Question

The new Airbus A380 is 73 meters long, its fuselage is 7 meters in diameter, its wingspan is 80 meters, and the wing chord (length from front to back) varies from about 5 meters at the tip to about 15 meters at the fuselage. The airplane is designed to cruise at 900 kilometers per hour at an altitude of 12000 meters. Estimate the fuel consumption required at cruise to overcome the viscous drag on the airplane, assuming that the engines convert 40% of the available 45 MJ/kg of energy in the fuel to thrust.

Answer 1