I think that the additional weight on the water on the surface of the outer airplane body increases friction with the air, and also weight of the aircraft. But does the fuel consumption increase? And by how much?

  • originalfrozenbanana@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    If you consider the fuselage a cylinder and calculate the surface area of the lateral surface it’s 2pir*h. this site has the length as 209.08ft and the diameter as 20.3. That means the fuselage surface area is about 13300ft^2. That same site lists the wing surface area as 4605ft^2, for a total of 17905 square. Assuming an 1/8” of water accumulates uniformly, which is a bad assumption, that’s 2238 cubic feet of water. Each cubic foot weighs about 62 pounds, so that much water weighs 136000 pounds. The normal takeoff weight of a 777 is 534000 pounds, yeah that is a lot. However, only about half the surface area is exposed to rain and 1/8 inch is a lot. Id imagine it’s less than half that weight.