Fuel efficiencies - car vs ship vs plane

[proximity]

Ive been doing some random maths on fuel consumption (bored). Completely useless information as usual, here goes:

Lets say the average car gets 40mpg.
A cruise ship will do six inches to the gallon !

[Silver]

Fascinating facts... however, surely the speed comes into it (economy wise). At what capacity are these travelling? For example, Is the ship flat out, or is it an average?

[loply]

Not surprised the ship is so inefficient. A bike or plane you get going and it goes by itself, but a ship would stop incredibly quick with all that resistance, it needs constant hard pushing to make it budge.

Interesting that the plane worked out exactly the same as an efficient bike! So you could go round the world on a bike for the same cash as a plane... Roughly.
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Yamaha SZR660 Caution to the wind, the throttle pinned!

[mchaggis]

New York to London is apparently only 3471 miles.

My calculations still say 0.19 mpg per person though...

https://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/cursortrail.html

You might get more heavy fuel oil from each gallon of crude oil than you get petrol or paraffin (kerosene), but don't quote me on that.

My 747 calculation worked out at 23 mpg though.
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I must not be a troll...
Mmmm, Guinness
Discovering the delights of Hammerite and a 3/4" brush.

[Silver]

[Kickstart]

Hi

I would expect the ship to be far better than either of the of the bike. Once moving they don't take much to keep them going. Look at the canals where a single horse happily pulled massive loads which they could not hope to bodge on the roads.

All the best

Keith
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[G]

I don't know how many people they do take, but a large ship could reasonably take a lot more than 2000 people... that's only 4 times what the plane could take, yet it's massively bigger.

Maybe better to consider a ferry, that doesn't have quite so much onboard entertainment for it's size.

[Kickstart]

[proximity]

Hmmm, if thats correct and london to new york is only 3471 miles, the plane would use only 20356 gallons, which still works out out 70 mpg (it will get the same efficiency per mile no matter how far it goes).
Those QE2 specs seem a lot more accurate than mine too, i couldnt think how you could use a gollon going 6", thats nothing.
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2004 Aprilia Tuono

[Kickstart]

Hi

Think it is take off that really kills aircraft fuel consumption, and once up to cruising height they are far better.

All the best

Keith
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[Danny]

[proximity]

Yeh i have no idea how much they use on takeoff, i took the figure 3378 gallons per hour from BAs website, so that would be cruising speed i would think.
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2004 Aprilia Tuono

[Danny]

[Robby]

One of the new big planes - newest airbus I think - is supposed to be capable of averaging the equivalent of 75mpg per person.

But yes, mass transport uses a lot of fuel, but it is fuel that wouldn't be used elsewhere much. The stuff that huge ships burn is practically tar, jets pretty much run on kerosene.

Tax is also minimal for them.

[proximity]

I thought you turn crude oil into stuff like petrol, i didnt think you could take the petrol out of the oil and still have all the rest left for other uses.
So say you take out 1000 litres of petrol out of the oil, can you still take out kerosene etc from the same bit of oil?

I thought the idea of "cracking" (it was a long time ago i did this) was to turn the hydrocarbon chains into what you want, like petrol. So you can get more petrol out of some oil than all the other things.
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2004 Aprilia Tuono

[proximity]

Actually i never mentioned trains, now theres a joke right there. I remember JC mentioning efficiencies of those on top gear a while back.
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2004 Aprilia Tuono

[Kickstart]

Hi

Think an average train works out at about the energy efficiency of a single occupancy 55mpg diesel car, so worse than that of an averagely loaded car (and that is ignoring the extra bits of journey at either end trying to get to and from a station).

All the best

Keith
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