load factor

English[edit]

load factor (plural load factors)

(aviation) The acceleration experienced by an aircraft along a given axis at a particular instant in time.
- 2004 October 26, National Transportation Safety Board, “1.1 History of Flight”, in Aircraft Accident Report: In-Flight Separation of Vertical Stabilizer, American Airlines Flight 587, Airbus Industrie A300-605R, N14053, Belle Harbor, New York, November 12, 2001‎^[1], archived from the original on 3 June 2022, page 3:
  FDR data indicated that, about 0915:36, the airplane experienced a 0.04 G drop in longitudinal load factor, a 0.07 G shift to the left in lateral load factor, and about a 0.3 G drop in normal (vertical) load factor. The airplane performance study found that these excursions were consistent with a wake turbulence encounter.
(transport) The percentage of a transportation system's maximum passenger capacity that is actually used.
(electrical engineering) The mean load over a given time period divided by the peak load occurring during the same time period, providing a measure of how efficiently an electric system's capacity is being used.
(computing) The proportion of the buckets in a hash table which contain entries.