Weighing a Parked Jet With a Tyre Gauge, and Why the Answer Is a Bracket
The reflex answer is that nothing can be weighed without a scale, and it is wrong: an aircraft resting on inflated tyres is already standing on four scales, each with a dial on it. Pressure times contact patch gives 160,000 pounds, but the deliverable is the interval from 115,200 to 211,200 together with the direction of the bias. A stiff sidewall carries part of the load, so the reading is a floor rather than a measurement.