&D, however ballast testing is not my expertise. I would think of water first off for several reasons, however I would also install dummies with sensors and strain guages ect. and monitor results for comfort as well. Sand would be a good choice I think, as long as it is contained as well as the water would be. I guess the real test might wind up being wether we're testing the water or sand containers and what adverse effects there might be from a rupture. If water was used it would require roughly 30 gals for a person of 240 lbs, thats a hefty container to say the least. Sand would be more stable given a rigid container,

Don't forget, you already have at your disposal the people that constructed this aircraft and should put their reputation on the line. I'm referring to using real people volunteers as some of the manufacturers have done in the past where the inspectors have to ride on the ones they approved.