What objects on a plane Could be made lighter and How?

Question

For example: Engine, Chairs, Maximum Suitcase Weight.

Answer 1

Well, there's all kinds of things you can do to lighten an aircraft.  All that slick carpet and noise insulation in the cabin adds up, but makes the ride in shorts and t-**** to Miami possible.  Mass life support adds weight, but folks probably wouldn't want to take a 12 hour flight in a pressurized oxygen mask, bundled up in parkas.  Toilets add weight, you could replace with a bucket.  What you finally get to is a military transport (minus the pressurization...they have that).  You could fill the cargo compartment with helium... that would shave off a few ounces.  Anyway, plenty of things to do to make the aircraft lighter. We could serve salad, and have each pax shed a pound or two.

Answer 2

Actually you missed the best available option... Airframe...

By using carbon fiber instead of metal alloys, airframe weight could be reduced by 30 - 50 percent.

Also, eliminating the tail surfaces and designing aircraft with canards (nose lifting surfaces) would lower dynamic weight forces while in flight.

i. e. a 747 horizontal tail surface must exhert 70-tons of DOWNFORCE to cause the aircraft to lift off the runway and to climb when in flight.  Robbing the vehicle of efficiency.

Answer 3

A lot of research has gone into making things on airplanes lighter so payload can be increased.  

Over the years, aluminum has been substituted for steel and in some cases even lighter materials like magnesium and titanium are substituted for aluminum.  And composites--some small airplanes now are made entirely of carbon fiber epoxy.  For shorter flights, you can lighten the plane considerably by carrying less fuel.  You can put a limit on baggage weight, but there's a tradeoff there, because it will drive customers to your competitor.

Answer 4

engines, chairs, max suitcase weight, all that have already been reduced to the best cost-comfort-weight-performance ratio already.

you cannot reduce a passengers weight so that ideas is a dud

life support like pressurization and pumps can and will be developed and made lighter and probably implemented.

there really isn't much to be done about the weights of the toilets

airframe weight is already being reduced by the use of aluminum and carbon fiber

hydraulics are also being replaced for electric motors since they're lighter but there is still the matter of cost,reliability etc.

what everyone missed at the time that I'm answering this question is the weight of FUEL!

yes, for example a 747 carries more than 300,000 lbs of fuel.

if somehow we come up with alternate fuels that are lighter, or more powerful so that the aircraft doesn't need to carry as much for a given flight... OUR AIRCRAFT HAS JUST SHED 50,000 TO 100,000 LBS!

another idea, once technology is more advanced, is to jettison the landing gears therefore shedding a few  tons. this may seen negligible but as aircraft grow bigger, and they will due to rising fuel costs, your landing gears will have to be stronger and heavier.

you can make all aircraft land on a strip of water. you could then have a crane to life the aircraft off the runway and to a parking spot much like the way they move trains off and onto tracks.

landing gear doesn't particularly help aircraft very much and one added component is one that could fail, so just shape the aircraft in some hydrodynamic shape and there you go,

it'll be SAFER, easier to MAINTAIN, and it'll even FLY BETTER since air and water are both considered "fluid". hydrodynamics and aerodynamics more closely related that you may think.

Answer 5

Passengers.  Price each ticket according to passenger and luggage weight.

Answer 6

I'm with mark...40 yrs ago average passenger was 140 to 160 lbs...now airlines must figure 180 to 200 AVERAGE...wow