Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 56 total)
  • Aeroplane fuel economy
  • molgrips
    Free Member

    If you were to drive (on the ground) a plane down the M4 at 70mph, how many mpg would it do?

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    Is this a ploy to stop anyone overtaking you?

    Klunk
    Free Member

    is it on a conveyor belt ?

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    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    Piper Cub or A380?

    Onzadog
    Free Member

    Why the M4 in particular?

    Eyepic
    Free Member

    Loads of variables but the answer is …not very.

    Aircraft are designed to fly not taxi down the M4.

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    But what about the M4? Are you trying to avoid answering the question?

    jam-bo
    Full Member

    Ask Easyjet because last time I flew to schipol with them I think we landed in Rotterdam and drove the rest of the way.

    Eyepic
    Free Member

    Sorry edited M4 would of course be totally different to the M1 due to direcion of prevailing winds. … which way down the M4 are you after?

    stevedoc
    Free Member

    I’d be interested to see the comparison between mpg on the m4 and the m62 as its more hilly terrain

    jota180
    Free Member
    garage-dweller
    Full Member

    Ask Easyjet because last time I flew to schipol with them I think we landed in Rotterdam and drove the rest of the way.

    Did you know Schipol is Dutch for “drive further than you have flown”

    jam-bo
    Full Member

    I do now.

    kristoff
    Free Member

    Sorry to be sensible

    747 fuel economy

    JulianA
    Free Member

    Apparently Lancasters used to do 1mpg – a flight engineer who managed to get 1.1 mpg out of his aircraft was taken off ops and sent on a lecture tour. You can see why when you think that 10% extra range was then available – could have made the difference between getting home and not…

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Piper Cub or A380?

    Good question, but I was on a 737-700 at the time so let’s go with that.

    jam-bo
    Full Member

    Flying Heathrow to Cardiff?

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    I was on a 737-700 at the time so let’s go with that.

    On the M4?

    No. You weren’t.

    piedidiformaggio
    Free Member

    Ask Easyjet because last time I flew to schipol with them I think we landed in Rotterdam and drove the rest of the way.

    Very similar at Frankfurt Hahn. Land. Taxi for 30 minutes. Depart aircraft. Get on bus. Drive for 30 minutes to terminal.

    It’s this sort of thing that makes LCY brilliant.
    Land, brake very hard, turn off runway, park. Job done and away you go

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    Very similar at Frankfurt Hahn. Land. Taxi for 30 minutes. Depart aircraft. Get on bus. Drive for 30 minutes to terminal.

    And you’re STILL nowhere near Frankfurt! 😉

    It’s this sort of thing that makes LCY brilliant.
    Land, brake very hard, turn off runway, park. Job done and away you go

    See also Changi, which is abnormally efficient, pretty much any island runway (Barbados is a joy!) and, funnily enough, Frankfurt which is a superb airport!

    piedidiformaggio
    Free Member

    And you’re STILL nowhere near Frankfurt!

    yeah, then you get in a clapped out old Mercedes taxi with a driver who think’s he’s an F1 driver!

    Mind you, the airport seems to have the most mahoosive sex shop in it 😯

    Saccades
    Free Member

    Ah, frankfurt hahn…

    Decided to go to the stuttgart beer festival (excellent – do try it) for my 40th, wife said she would organise.

    Direct flights way too expensive, flights to Hahn only 50 quid return, train from frankfurt to stuttgart cheap and fast.

    Missus didn’t check how to get from Hahn to either frankfurt or stuttgart. Ended up hiring a car and driving.

    piedidiformaggio
    Free Member

    Anyway, some googling would indicate 10kg/m fuel burnt taxing a 737-700

    Average taxi speeds would appear to be 15 knots (although I can’t remember the last time I was on an aircraft taxiing that slowly, however if we use those numbers it’s going to be a very unscientifically calculated (guessed) 40kg/m

    Someone else can work out MPG!

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    Used to test aircraft engines, at full takeoff power, a GE CF6-80C2 (widely used on various aircraft, including 747’s) will use just over a gallon per second. Bugger all to do with the question, but just thought I’d chuck it in!.

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    Used to test aircraft engines,

    On a treadmill? Go on, you did, didn’t you?

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    Sadly not. Would have been much more fun.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    piedi di formaggio – Member

    Land, brake very hard, turn off runway, park. Job done and away you go

    I love City. It’s the little lifeboats bobbing about at the end of the runway that make it perfect. That was my first domestic flight- so discovering that if you fly from Edinburgh to Stanstead, you’re almost as far away as you started was an eyeopener.

    40mpg
    Full Member

    Huh? What?

    Did someone call?

    Edit – my dad can fly from Chilbolton, Hants to Weston Zoyland, Somerset and back on a tank which appears to be made of an old beer barrel.

    I think thats 11 gallons, and about 120 miles, so around 11mpg in one of these:

    pjt201
    Free Member

    I’d hazard a guess at not very given they are currently developing electric nose wheel motors for taxiing

    http://aviationweek.com/awin/honeywellsafran-joint-venture-tests-electric-taxiing

    Gary_C
    Full Member

    Don’t think you’d get very far, with a tail height of 41ft & a wingspan of 112ft, wouldn’t bridges be a problem?

    br
    Free Member

    Once spent a couple of hours in a 747 taxi-ing to take off at JFK; when we’d got near the front the pilot announced “that we’d burnt 10 tons of fuel so far”, in a rather pi55ed off voice.

    I was already tucked-up in an upstairs window sleep-bed outside the gaze of the stewardess – the G&T’s had already had their effect 🙂

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    Is there a strip at Chilbolton? There was RAF Chilbolton, but no longer active, shirley? Or is he going from Popham? My local riding area, so always interested!

    BR, once had four hours on the tarmac at LHR en route to LAS once. Also upstairs, thankfully, but we taxied out and back, and refuelled! Luckily they didn’t run out of the chablis!

    stu170
    Free Member

    No idea but I do know that when I’m running a tornado I can get through 70kg per minute at times. Raises a little smirk from the 12 year old me when I’m at the throttles

    wobbliscott
    Free Member

    The APU’s will be sucking a fair amount of fuel too. Larger aircraft will have two, sometimes three APUs. Not exactly the most efficient part of the journey. The large engines generate too much thrust on the ground. Also fuel is invested in compressing air that is ultimately dumped overboard as there is just too much air on the ground for the engine to handle. These things are designed and optimised to be chugging along at 30k+ feet. Forget miles per gallon, you’re in the realms of feet or inches per gallon.

    sierrakilo
    Free Member

    My day job is a aircraft Engineer.
    I get to taxy and run a variety of aircraft, over the years there has been BAC1-11, B737 -200,-300,-400,-500. B747-200,-400 ,B757, B767, B777 , DC-10, Tristar, and Airbus A320 family.
    I think the most fuel used was once on a B747-200 where we had to do trim runs ( making correct power for the temp and pressure of the day ) and also Fan trim balance ( Just like dynamic wheel balancing , but in those days more trial and error method called a 3-shot plot )….. we went through nearly 20 tons of fuel that day !

    Never known an aircraft with more than one APU, though. The B777 APU burns 250-300 kgs an hour if supplying air and electrics

    CountZero
    Full Member

    I thought I’d chuck this in, copied from the Aviation Forum, in answer to a question about the fuel consumption of the Avro Vulcan:

    Hi,

    The Olympus 20201 fitted to the Vulcan has a fuel burn of 13,950 lbs/hr at maximum power (100-100.5%) at sea level on an ISA standard 15c, 1013.2mb day.

    This equates to a rate of 55,800 lbs/hr for a Vulcan with Take Off power selected at the end of the runway. Quite a lot eh!

    Quickly crunching a few numbers regarding the fuel burn and using Moggy’s figure of 60p per litre, this equates to £5.24 per second.

    To put this into perspective though, in similar circumstances; Max power, lined up on runway etc….. a Tornado GR4 in max reheat is burning 6 gallons of Avtur per second.

    LHS
    Free Member

    I’d hazard a guess at not very given they are currently developing electric nose wheel motors for taxiing

    http://aviationweek.com/awin/honeywellsafran-joint-venture-tests-electric-taxiing

    It’s a nice concept which has been around for a while but the operators will never go for it. Too much unknowns of time between leaving the gate and cleared for take-off (i’m sorry tower, i just need to start my engines as i’ve been taxing on electric). They also won’t want to risk starting their engines away from the terminal then finding out they have a problem so have to return.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    Does it take much more fuel for a plane to taxi than it does to idle? ie, could it be worth taxiing with a powered wheel, even if the engines are still running?

    wwaswas
    Full Member

    could it be worth taxiing with a powered wheel, even if the engines are still running?

    possibly although you then have to transport the weight of all the generators and other gubbins for the whole time it’s in the air.

    They’d be better off having conveyor belts running from the boarding gates to the runways…

    john_drummer
    Free Member

    Ask Easyjet because last time I flew to schipol with them I think we landed in Rotterdam and drove the rest of the way.
    Very similar at Frankfurt Hahn. Land. Taxi for 30 minutes. Depart aircraft. Get on bus. Drive for 30 minutes to terminal.

    see also Paris CDG

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 56 total)

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