How long would it take an Airbus 318 to use a litre of fuel given the following criteria ....?

Question

At it's cruising altitude, we'll say 11,000 meters and at a cruising speed, let's say 460 knots, and normal air pressure, and normal weather, etc.

Also, the aircraft is carrying the average number of passangers for a short haul route, and an average payload.

Answer 1

Per engine? Less than a minute.You easured ALT in meters so you know a litre is a small amount of fuel but aircraft measure fuel by weight.

Answer 2

About as long as it takes for you to read this sentence pertaining to the time needed to burn one liter of fuel in the  Airbus 318 flying with normal loads in normal conditions at normal cruising altitudes...

Later post:

Good job Andrew...by the way, I timed myself reading the sentence above and each time it came to within 1 second of 10 secs:)

Good reasearch!!

Answer 3

About 10 seconds. I did rough conversions, but let's say it burns about 3000 pounds of fuel an hour (1500 lbs per engine) at cruise ( take-off and initial climb rates could easily double that amount.)

Jet fuel weighs 6.7 lbs/ U.S Gallon (roughly), equaling 447 gallons per hour.  That works out to 7.5 gal/minute

Weight is not that much of a factor in cruise. Not as much as it is during take-off and climb, where heavy loads can decrease aircraft performance greatly.

I don't know the A318 specifically, but the turboprop I fly burns 1200 pounds an hour in cruise. It flies much slower and lower then the A318.

Keep in mind, that for those 7.5 US gal/ minute, it will cover, it will cover almost 8 miles in one minute, while carrying 100 people. Still, that's a lot of fuel and you can see why the airlines are hurting.

Enjoy doing the conversions!