What is the MPG(miles per gallon) an airplane gets?

Question

I want the MPG of, say, these four planes, which covor most different kinds of planes:

747 airliner

F15 fighter

Airforce 1

a single propeller, two person plane.

Also, I want the cost of the fuel, preferably for each, because I imagine each of these planes use a different kind of fuel. (Do they?)

Me again almost got the best answer, but .01 miles per gallon? That means you'd have to use 100 gallons to make it one mile! That just doesn't sound right to me. He was wrong to call you nimrods, that was rude. But it's true I didn't yet get a real answer, so barring a better answer coming along, this is going to a vote.

Answer 1

The jets use a fuel which is basically kerosene. JP4, etc.
Jets generally use more fuel than piston engines. Turboprops are also jet engines turning a propeller and use the same type of fuel.
WIth the piston engine airplane like a Cessna, a four or six cylinder engine runns 100 Ocltane Low Lead =100LL gasoline. It is formulated for flight and has higher octane than car fuel.

Usually the way to calculate fuel use is in gallons used per hour of flight. This varies greatly with the size and Horespower of the engine in question. on a Cessna 152, the small four cylinder engine burns from 5-7 gallons per hour depending on the throttle setting (like how far you press the car gas pedal). Other factors such as altitude and mixture of air/fuel come into play. But to finally answer your question, if you burn 7 gallons an hour and travel 120 miles in that time, you simply divide 120 by 7 and get the answer which is 17. I don't know how many cars travelling at 120 MPH get 17 MPG! Some have trouble getting that mileage at 60-80 MPH. I hope this helps a little. Enough of this, let's go flying!~

Answer 2

Airplane Miles Per Gallon

Answer 3

You bunch of nimrods. The guy asked a simple question. You all butchered it. I have ho idea how many miles per gallon all these aircraft get, because they're all different, but I can dam sure tell you that it can be figured out by the simple calculation of how much fuel it took to get from point A to point B. Is there some rule that says you can't measure liquid aircraft fuel in gallons? No there is not. in fact, I looked up one airplane that has a range of 2200 miles, and it holds 180 gallons of fuel. Imagine that. Gallons. Not pounds, gallons. Simple math tells you that the airplane gets an advertised 12 miles per gallon. I was able to find out that a 747 gets about .01 miles per gallon. Avgas, which is for piston engines, and Jet-A, which is obviously for jets, are both around 4 bucks a gallon. Give or take a quarter.

Answer 4

Air Force 1 is a 747. Various web sites will give you fuel consumption for those. The F-15 fighter has a VERY broad range of fuel consumption, based upon which of its roles it is operating in. I have flown neither of these planes, so don't have personal knowledge of their fuel usage. The most powerful engines I have flown are the P&W TF30-3s at about 19,000 lbs. of thrust each. Fuel consumption figures were not made public at that time and I don't know that they have been declassified. Probably have been, but I don't know that. Jet engines are rated in pounds of fuel per hour, piston engines in gallons per hour. The single engine, two place aircraft will burn about 6 gallons per hour of 100 octane low-lead gasoline, which sells for about 3.50 per gallon, depending on where you buy it. The 747s use Jet A or JP-5 (military name for Jet A) and it runs around 3.00 per gallon last I knew. Fighters use JP-4, a mixture of kerosene (Jet A) and aviation gasoline. I have no idea what it would sell for. A guess would be in the 5.00 per gallon area.

Answer 5

I don't know what the other planes are, but a single propeller, two person, in the case I'm talking about, a Cessna 150-C, burns about 4 to 6 gallons and hour, and can take auto gas.
By the way, whoever said it, Air Force One isn't a 747, always. That's probably what he meant, but it is any Air Force operated aircraft carrying the President.

Answer 6

Fuel burn in airplanes is based on time. For instance, a Cessna 152 (2 person single engine propeller airplane) will burn about 6 gallons per hour. It flies (indicated airspeed) at about 100 miles per hour. Ground speed will vary depending on wind. If the wind was still, then you could effectively say it would be getting 16.67 miles per gallon. The C152 has a little more than 4 hours fuel on board, depending on altitude, percent power, etc., so you could go about 400 miles on a tank of gas, which at last check was a little more than $4 a gallon for 100LL.
Hope that answers the question about the single engine airplane...

Answer 7

Aircraft do not burn fuel in miles per gallon.
It is calculated by time.
For example 9 gallons per hour for small single engines.

Larger aircraft like a fighter or airbus calculate by the weight of the fuel. Fuel weighs approx. 6 lbs per gallon.
For example the fighter can burn up to 5,000 lbs per hour.(Just a guess)
Yes they do use different fuels.
Fuel burn has to be calculated over time because the winds can make a plane faster or slower in relation to ground speed.
For the fuel burns on the larger aircraft you may want to visit the manufacturer's sight. It would only be a guess out here.

Answer 8

As everyone seems to say, aircraft engines are rated as to gallons per hour, but it's a fairly easy conversion, once you know each aircraft's cruise speed. Say a Cessna 180 (4 place prop) burns 7.5 gallons per hour, and cruises at about 140 knots (just guessing here, I'm a helicopter pilot). Figures to just under 20 miles to the gallon.
Take a helicopter though. A Eurocopter AStarB3 burns 45 gallon an hour, and cruises about 110 knots. But the nice thing about a helicopter isn't getting from point A to B. I've burned hours worth of fuel and never gone more than 5 miles. Lots of back and forth, but never going very far.

747 burns a lot of fuel, and goes about .9 mach (just under the speed of sound) in cruise, but obviously climbs slower, and there are speed limits under 10,000 feet.

Cost of fuel varies across the country. Here in Alaska it can range from 3.50/gallon (for jet fuel) in Anchorage to over 8.00/gallon in Adak and Anaktuvuk.

Answer 9

It's calculated in gallons per hour, or pounds per hour depending on the aircraft.

Aircraft that burn jet fuel (747, F15, Airforce One) will use calculations in pounds per hour. Why? Well jets generally fly at higher altitudes than smaller aircraft do. As you climb in altitude the air gets colder.

As the air gets colder the fuel cools and condenses. This is why calculations are not done in gallons per hour. Because the weight of a gallon of gas varies with temperature.

Answer 10

Most of the time, like stated above, fuel on aircraft is figured in terms of time. For example, an aircraft burning and average of 12,000 pounds per hour, that took off with 120,000 pounds of fuel, would run out of fuel in 10 hours. In some instances, it is calculated in Nautical Miles per Pound (NMpP). For example, the aircraft that I operate usually gets about .031 nautical miles per pound of fuel while in cruise. That means for every pound of fuel we burn, we go .031 nautical miles. So, it takes about 3 pounds of fuel to go a mile. Here are some numbers if you want to do the conversions:
AF1 and the F-15 both use JP-8 fuel, so 1 pound = 6.7 gallons
One Nautical mile is 6076 feet.
I think JP-8 is going for around $2.00 these days, but I could be wrong.