"Innis Cunningham" wrote: > Seamus Thomas Carroll writes >>Doesnt a plane run out of fuel after a period of time?
Yes, but not to ease life too much, pilots typically calculate the fuel consuption of their aircraft in a different way: They know the fuel consumption of the engine at a certain cruise speed (probably 36 litres per hour in an Archer at 110 kts airspeed). Additionally they might want to differenciate between indicated and true airspeed depending on the weather conditions and altitude. Now they determine wind and wind direction to calculate the effective ground speed. Afterwards they're going to find out how long it will take them at a know ground speed in kts to travel a certain distance in kilometers (at least on the European continent). It's sooo easy .... but you get used to it :-) > This is why small planes run out of fuel because the pilot calculates > his fuel requirment based on the winds he expects on route.If these > winds are much stronger than expected then the pilot may not realize > untill it is to late that he does not have enough fuel to land at an > airport. Well, true, there _are_ exceptions but usually as a pilot they should cross-check their actual position from time to time and probably know about an alternate in case they don't make it to the destination .... Martin. -- Unix _IS_ user friendly - it's just selective about who its friends are ! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list Flightgear-devel@flightgear.org http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
