X-Message-Number: 30000
References: <>
From: Kennita Watson <>
Subject: Re: Who the Fuel? 
Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2007 10:05:20 -0800

> Flavonoid wrote:
> I don't understand why it would be a problem to the airlines to pump a
> little more fuel into the plane's tank.  So the plane has leftover  
> fuel
> at the end of its flight ....  Does the plane lose it if it doesn't  
> use
> it?  Do they have to dump it out when the flight is over, discard  
> it, and
> pump in all new fuel?  I'd guess not.  So what's the problem?  You pay
> for it now, or you pay for it later.  Are the airlines that stupid?

If the plane has more fuel in it, it weighs more and
gets worse gas mileage, so the airline pays more to
get that fuel across the country.  If the plane lands
with leftover fuel, it *does* lose the money it costs
to fly the fuel from airport to airport.  It weighs
about

 From http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/driveHabits.shtml:
Remove Excess Weight:  Avoid keeping unnecessary items in your  
vehicle, especially heavy ones. An extra 100 pounds in your vehicle  
could reduce your MPG by up to 2%. The reduction is based on the  
percentage of extra weight relative to the vehicle's weight and  
affects smaller vehicles more than larger ones.
	Fuel Economy Benefit: 	1-2%/100 lbs
	Equivalent Gasoline Savings: 	$0.03-$0.06/gallon

I expect this is worse when you need to keep those
extra pounds airborne.  BTW, according to
http://www.csgnetwork.com/fuelconsumpgphcalc.html ,
jet fuel weighs 6.84 pounds per gallon -- I don't want to
make the guesses needed to do the calculations on that
page, but... Let's see...  From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 
Fuel_efficiency_in_transportation#Airplanes ,
Passenger airplanes averaged 4.8 L/100 km per passenger (1.4 MJ/ 
passenger-km)
(49 passenger-miles per gallon) in 1998. Efficiencies around 3 L/100  
km per
passenger are reached by some carriers.

and from
http://www.airlines.org/economics/energy/MonthlyJetFuel.htm ,
Jet fuel prices are apparently up to around $2.30/gallon.
If one assumes that it costs about as much to fly 150-200
pounds of fuels as to fly the average passenger, that
expense could add up to a sufficient amount for airlines
to want to shave off those nonpaying passengers' worth of
dead weight.

> I don't understand the problem to cryonics.  Or was it merely an
> off-topic post?  Are cryonicists en route to the US going to get a  
> better
> cryopreservation if there is more fuel in the plane?  I'd guess  
> not.  So
> what's the problem, Mark Plus?  And if you state one, would you be so
> unusually kind as to also provide us with the solution?  Thank you.

They may not be able to get here if it costs too much to
fly them, or if the plane crashes because it didn't carry
enough safety margin and ran into trouble; even if it
doesn't crash, it might have to divert to a different
airport, which could cause delays that are annoying to the
average passenger but possibly catastrophic for us.

I suppose one could research airlines and see which ones
fly with the greatest reserves.  That may be hard to find
out, since unless it's a hard and fast rule, it might
conceivably change from day to day or even flight to flight.

Please don't be so quick to find fault.  Your words drip
with venom, and the world has enough bad feeling in it.

Live long and prosper,
Kennita

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