Maddie Ramirez from Briarhill Middle School in Highland Village, Texas wins the 2009 Adopt-a-Pilot Tie Design Contest. Southwest Airlines Chairman, President & CEO Gary Kelly and Southwest Captain Bill Stone make a special presentation to the school and to Maddie.
The following question was posted on one of the press releases regarding this program:
If a jet burns an average of 744 gallons of fuel on a one-hour flight, how many gallons of jet fuel will be burned on a 90-minute flight?*
This was the answer at the end of the article:
(Answer: 1,116 gallons of jet fuel will be burned)
Here is the link:
http://sev.prnewswire.com/airlines-aviation/20090204/DA6670504022009-1.html
Why am I posting this here? Because I think the answer is incorrect. It is my understanding that fuel consumption depends largely on weight. Therefore as the flight progresses and there is less fuel to carry, consumption efficiency increases. As a result, simply applying a linear relationship when answering this question is incorrect. All else being equal, the actual amount of fuel burned should be less than 1,116 gallons.
Is this analysis correct or can any one shed some light on the subject?
Happy flying!
Anonymous, in truth no two flights are alike because every flight has a different weight and the weather is different--especially the winds. So in reality the press release doesn't give you enough information to figure fuel burn.But in all honesty, that's not the job of a press release, and this one was just using a little fun exercise to show people a tiny bit of how our Pilots get the fifth-grade students to start thinking. The answer to the question was simply to figure out the fuel used in a minute and to multiply it by the number of minutes. Please don't take it as a literal flight planning exercise.
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