Talk:Range (aeronautics)

still need to be further defined, yet to come poppe 11:34, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

It is more efficient for jet aircraft to use a cruise climb profile maintaining constant lift to drag ratio and Mach number. Gordon Vigurs 10:45, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Range data from some aircraft type/models
Wouldn't it be useful to have a small list with some of the absolute ranges that different of the most common aircraft types are capable of? Ellamosi 16:34, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

combat range
Many Wikipedia entries give 'combat range' which I assume is the range with a given standard payload? --Mrg3105 08:39, 28 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Combat radius, as the name implies, refers to military aircraft, which fly mission profiles dictated by operational constraints, rather than cruise efficiency, which is the principal consideration in this article.Gordon Vigurs 17:48, 31 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I wonder in how many places 'range' or 'combat range' and 'combat radius' are being mixed up. Heck I grew up thinking that 'range' always meant 'radius' for any type of combat aircraft *except* transports.  For transports and all other civilian aircraft, radius is kinda pointless to mention.  67.68.44.160 (talk) 02:56, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Vehicles with unchanging weight
Maybe it would be a good idea to include range for things like battery powered UAVs (the RQ-11 comes to mind) or model airplanes that run on batteries and thus according to this equation would have a range of zero since dW/dt = 0. Found a derivation here: http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/907FCE40-3151-4112-85E3-7E95BCD944B8/0/u01_ps01_sol.pdf

That claims that for battery powered flight, range is equal heating value of batteries multiplied by prop efficiency and CL/CD then divided by weight. I'm not sure how accurate his derivation is. 128.180.115.41 (talk) 05:30, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Ranking of long-range aircrafts
I would like to see such a list. __meco (talk) 10:12, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

A, B, C
Nice equations but what do the Letters stand for? --77.1.155.73 (talk) 10:58, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Derivation
Edited so that W is always mass in kg: Wg now used for weight in N. Maybe M would be a better symbol in this case, unless W is too conventional?

Note that dW/W (or the logarithm on integration) is dimensionless, so in this range integral the dimensions of W do not matter.

Also, the meaning of the statement about analytic expression should be clarified, and probably moved earlier. The range expression with the logarithm follows directly from the preceding integral without any (further) assumptions.USER NAME


 * Ideally I would have used M in my revisions but W seems to be conventional. What ever the units (as long as they self consistent) weight is a force (though in everyday talk we all use mass units: kg, lbs etc). As you note, often it doesn't matter which of mass or weight we use, but it does once we include other, non-gravitation forces like lift (N or whatever imp unit you choose). In my youth in the UK the rich and confusing collection of imp force units (eg lb wt, which is a weight/force} were still in use; a horror show in my view that later was mercifully removed by metric units (cgs or MKS). But each to their own, as long as the units are self consistent!TSRL (talk) 14:25, 9 April 2021 (UTC)