See post #1, and pretty well every subsequent one. :ugh:

Unless you have reinvented the laws of aerodynamics, it's an undisputed fact that a heavier aircraft burns more fuel than a lighter one. You and your colleague are the only posters who seem to be denying that.

But don't take my word for it - a glance at the backside of every payload/range chart ever drawn is all you should need.

Y'all seem to have missed that this fuss all started as a puff piece for a BBC tv programme.

You often see such "news" on BBC News pages.

Yes, it does, doesn't it, but I left it there because that's what the ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator (also linked in my last post) produced for an A320 family LHR-MUC. Or maybe I misinterpreted it; I put the link in so that people could check. (Hint............................. and when you have done that, please let me know if you get a substantially different figure.)

I think it's unbelievable that in these discussions that some refer to carbon in the atmosphere when it is a black solid stuff and there is none.

Now CO2. That's better. There is supposed to be 400 ppm CO2s in the atmosphere. Fine, so far so good, But that means there is 999600 ppm that is not CO2

I like to tell people that don't know this stuff to compare it to one meter in length and it comes out at 0.4mm. less than the thickness of my thumb nail. Another version is the proportion of time in a year to pass. CO2 part passes in 3.5 hours. Then there is the version to tell the US citizens. A 1 million dollar stack of 100 dollar bills comes to 40 inches. You take the top 4, $100 and see how thin that is and I'll take the other 9996 bills.

I hope some of this makes sense to some of you, but it's all just to show how minuscule the amount of CO2 is in the atmosphere.

The infamous above-referenced Eurocontrol paper quotes 3.6 tonnes for a 600 nm sector, based on the fuel burn of typical aircraft types used in Europe. LHR-MUC is 510 nm (GC).

What the Panorama programme missed was the fantastic job that the airlines and crews do in planning and loading the minimum amout of fuel needed on each sector taking into account the weather and expected delays.
Compare this to a BBC producer that drives a large car into central London probably with a full tank of fuel because he or she can't be bothered to calculate his fuel requirement for the trip and fill his tank accordingly.

Could a BBC whistleblower tell us what car the producer drives and where from so we can calculate the CO2 emitted.

STOP PRESS

BBC Panorama progamme looking for whistleblower to reveal how airlines fly over built up areas with only a minimum amount of fuel on board.

But per passenger, you are taking up a lot more. Your seat is heavier, your bigger seat area takes up a bigger percentage of the fuselage weight, you have a bigger baggage allowance, you have more cabin crew per passenger, you have food served on proper plates, and if you are anything like me, you are fatter ;)

If you were so kind as to read what other people actually say instead of jumping head first into a useless argument, you would know that "both me and my colleague" are arguing not whether a heavier aircraft consumes more fuel, but rather that the fuel at the destination is more expensive because it takes more effort to deliver it there. And delivering fuel is more expensive because it has to go on a fuel truck, then a tanker, then through a pipeline, etc, etc, etc. It is an undisputed fact that trucks and tankers consume a lot of fuel and produce harmful gases. Therefore, the fuel at the destination may be more harmful to the environment than the one tanked from the point of origin and it may be beneficial to tank fuel from the said point of origin rather than buy it at the said destination.

umm... what???????

Equally undisputed is that moving a given load a given distance by air, uses many times the amount of fuel, and produces many times the amount of harmful gases, as moving the same load the same distance by trucks and tankers.

I'd be interested to see an analysis that shows, for any place on Earth to which commercial air transport exists, that getting fuel there by air uses less fuel or produces less pollution than getting it there by any other means.

Really!? Is it undisputed? An organization called Friends of the Earth, an entrenched crowd of tree-huggers, states that trains use more fuel per passenger than an airplane. Hence their long-standing slogan: "The best trip is the one that's never taken".

Uses less fuel OR produces less pollution? Those two are not the same. Airplane uses high-quality kerosene with minimum sulfur content while barges and trucks use the heaviest fuels. As for the "analysis", I refer you to my answer above to the Brit who advocates shooting down passenger airplanes every time their crew mistakely dials a wrong squak code.

That's the worst piece of chemistry since I took pen to paper.

Correctly balanced equation, but a very bad conclusion. Doesn't quite work like that.

These headlines nicely highlight the folly of the plaintive cry "why oh why isn't aviation fuel taxed?" - well do that and it will create marked price difference between inside and outside that tax regime, and in turn - massively increase the use of fuel tankering.

I wonder how much CO2 would be saved if we didnt need to fly around, rather than over France several times a year.

I wonder how much CO2 would be saved if we didnt spend 30 minutes drawing race tracks over London.

I wonder how much CO2 would be saved if we didnt have to drive aircraft from Polderbaan across the Netherlands to the terminal, then wait another 20 minutes for a gate.

What about the massive amounts of fuel tankered into AKL/NZAA when the fuel pipeline from the refinery was severed?

Virtually every trans Tasman flight filled up in Australia to minimise uplift in NZ.

Even longhauls were tankering to avoid being stuck on the ground

Introducing a straw man argument like that isn't the best way of demonstrating that you have any interest in a serious analysis. :ugh:

Rocchi, the average person weighs around 75kg's. Yet a couple of milligrams of VX, Sarin. or GB will kill you dead. That's far less than the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere. It's not about the amount, its about the effect.

Simple, for your grandchildren, Dont tanker, reduce your carbon footprint
 

“We’re investing in new aircraft and innovative technology to reduce our carbon footprint in an industry where there’s no current alternative to jet fuel,” Walsh said that aviation represented only 2% of global CO2 emissions, and that the airline group’s steps were one part of a broader solution to make aviation less polluting.¨
IAG Chief Executive Willie Walsh said in a statement.

Not tankering for economic reduces your/our carbon footprint, its basic math. Yet a formula needs to be agreed so that airlines are not gouged at expensive fuel destinations, by law.
Wake up, please, we are facing a climate emergency, the melting of the glaciers, just look at the antarctic and Greenland. For those climate change deniers you have been conned by propaganda, Exxon knew 20 years ago for sure.
So why not make a effort on this particular issue? Just remember this moment in 25 years as your children and grandchildren ask you what you did? We need to make the paradigm shift as you do know what the fuel burn of an extra ton of jetfuel is, right?

Simple, economic tankering by carrying extra fuel to save money, increases your carbon footprint, and landing distance. PERIOD!
As per the IAG policy and Willie Walsh statement it will be more difficult for companies in the IAG to force pilots to tanker for profit, without being hypocrtical.

To Tanker ( economical ) OR NOT to Tanker. That is the question

After having tankered for many years to save my company/s money. I am guilty and would like to repent. Now, As per the climate emergency, has to take priority and this is backed up by facts and objetive scientists. I will be tankering the minimum, and enough extra fuel for safety and diverting, etc, etc, as we the planet is going from a yellow caution into a red warning light situation. Just look at Iceland, Greenland and the fires in California and coral reefs.

The tantrum aside, there is no place for any kind of politics in the cockpit. Your job is flying, NOTHING else. The rest is up to other people outside the aircraft. You can discuss it all you like when you're not at work but once you are in your seat, EVERYTHING else must disappear from your head.

In one of my previous lives it was my task to actually encourage the Ops department regarding maximum fuel CFP's and tankering fuel.

A couple of prime examples, for one season we weekly had a B757 positioning in from LTN (where the fuel cost index was 86%) to CWL (where the fuel cost index was 100%) to operate a CWL/LCA (a 4.5 hour sector), to tanker fuel in from LTN would cost around 4% so, weekly, on a 4.5 hour sector we could save 10% on the fuel.

Another prime example was CWL/KLX, once weekly where CWL was 100% and KLX a staggering 151%.

As has already been suggested, if an airline is top be truly green then cease flogging duty frees and cuddly toys, forbid any excess baggage, all cargo needs to go by surface transport, strip the paint off and go naked fuselage las do AA etc. etc. etc.

I would suggest that is very much disputed if it comes to fuel tankering. Given that the flight is going anyway the only consideration is the extra fuel burn of the carriage of fuel which I would suggest over long distances is more efficient in a aeroplane, and that's before we calculate the environmental impact of the road.

This might be an opportune moment to mention that tomorrow, 14th November, QF will fly a B789 on delivery non-stop from Heathrow to Sydney, presumably aiming to better the 20:09 flight time they set in August 1989 with a similar non-stop B744 flight.

Qantas to launch London-Sydney test flight despite new sustainability pledge

The problem with climate change diagrams in general is that they are misleading.

Taking your example - that Extra Fuel Burnt bar coloured nicely in red to look alarming, doesn't mean anything as there is no indication of the quantities involved, starting airport, destination airport, trip distance - basically there is no information there apart from alarmist propoganda.

There is also no assessment of the impact of fuel uplift at the destination - since some airports are remote and need to truck fuel to the airport, there is an environmental impact there.

I for one am all for very efficient uses of resources, the more efficient - the better, but this sort of rubbish only muddies the waters and lets the loonies on both sides loose.

As for aviation in general, lets not forget that the whole industry emits 2% of global emissions. To offset these emissions completely there is a simple solution - the human race needs to eat a little less meat.

Lets get real about what and who the real culprits here are, and tackle those rather than virtue signalling by attacking a very visible industry.

Prediction: Boeing will launch the NMA/797 and it will become a massive success.

Why? Because, as the world ontinues to obsess over aircraft emissions, tankering etc., the 797 will offer the lightest, most economical, 5,000 mile range, 220 - 270 seater - capable of linking any city pairs in the world with one tech stop: saving truly massive amounts of fuel and emissions. Yes, there'll be the cost of the stops and increased cycles etc but airlines won't care about that because their punters - and the world at large - won't: they just want to be seen making huge strides on the emissions front. Slightly tongue in cheek but if tech stops reduce overall fuel burn through eliminating the weight of tankered fuel, why not go the whole hog and eliminate the weight of the airframe no longer needed to carry it . . and the weight and thrust of the engines no longer needed to propel it?

The graphic (which is not mine, but Eurocontrol's) isn't intended to stand alone but to form part of the report for which I provided the link (and which does include numerical data).

But I agree that the proportions of the chart are a tad misleading in that the size of the tankering penalty shown would equate to a stage of at least 6 hours, probably longer, where although you could in theory carry round trip fuel, you almost certainly wouldn't.

As for colouring it red, an expression involving rags and bulls springs to mind. :O

Having read the report that goes along with it, Eurocontrol have not calculated the impact of getting fuel to any of the airports involved in the flight simulations, or taken into account the impact of getting fuel to the originating airport.

This is why I have an issue with reports like this thrown out there, they look as the issue only in isolation when they are definitely not.

Having said that, reports like this are like red rags and I think I'm almost certainly a bull!:}

There are no observations in the real atmosphere that show that CO2 has any impact on atmospheric temperature. The adiabatic lapse rates are not affected by CO2 and these are repeatedly confirmed by balloon sondes.
Historically, changes in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere lags changes in temperature, at all timescales. Therefore, no causal relationship in the real world atmosphere can be shown by observational measurement or correlation.

Is Heathrow still fed by a pipeline directly from Fawley refinery? - if so, that presumably would make the carbon costs of delivery to the airplane almost nil.

Indeed it is, and it's this sort of information that is left out of documents like the one above from Eurocontrol.

All this does is distort the facts.

It is and is in the process of being replaced with a new pipeline following more or less the same course as the old one.

Only if it's downhill all the way......somewhere in the background where the energy to shift the stuff along the pipe is being generated, and that has an impact. Maybe not much compared to road tankers, but not almost nil either.

Afterthought; OK, if the fuel company generates the electricity to drive the pumps using wind or solar energy, it's almost nil. But do they?

I'm sure they don't, but, even if they did, it would only be "almost nil" if the energy used to build the pumps; manufacture the pipes, fittings, etc.; fabricate the materials; mine the ores; and on and on was also generated by renewables, using only renewable energy sources to produce the wind generators, photovoltaic panels, etc. . . .

It's "embodied energy" and it often far exceeds the energy needed for operation of a system, while its production may also generate more emissions than energy for operation.

The bottom line is that there are no simple answers to the questions and potential problems associated with this issue.

Nevertheless, given that carbon emissions (among other related things) are worthy of serious attention, and even given that emissions associated with airline operations are as well, it really doesn't make much sense to put tankering very high on the list of concerns.

A quick look at a map seems to show that GLA is no farther from its nearest refinery than LHR, and is actually nearer to the source of the oil, so, if fuel is being tankered from LHR to GLA, it would suggest that the market is not functioning effectively. That might reasonably provoke some investigation.

The amount of energy spent/CO2 generated to transport fuel to the Seychelles by ship can't be more than the amount spent to take it there by plane. Ships generate less than 1/10 the CO2 per tonne-km than aircraft, trucks a bit more but still less than aircraft.
(https://petrolog.typepad.com/climate...and-ships.html)

Tankering might not be our main problem but it's an easy to point out environmental "sin" where we place profit/cost over emissions. The main point to make on behalf of airlines is that passengers direct airlines to do everything as cheaply as possible because they mainly go by price when buying tickets. We'd all fly Neos, Maxes, A220s and E2s if only passengers paid a premium to fly on environmentally friendly airplanes. As they don't we don't.

Nope. Your average, electric, full function flat bed reclining business class seat is so heavy it has to be lifted in and out of the aircraft with a trolley. A standard economy class triple seat (which takes up a similar space) can be manhandled in and out by a couple of ten stone weaklings like me.

If you want to fly people around economically, then cram them in Ryanair style. I'm not talking about finances here, merely countering the argument. Airlines can make more money from premium paying passengers, but as far as fuel burn per passenger is concerned then all aircraft should be economy seating only, and only take off when full.
I hope it never happens in my life time, I like my creature comforts up front.

RAF tankered (Standard Jeppesen-trained procedure) into Kandahar for several years because road tankers were being targetted by road-side bombs. Tri-Stars & C17's would arrive overweight and offload fuel into bladders to fuel in-country C130s/Helos to supplement the road tankers that DID make it through!
It was an Operational MUST!

But burning fuel to carry fuel is a commercial expense which could be minimised. At the end of the day, saving money on buying/using fuel IS an eco-saving, whether economically or environmentally.
Whichever method is employed, the result is a reduced usage of fossil fuel = reduced costs!
Don't send it by ship, then land, only to get it blown skywards with no resultant productive usage = useless waste, So take it in by air = useful fuel for departures from KDH!
Win/Win as far as I can see!

Sounds like good advice for all the carriers operating into war zones.

Mk1 and Ian W
Cherry picking at its best.

Interestingly, the aircraft making the Sydney flight, VH-ZNJ, line number 66704, will be preparing to depart LHR (06:00) while the inbound Perth service will be arriving with its predecessor off the Boeing line. Line number 66073, VH-ZNI.
And for those who like to see aircraft in the dark, VH-ZNJ is in Qantas 100th birthday colours.