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Aircraft operation
Published in Gert Meijer, Fundamentals of Aviation Operations, 2020
The second and very important weight is the Operating Empty Weight (OEW), which is often referred to as Dry Empty Weight by pilots. The OEW includes the MEW as well as the aircraft’s interior, livery, optional equipment, safety equipment, catering inserts and the entire flight crew with their luggage. Thus, the OEW includes all of the aircraft, without payload and without fuel.
Closed-loop digital twin system for air cargo load planning operations
Published in International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, 2021
Eugene Y. C. Wong, Daniel Y. Mo, Stuart So
In a cargo loading plan, a planner needs to decide the position of each ULD in an aircraft, which contains several compartments and components. For the sake of balancing the overall weight of an aircraft, each compartment cannot exceed a certain weight. Apart from this consideration, the space in an aircraft is also divided into several components (Figure 4). CG, which is based on the allocation of ULDs among components, is used to measure the performance of a cargo loading plan. It is defined as the weighted distance value of ULDs from the reference location in each component divided by the total weight of ULDs in an aircraft. It is crucial to include CG in the calculations of the planning tool, not only for safety and regulatory purposes but also for profitability. The closer the actual measured CG to the required limit, the less aircraft fuel will be consumed, leading to cost savings (Vancroonenburg et al. 2013). The aircraft has seven main components: fuel, engines, wings, body, payload, vertical tail and horizontal tail. The CG is determined by dividing the sum of moments of forces by the sum of forces. To calculate it, a reference line is chosen to indicate the reference location of the aircraft components. CG is the mass-weighted average of the component locations. The weight of the entire aircraft times the location of the CG is equal to the sum of the weight of each component times the distance of that component from the reference location (Hall, 2015). The Operational Empty Weight (OEW) equals the cargoless aircraft weight, including staff. The Zero Fuel Weight (ZFW) is calculated as the OEW plus all cargo weight (Vancroonenburg et al. 2011). Figure 5 shows the CG and aircraft components, and Figure 6 gives the floor plan layout of the aircraft, with air cargo loading slots and compartments.