Gross weight question

[Wheelsup23]

If you have a fly in the plane and it lands, that adds to the gross weight. If it stays flying around and never lands does that add to the gross weight?

 

[web265]

WAG!! (Wild A** Guess)

I say yes. I believe winged insects are using downward thrust to fly?

Therefore he would weigh the same inside the aircraft?

Edit to add,
Either way the weight would still be there

 

[Inverted25]

This reminds me of the debate on high school of if you go to a restaurant and eat five pounds of food will you weigh five pounds more when you walk out the door then when you walked in

 

[Pilotforhire587]

I don't know about insects but mythbusters did a episode on chickens in trucks allowing a heavy truck to cross a weight restricted bridge if they were flying, decreasing the weight of the truck. Same deal, because of the downward thrust from their wings the truck weighed the same.

 

[web265]

Is that going to be one of the tech questions at my interview?

 

[TheGirlinPurple]

And this relates to ATC how?

 

[ozziecat35]

Goes along with the old physics question in school...say you had a tennis ball in your hand, riding in the back of a pickup truck, if you throw the ball up, will it go flying "backwards" due to your forward momentum? (obviously not, as the ball is already going the same speed as the truck, with the exception of a little wind resistance.)

 

[Fly_Unity]

What happens when a fly is flying around in a car, and you stomp on the brakes? Will the fly go flying forward and hit the windshield? or will it remain suspended in the air without moving relative to the car?

 

[Corporate Pilot]

Reminds me of the old joke. What is the SIC;s job on a DC-3, flying chickens out of La Paz, Bolivia when they loose an engine? Hit the crates and get them flying!

 

[drunkenbeagle]

If you have a fly in the plane and it lands, that adds to the gross weight. If it stays flying around and never lands does that add to the gross weight?

Anything physically inside the aircraft will not change its mass, suspended or not. Including the cabin air, which in a pressurized cabin, is substantial at altitude.

While suspended in air though, the fly will have differing effect on the CG, depending on several considerations.

You can think of the fly like fuel sloshing around, CG changes when it moves, but the effect on weight does not change.

 

[Bernoulli Fan]

You can think of the fly like fuel sloshing around, CG changes when it moves, but the effect on weight does not change.

Except if you try to swat the fly and punch a hole in the window, thus releasing all that heavy pressurized cabin air.