Bombardier placed an order for General Electrodynamics Corporation’s (GEC) AN60z Portable Aircraft System earlier this month.  The state-of-the-art, aircraft weighing system (non-hydraulic system) will be used on all newly designed Bombardier and flight test aircraft.  GEC’s system was chosen over the shear beam design systems for the following reasons:

1. Shear Beam (bending) Load cells CAN NOT measure side loads associated with aircraft weight and balance and have shorter life cycles requiring increased system calibration intervals. 
2. Shear beam designed systems have higher maintenance costs due to the need to replace failed bending beam cells and recalibration of the weighing platforms.
3. Shear beam designed systems become unreliable and less accurate with time.

GEC’s piezo-electric, highly-accurate sensors, coupled with GEC’s off-level technology was preferred and deemed far superior.   It was noted that GEC no longer uses a hydraulic system as claimed by their competitor.  The MTBF (mean time between failure) for GEC’s piezo-electric sensor was far greater (30 times) compared to the shear “bending beam” load cells.  GEC’s AN60z is an “all in one solution”, from 0 – 60,000 pounds in 1 lb. increments @.1% , allows utilization of GEC’s system on a variety of aircraft including Challenger, LearJet and Global models.  The CG envelope is critical compared to other larger aircraft types and therefore the less accurate bending beam technology would lead to unreliable measurements, missed center-of-gravity computations and multiple reweighs of the aircraft.

General Electrodynamics Corporation continues to lead the world in aircraft weight and balance and center-of-gravity (CG) equipment.  GEC add another pleased customer to its select family of satisfied aerospace companies.