To describe the history of our chapter is to retrace the moments our members and supporters left over the years in our memory : the conferences we organized, the meetings we held, our technical contributions, our achievements and the efforts of our founders to establish SAWE in Europe for the sake of a continuous improvement of our discipline.

Established in 1973, the CEC was founded by 29 professional members, all of them from the mass properties engineering field and most of them working in the German industry at that time . Soon, following the European collaboration in various international projects (Concorde, Airbus, Tornado…) new colleagues from other countries joined our common project: the CEC.

Experiences and processes were quickly exchanged among the members benefiting not only the chapter itself but also the industry. Even if initially most of the members were from Aerospace industries the CEC was able to quickly attract other industries such as shipbuilding, systems and also universities, where the discipline was developed both theoretically and experimentally.

Our chapter quickly grew exponentially across the European continent and in 1978, only 5 years after its founding, we were able to organize our first international conference . Our colleagues on the other side of the Atlantic were enthusiastic about our work, which led to full collaboration between the two continents and the worldwide expansion of SAWE.

… 1939 SAWE was created

The Society of Aeronautical Weight Engineers was organized in 1939 in Los Angeles, California, and was incorporated as a nonprofit organization April 2, 1941. As membership grew to include engineers associated with shipbuilding, land transportation, and other allied industries and technologies, the Society name was changed on January 1, 1973 to the Society of Allied Weight Engineers, Inc.

… 1973 SAWE Central European Chapter Charter

The Europen Chapter was stablished 1973 by a group of Masss properties engineers.The 1973 BoD approved its creation ….. and a Charter was issued on october the 20th same year.

Originally with 29 members….

… 1978 First International Conference hosted by CEC in Munich

The 1978 Technical Committee has compiled an outstanding array of technical presentations to provide enhancement of your mass properties career through continuing and broade-ning education. A total of 71 papers and presentations have been selected to provide an interesting and a varied programdealing with recent advancements in mass properties engi-neering. These presentations have been distributed into15 technical sessions by topic and/or vehicle type of interestto all mass properties engineers.[Joseph G. Lotta, 1978 International Vice President/Technical Director ]

… 2007 International Conference in Madrid

“There is no better example of how we are beginning to change than what we experienced at the 66th Annual Conference (2007) in Madrid, Spain. Simply stated, this conference was a resounding success. Everything from the technical content to events was handled with professionalism. I commend the organizing committee and the volunteers for bringing fresh new ideas and creativity to areas such as registration, media, sponsorship, and hospitality. Madrid represents the beginning of a paradigm shift for how we organize and finance our conferences..”
[Eric Peterson, 2007 International President]

link to conference program

… 2012 International Conference in Bad Gogging / Munich

“The 71st conference was a total succes … more than 40 papers were presented during the two days of technical sessions .Airbus and Boeing were present and discussing about colaborative acctions ..” [Werner Sellner , CEC Director ]

link to conference program

… CEC Regional Conferences in 1989, 1990, 2000, 2002 and 2015

In Madrid in 2002, 95 participants,