A Boeing 747 filled with passengers to only 75 percent capacity is more fuel-efficient than an automobile with a driver and one passenger in terms of fuel burn per passenger mile. Hard to believe, isn't it?
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A Boeing 787-9 burns about 5400 litres of fuel per hour. At a cruising speed of 900km/h, that equates to 600 litres/100km. On average, a modern family-size vehicle uses about 8 litres/100km, or 75 times less fuel.
A 4,000-mile flight, then, requires 20,000 gallons of fuel. Divided among roughly 400 passengers, that's 50 gallons of fuel to move each person aboard from, say, Chicago to London. A Honda Civic that gets 30 miles per gallon would need 133 gallons of fuel to make a trip of the same distance.
The four engines of the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet burn approximately 10 to 11 tonnes of fuel an hour when in the cruise. This equates to roughly 1 gallon (approximately 4 litres) of fuel every second. It can carry a maximum of 238,604 liters of fuel and it has a range of about 7,790 nautical miles.
Airlines find that fuel dumping can actually be cheaper than not dumping in certain circumstances. But it's not something pilots do on a routine basis. We spoke with Alison Duquette, spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), who assured us that it doesn't happen very often.
For example, a study by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute states the energy intensity of car transportation is on average 57% higher than air transports. In other words, a car emits more CO2 than the average planes because they consume more energy to transport the same amount of passengers.
Also known as the Queen of the Skies, the 747 boasts a maximum fuel capacity of 63,000 gallons with slight variations between models. With today's fuel prices, it costs about $450,000 to fill up a Boeing 747, depending on your market.
Larger planes like the Boeing 747, on the other hand, have fuel jettison systems. If the aircraft tried to land without dumping the fuel first, it is considered an overweight landing attempt and could place immense stress on the airframe. It could also increase the risk of fire and fuel leaking onto the tarmac.
When an airplane experiences less drag, it consumes less fuel. This relationship between speed and fuel consumption means that flying at a slightly slower speed can result in significant fuel savings for airlines, which in turn can lower operating costs and potentially reduce ticket prices for passengers.
In fact, unless you're looking to venture from Los Altos to LA off-road through state parks the whole way—in a Hummer with Tonka-truck mud tires—driving is generally greener than flying.
Commercial airliners, such as the Boeing 747 and the Airbus A380, have a range of around 8,000 to 8,500 nautical miles. This means that they can fly for up to 20 hours without refueling, allowing them to travel long distances across the globe.
The B747-400, best known as the world's fastest commercial jetliner, has the capability of carrying up to 660 passengers in a partial double deck configuration. The average hourly rental rate of the Boeing 747-400 is around 30,950 USD per hour.
Therefore, in theory it's possible to refuel an empty B747-8 to its maximum usable fuel capacity in 15 min with all 8 nozzles. In normal refueling configuration two trucks (one truck each wing) being used which serves 4 pressure nozzle and takes 30 min to refuel 56,553 US gallons.