3 ms·

wow - do you have any sources for your example with the 747 on the transatlantic flight. I dont' think you're wrong, I just would like to check the facts. I kno

wow - do you have any sources for your example with the 747 on the transatlantic flight. I dont' think you're wrong, I just would like to check the facts. I know that transatlantic flights are VERY bad for the environment and for the carbon foot print someone leaves behind.

dingaling 9y ago
Well the 747 is pretty old-tech by today's airliner standards ( mockingly called a gas-guzzler ) but a 747-400 burns roughly 9,600 to 11,500kg of fuel per hour in the cruise per public-domain figures. If we round the latter to 12,000 per hour and convert to litres at a density of 1.23 for kerosene, that's 43 litres per passenger for a British Airways -400 with 345 seats, which is fairly low density due to a large number of suites and business seats: https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/British_Airways/British_Airways_Boeing_747-400_C.php https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/British_Airways/British_Ai... That 43 litres propels that passenger 510 nautical miles in one hour, 945km. 22km per litre. Now, an Air Canada 777-300ER which is a generation on from the 747-400 burns about 8,500kg per hour with 458 passengers... And an A350-1000 should beat that by about 15% when it enters service. The efficiency of even semi-modern airliners is remarkable.
- cyberferret 9y ago
  To extrapolate the excellent stats above from @dingaling - Lets compare the 777-300ER with a modern F1 car. All F1 cars (under 2017 regulations) start a 45-55 lap (2 hour) race with 100Kg of fuel. No more can be added. Given that the cars will probably do another 50 odd laps during the 3 practice sessions and qualifying sprints, then each car will use about 200Kg of fuel per race meet. Lets round it up to 250Kg to allow for idling/testing in the garage, in/out sequences into the pit lane etc. There were 20 cars competing in the 2017 season (10 teams with 2 cars each), across 20 different tracks: 250 x 20 x 20 = 100000Kg of fuel used over the 2017 season. The time to fly from London to New York is around 8 hours, so the 777 would burn: 8 x 8500 = 68000Kg So, a modern airliner would save a little more fuel on a transatlantic one way flight, but we are still around 2/3rds of the entire F1 season's worth of fuel - and that is just ONE plane out of the hundreds that make that flight every single day. (and don't forget that I added about another 25% of fuel load onto the F1 figures to allow for errors, but I don't think many cars will do more than 100 laps on a race weekend - so ACTUAL usage may be 25% LESS than I extrapolated, making them almost equivalent figures for both plane and F1 season).
  - brusch64 9y ago
    Thank you for your calculations. Great stuff!

dingaling 9y ago

Well the 747 is pretty old-tech by today's airliner standards ( mockingly called a gas-guzzler ) but a 747-400 burns roughly 9,600 to 11,500kg of fuel per hour in the cruise per public-domain figures. If we round the latter to 12,000 per hour and convert to litres at a density of 1.23 for kerosene, that's 43 litres per passenger for a British Airways -400 with 345 seats, which is fairly low density due to a large number of suites and business seats: https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/British_Airways/British_Airways_Boeing_747-400_C.php https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/British_Airways/British_Ai... That 43 litres propels that passenger 510 nautical miles in one hour, 945km. 22km per litre. Now, an Air Canada 777-300ER which is a generation on from the 747-400 burns about 8,500kg per hour with 458 passengers... And an A350-1000 should beat that by about 15% when it enters service. The efficiency of even semi-modern airliners is remarkable.

cyberferret 9y ago
To extrapolate the excellent stats above from @dingaling - Lets compare the 777-300ER with a modern F1 car. All F1 cars (under 2017 regulations) start a 45-55 lap (2 hour) race with 100Kg of fuel. No more can be added. Given that the cars will probably do another 50 odd laps during the 3 practice sessions and qualifying sprints, then each car will use about 200Kg of fuel per race meet. Lets round it up to 250Kg to allow for idling/testing in the garage, in/out sequences into the pit lane etc. There were 20 cars competing in the 2017 season (10 teams with 2 cars each), across 20 different tracks: 250 x 20 x 20 = 100000Kg of fuel used over the 2017 season. The time to fly from London to New York is around 8 hours, so the 777 would burn: 8 x 8500 = 68000Kg So, a modern airliner would save a little more fuel on a transatlantic one way flight, but we are still around 2/3rds of the entire F1 season's worth of fuel - and that is just ONE plane out of the hundreds that make that flight every single day. (and don't forget that I added about another 25% of fuel load onto the F1 figures to allow for errors, but I don't think many cars will do more than 100 laps on a race weekend - so ACTUAL usage may be 25% LESS than I extrapolated, making them almost equivalent figures for both plane and F1 season).
- brusch64 9y ago
  Thank you for your calculations. Great stuff!