Have you ever wondered how much does an airplane weigh? Or how much fuel does it use while it flies?
Here are some numbers for you...
Max takeoff weight of a small airliner (Boeing 737): 56 thousand kilograms (123 thousand pounds);
Max takeoff weight of a big airliner (Boeing 777-300): 351 thousand kilograms; (770 thousand pounds);
Max takeoff weight of the biggest airliner ever built so far (Airbus 380): 590 thousand kilograms (1.3 million pounds)!
Wingspan of an Airbus 380 (wingtip to wingtip): 80 meters (262 feet);
Temperature outside the cabin when at cruise altitude: usually between -40 and -60 degrees centigrades (-40 / -76 degrees Fahrenheit);
Distance traveled during longest passenger flight (to summer 2016): 14,200 kilometers (8,800 miles), a flight from Dubai (United Arab Emirates) to Auckland (New Zealand) flown by an Airbus 380, for a duration of just above 17 hours.
UPDATE: as of October 2018, the longest flight is a Singapore Airlines Airbus A350-900, from Singapore to New York, covering 16,500 kilometers (10,291 miles) in a little less than 18 hours!
Cruise speed of an airliner: between 700 and 900 kilometers per hour; now, keep in mind that this is the speed referred to the air mass in which the airplane flies; for the reasons I told you in the
airplanes and wind post, the cruise speed referred to ground is sometimes more than 1,000 kilometers per hour!
Cruise altitude of an airliner: between 9,000 and 14,000 meters (29,000 and 45,000 feet); this altitude varies based on airplane's characteristics, but especially based on its weight: the lighter it is, the higher it can go. This is why a long flight usually starts at a lower altitude, which is progressively increased as more fuel is burned during the flight (the higher, the better, in terms of fuel consumption and air traffic control constraints).
Number of passengers that can be carried on board the biggest airliner (Airbus 380): about 500, depending on how the cabin is organized in different classes; actually, the airplane has been certified for a maximum of 853 passengers!
Fuel burned during an intercontinental flight from Abu Dhabi to Los Angeles (about 12,000 km, 7,400 miles), by a Boeing 777-200: 150 thousand liters (40,000 U.S. gallons, about (about 3,000 fill-ups of your car!)
Average fuel consumption of a Boeing 777-200: about 9,300 liters per hour (2,500 gallons per hour, almost three quarter of a gallon every second...)
So... what's the mileage we can get?
After some math, that would be a little less than a quarter of a mile per gallon... Well, if you think about it, it's not that bad, considering that it carries 400 people!
Power of a jet engine: actually, it's a bit improper to talk about power for a turbofan; the energy that it produces is usually measured in kilograms, or pounds of thrust. For example, A GE90-115, (an engine you could find fitted on a Boeing 777) can produce about 52 thousand kilograms (115 thousand pounds) of thrust.
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