Forty years ago, BEA (as it then was) converted some of their Vanguard 4-turboprop airliners into Merchantman freighters.
Part of the conversion refit included fitting mass transducers into the three landing gear legs. During pushback, a switch was operated which gave a read-out of TOM (masses summed) and CG position (main gear sensed masses compared to nose gear sensed mass).
On at least one occasion the system saved an embarrassment (or worse) when the pallets had been loaded in the reverse order compared to the load sheet, giving a CG outside the permitted envelope.
Could not mass transducers be fitted in today's aircraft, with the sensed total mass data inputted directly to the FMC? Gross errors would show up immediately.
Last edited by Discorde; 9th Jul 2010 at 15:55.