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Old 13th Apr 2016, 09:06
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TopBunk
 
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Just to put things into perspective.

A B747-400 would normally dump above 6000ft altitude, and yes preferably over the sea, however lets run some numbers. No fuel dump with flaps between 1 and 5 - personally I would have chosen flaps up. Minimum flaps up speed after a max weight take off is about 280 kts. The published dump rate is a max of 2000 kgs/minute

So, in one minute:

Aircraft travels 280kts = 8462 metres (280/60 * 1852)

Distance between jettison nozzles ~ 40 metres

Area covered = 338,480 sq metres (8462 * 40)

Jettison rate = 2000 kgs/min

Concentration at ground = 0.006 kg/sq metre (6 grammes)

Of course this assumes that the fuel comes down vertically without dispersion and evaporation. I would imagine the dispersion rate would be vast, even from 6000ft and I doubt that more than 1% of that would actually reach a given sq metre, ie less than 1/10th of a gramme.
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