[TheForge] Re: Natural gas burner? OT by now

[Demon Buddha]

schade at acegroup.cc wrote:

> According to the New York Times article I posted earlier today an F-16 
> burns 28 gal. per minute using it's afterburners. I think kerosene is 
> about 7lbs per gal. Approx 200 lbs per minute on afterburners.
> 
> No idea where Andy is getting his numbers.

	I used tohave a flight manual for the F-14 (don't ask) and knew all 
this arcane nonsense back when I used to fly (not f-14s).  Anyhow, you 
can find fuel consumption figures for nearly any aircraft on the net 
these days.   The 415 kg/min figure I used can be misleading in that it 
is the consumption figure at sea level at Mach .5.  At, say, 40,000 feet 
at M 1.5 it is about 5/8 that rate.  As I recall, the F14 eats about 380 
gallons/minute under reheat, or about 15% capacity/minute.  Supersonic 
flight is very expensive for these aircraft, which is why they went 
through all the trouble to develop jets such as the EF2000 and the F22 
Raptor, both of which have supercruise capability, meaning they cruise 
at some mach 1.2 under military power.  I'd like to know how they pulled 
that off... i.e., whether it was through aerodynamics, engine 
technology, both, or perhaps by pulling rabbits out of hats.