Takeoff and fuel burn
I'm working on a project to understand the economics and fuel burn of large and small commercial jets over different distances.
I always thought that takeoff in big commercial jets was conducted at full throttle and then cruising is at a lesser burn rate, so basically once you have burned an initial large amount of fuel taking off and climbing to altitude for about 20 minutes you cruise and burn at a lesser rate for the duration of the flight, then land. (Whether you land at a cruise burn rate or something less because of descent, I don't know.)
I figured it takes a lot more fuel burn at takeoff for widebody (i.e. 2 aisle) jets, so the overall fuel consumption per passenger would be high unless you fly a long way - so on short routes narrow body jets are cheaper because takeoff and landing is better.
However I found a site on the net that says takeoff isn't conducted at full throttle at all...
Does anyone know where I could go to actually find some data about this stuff (like how many pounds per second get burned on takeoff vs while cruising?)