Understanding Weight and Balance
To “feel” the aircraft response through the flight controls as being “heavier or lighter” than anticipated at take-off can result from a weight & balance inaccuracy. In fact, when the CG is out of the operational limits, the safety consequences can be far more critical than just a strange feeling.
Airbus Brake Testing
Regulatory aircraft performance is certified as a set of performance models and aircraft physical characteristics that are built and validated from flight test data. While the primary purpose of these models has always been to allow computation of aircraft performance for dispatch, the models used to determine the in-flight landing distances during approach preparation are derived from the same testing. Part of this model, affecting both the accelerate-stop computation at take-off and the landing distance computation, are the characteristics of the braking system installed on the aircraft.This article explains which flight tests are involved in the identification of the system characteristics and how they are conducted.