and..Who has Electronic W&B?

[sabreliner]

Here at ASA we do not have it. However, if you do a charter, and have a cool Delta Charter Coordinator, they will have DAL's load planners do an AWABS report for every flight. Very neat, as it gives weight, CG, trim setting, power settings and runway analysis for every runway. Great stuff and very available.

Now, why don't we use it in everyday line ops?? Who knows. Probably would cost a little bit of money and it would definitly be asking a lot of our, uhhh..., stellar gate agents. These being the same agents that can't even get the passenger counts rigt half the time.

 

[DoinTime]

At Pinnacle all the weight/balance info and performance data are provided through ACARS. Little to no input or work load on the part of the crews.

 

[flap operator]

Ditto Doin Time for Mesaba avros. The agents and rampies close the flight and the numbers get sent to dispatch where they crunch the numbers and then acars us the load data. To me, it's a lot faster now hat we have load data crunched in house, instead of NW load control in MSP.

Saabs, I believe is still pen and paper for w&b.


Edited to add: I believe XJ and 9E differ in that NW crunches their numbers and our dispatchers crunch ours.



FO

 

[minrest]

It's funny to read how many operators already have an electronic system in place. We at XJET just got it (after what I would presume were a gazillon fines from the FAA for errors on the paper w/b) and our management makes it sound like they parted the Red Sea in developing such a system for a REGIONAL airline.

-minrest

 

[jtf]

Trans States still uses paper and whiz wheels for all the airplanes. Some have acars, but even the airplanes with printers aren't allowed to use them for anything (circuit breaker pulled and banded). Does anyone else still use the whiz wheels? I would have to think that someone doing it over the radio or through the acars would help with on-time performance and that since most regionals are penalized pay-wise for poor performance, that this would be a good enough reason to join the modern times- not that Trans States uses much reasoning for anything.

 

[DoinTime]

Edited to add: I believe XJ and 9E differ in that NW crunches their numbers and our dispatchers crunch ours.

Pinnacle actually uses their own load controllers. This task is independent of the dispatchers duties. Mainline was going to provide this service when the CRJ's first came online but Pinnacle decided they could do it cheaper.

We experimented for a while with using a load control service for the Saab. Data was obtainable over voice radio but it turned out to be a nightmare and they canceled it soon after its launch.