Press Release

Issued by Aircraft Performance Group.

October 19, 2016

Aircraft Performance Group (APG) announced today the release of a significant new feature for its iPreFlight application. Full weight and balance real-time curtailment functionality is now available within the iPreFlight app to meet the regulatory requirements for adjusting the aircraft manufacturers' certified center of gravity (CG) envelope to account for loading variations and in-flight movements during normal aircraft operations. 

The new real-time curtailment feature allows operators to comply with the guidelines set forth by Advisory Circular (AC) 120-27E. Among the items considered are: passengers, fuel, fluids, in-flight movement of passengers and crew, movement of flaps and landing gear, and random seating.

With iPreFlight, required curtailments are calculated for the actual load on the airplane and are applied in real-time. Many service providers offer fixed curtailment solutions which are based on worst-case conditions, applied one time to the manufacturers' certified CG envelope, but this often results in an overly restrictive CG envelope. iPreFlight real-time curtailments apply no unnecessary conditions, which result in the greatest loading flexibility.

A common misunderstanding is the use of actual versus standard passenger weights in weight and balance calculations and the need to curtail the CG envelope accordingly. The use of actual passenger weights does not remove the requirement to curtail the CG envelope as required by Advisory Circular 120-27E.

“This new functionality in iPreFlight will provide significant benefits to users by alleviating the need to jump to third party stand-alone apps or calculation methods for determining their weight and balance curtailments,” said Mike Caflisch, CEO of APG. “iPreFlight tightly integrates weight and balance real-time curtailment with runway analysis calculations in a single app.” iPreFlight is used by thousands of pilots and dispatchers around the world and provides the capability to perform runway analysis and weight and balance calculations on an iPad without the need for internet connectivity. iPreFlightä is also available in an enterprise version, which can be integrated with the operator's in-house systems to receive automatically generated flight books for each flight providing even greater value and efficiency in flight preparation and crew briefing.