Portable weighing system for aircraft

Claim 1

A system to calculate weight parameters of an aircraft comprising: a plurality of strain gauge load cells sensed by direct current voltage means providing analog voltage outputs in proportion to the load on each load cell, said plurality of load cells being placed intermediate different portions of the aircraft and a solid, earth-referenced surface; means to convert the analog voltage outputs from the load cells into digital signals; memory storage means to retain data descriptive of the configuration of the aircraft, a portion of such data being pre-programmed in the memory storage means and addressable via labelling indicative of particular aircraft model and series numbers with the remainder of such data being entered by an operator of the system in the event the required data was not pre-programmed; and computation means to convert the digital signals essentially simultaneously into output information of load on a single load cell, or aircraft gross weight, or aircraft center of gravity or aircraft center of gravity expressed as a percentage of the mean aerodynamic chord of the aircraft such that load cell outputs which contain not insubstantial non-linear components may be processed by the computation means.

Claim 2

A system to calculate weight parameters of an aircraft comprising: a plurality of strain gauge load cells sensed by direct current voltage means providing analog voltage outputs in proportion to the load on each load cell, said plurality of load cells being placed intermediate different portions of the aircraft and a solid, earth-referenced surface; means to convert the analog voltage outputs from the load cells into digital signals; memory storage means to retain data descriptive of the configuration of the aircraft, a portion of such data being pre-programmed in the memory storage means and addressable via labelling indicative of particular aircraft model and series numbers with the remainder of such data being entered by an operator of the system in the event the required data was not pre-programmed; and computation means to convert the digital signals essentially simultaneously into output information of load on a single load cell, or aircraft gross weight, or aircraft center of gravity or aircraft center of gravity expressed as a percentage of the mean aerodynamic chord of the aircraft such that load cell outputs which contain not insubstantial non-linear components may be processed by the computation means.