Software for calculating aircraft weight and balance

For Smartwings we built software that uses complex algorithms to calculate an aircraft’s weight and centre of gravity. The main benefit is a significant cut in fuel costs.

Too many calculations, too much room for error

Before every flight, the aircraft’s weight and centre of gravity have to be calculated. Without those values you can’t prepare the flight plan, work out how much fuel to load, seat the passengers and crew, load the cargo and baggage, or set the centre of gravity for take-off.

Before Smartwings approached us, staff had to process large amounts of data and settings by hand. Template spreadsheets held five aircraft with defined values - basic weight, basic index, cabin configuration, catering types. A pilot or a handling agent had to select and calculate everything correctly by hand.

As the fleet, the number of flights and the range of services grew, there were simply too many calculations, and the process was prone to error. The rules for calculating catering weight, crew positions and other values are very complicated - and every change means a new calculation.

A calculator for the whole fleet

We studied the problem and, following the client’s brief, delivered the Weight & Balance Calculator (WBC). First we specified the calculation processes and rules, worked out the mathematical algorithms and prepared a database of input values. We connected the software to the flight planning services. The application includes:

mathematical algorithms for calculating an aircraft’s weight and centre of gravity
a database of input values for the whole fleet
custom settings - crew configuration, potable water, spare parts
a choice of catering type and of equipment for flights over water
a connection to flight planning, passing results to third-party APIs and to users
batch calculations - automatic recalculation of flights for the whole fleet
notifications, validation and monitoring of calculations as they run
‘The weight & balance calculator has made preparing our flight documentation enormously easier. Thanks to automation, we can concentrate on the other important things we have to deal with every day when preparing flights.’
Petr Nováček, Flight Dispatch Support Manager, Smartwings

Lower costs, no manual calculation errors

With full automation, any number of flights can now be calculated without manual calculation errors. Manual work has dropped to a minimum and calculations are dramatically faster. What the WBC delivered:

a significant cost saving from optimising how much fuel each flight carries
no more errors caused by human factors or by interpreting the rules
calculations for the whole fleet - dozens of aircraft and hundreds of flights
versioned data storage - traceable inputs, results and the reasons behind decisions
regular recalculation of a flight right up to the moment before departure

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