Longtail Aviation uses CHAMP solution on new freighter

Bermuda-based carrier Longtail Aviation has added its first B747-400 freighter, equipped with CHAMP’s Weight & Balance tool, to its charter offering.

The Bermuda Civil Aviation Authority issued operation specifications for the aircraft to Longail’s chief executive, Martin Amick.

“The timing is right,” Amick said, commenting on the carrier’s introduction of the carrier’s charter freighter operations. “The global supply chain is under duress, and additional long-range, heavy lift is critically needed to move medical supplies from China to the West.

“This new aircraft will help meet that need.”

CHAMP was on hand to answer that need with its Weight & Balance solution, which was implemented on the aircraft in less than three weeks.

Amick commented furter: “This addition to our fleet has been under consideration for several months. In mid-March, the aircraft owner approached us with a sense of urgency, asking that we get the aircraft into commercial service on a greatly accelerated timeline. We accepted this challenge.

“It meant, however, that we had to find innovative solutions which we could implement very quickly. One of the challenges was to find a means of calculating weight and balance for cargo operations involving a variety of loading devices.

“We are very pleased with the result. CHAMP provided an easy-to-use and very flexible answer — capable of handling the needs of our new nose-loader.”

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Dan McIntyre, Longtail’s chief technical pilot, who was familiar with CHAMP’s Weight & Balance from work at a previous airline, explained: “CHAMP’s solution works very well for producing reliable load sheets. It is very easy to use and has a good user interface both for loadmasters and pilots.

“Although CHAMP’s team performed training for the very first time in an online classroom, it was hands-on and user-led, which allowed us in only three afternoons to take ownership of our data in the system and produce loading instructions and load sheets ourselves.”

Lee Booth, vice president of global products at CHAMP Cargosystems, added: “In these unusual times it is even more important for the air cargo industry to support the global supply chain and CHAMP’s experience and ability to rapidly set up, train and implement a customer is vital.

“We are delighted that CHAMP could support Longtail Aviation in achieving its goal to set up operations in such a short timeframe.”