Could an A340-500 do routes such as DTW-PER, EZE-PVG, PKU-UIO, and SYX-ARI? (Not for commercial purposes)

Too far, well beyond EWR-SIN. No point in the routes, but conceivably a private version with extra tankage could.

GF

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

Too far, well beyond EWR-SIN. No point in the routes, but conceivably a private version with extra tankage could.

GF

SYX-ARI/ARI-SYX are questionable since ARI's only runway is 7100 ft

I know that Sheldon Adelson does some crazy flights (TLV-HNL for example) in his private A340-500. I am not sure if he has AUX tanks fitted on it or if it can do that when it is so lightly loaded without them.

SierraPacific wrote:

I know that Sheldon Adelson does some crazy flights (TLV-HNL for example) in his private A340-500. I am not sure if he has AUX tanks fitted on it or if it can do that when it is so lightly loaded without them.

7531 nmi / 13948 km. About 16-17 hours.

How many aux tanks would you need to fit to an MD-11 to do 11000 nmi of range?

(Yes, the MD-11 and A340 are tied for my second favourite airplanes after the 747)

OT but isnt the longest range aircraft technically the KC10?

TWA772LR wrote:

OT but isnt the longest range aircraft technically the KC10?

With 365,000 pounds of fuel on board
I think you may be right

If it uses it all for itself on a ferry flight
I think it would probably outrange anything


With next to zero payload that is !

Lest anyone forget, the A340-542X had a range of 9,000nm.

a 777 or 350 bizjet would go the furthest
in commercial service, the 359U will outrange anything presently flying by far
upcoming, the 778 will ultimately carry more payload to any range the 359U will fly
a military tanker consuming its tankage fuel however is another animal in terms of range and would outrange anything

acjbbj wrote:

Could an A340-500 do routes such as DTW-PER, EZE-PVG, PKU-UIO, and SYX-ARI? (Not for commercial purposes)

Via service bulletin I believe up to 5 additional centre tanks can be installed, each of them are 7200l/5200 kg capacity. That would raise the range to around 12500 nm. No idea if anyone actually installed them in service, there was one A340-8000 floating around at one stage.

zeke wrote:

Via service bulletin I believe up to 5 additional centre tanks can be installed, each of them are 7200l/5200 kg capacity. That would raise the range to around 12500 nm. No idea if anyone actually installed them in service, there was one A340-4000 floating around at one stage.

The A340-8000 (A340-213X) was evidently equipped with three additional center tanks in the hold raising the total fuel volume to a reported 155,040 liters for it's listed 8000nm design range.

The additional centre tanks on the wide bodies are the shape of two LD3s, fit into any wide body hold. They are 7200 litres capacity each with a weight of 615 kg each.

More details in FAST 35 https://www.airbus.com/content/dam/corp ... FAST35.pdf

zeke wrote:

The additional centre tanks on the wide bodies are the shape of two LD3s, fit into any wide body hold. They are 7200 litres capacity each with a weight of 615 kg each.

More details in FAST 35 https://www.airbus.com/content/dam/corp ... FAST35.pdf

How much more range would an MD-11 get with seven of these?

Well you’d exceed the MTOW with zero payload, so you’d need to re-engineer that. The 7 tanks hold about 90,000# less the extra fuel burn over about 14 hours carrying the tanks and the weight of fuel , so about an extra 60-65,000 pounds of extra range. Call it 3 more hours as back of the envelope calculation. 1300nm, maybe.

GF

zeke wrote:

acjbbj wrote:

Could an A340-500 do routes such as DTW-PER, EZE-PVG, PKU-UIO, and SYX-ARI? (Not for commercial purposes)

Via service bulletin I believe up to 5 additional centre tanks can be installed, each of them are 7200l/5200 kg capacity. That would raise the range to around 12500 nm. No idea if anyone actually installed them in service, there was one A340-8000 floating around at one stage.

AFAIK only one ACT available for the -600 (fwd cargo hold, can keep the aft crew rest), one for the-300 (aft cargo hold, requires revoming of the MCR Crew Rest). None for the-500.

Airbus once throwed a big ACT on a -200 (World Ranger) to make a Flight Le Bourget - Auckland and back nonstop, but never sold this solution officially.

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

Well you’d exceed the MTOW with zero payload, so you’d need to re-engineer that. The 7 tanks hold about 90,000# less the extra fuel burn over about 14 hours carrying the tanks and the weight of fuel , so about an extra 60-65,000 pounds of extra range. Call it 3 more hours as back of the envelope calculation. 1300nm, maybe.

GF

For the passenger version? What about (say) a VIP jet converted from a (later-build, post-PIP) freighter version?

The MTOW 630,500, not increase in that and add up the BOW, internal fuel and the additional tanks (90,000-ish) and it exceeds 630,500. I can’t say about later PIPs or a theoretical VIP conversion.

Wer’e talking about the MD-11.

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

The MTOW 630,500, not increase in that and add up the BOW, internal fuel and the additional tanks (90,000-ish) and it exceeds 630,500. I can’t say about later PIPs or a theoretical VIP conversion.

Wer’e talking about the MD-11.

Delta operated two MD11's with the additional aux tanks. Roughly 26,000 # additional fuel. These two tanks were LD3 conformal designs. I personally I have seen LAX to HKG legs in excess of 15:30, and a few around 16:00 hours landing with bare minimum reserves. They operated a single MD11 with just a single tank set up for PDX-TPE. One side effect of this dedicated configuration was that EVERY takeoff was at full power and consequently the fuel degradation factor after a year or so made it difficult at best to complete these legs without a westbound technical stop, usually at TPE.

I'm guessing a B777-200LR would be in the running. Already a long haul plane, A privately owned one would be carrying less payload than an airline version leaving a lot of weight carrying ability for fuel. With the large cargo area capacity could install a number of aux tanks.

slcguy wrote:

I'm guessing a B777-200LR would be in the running. Already a long haul plane, A privately owned one would be carrying less payload than an airline version leaving a lot of weight carrying ability for fuel. With the large cargo area capacity could install a number of aux tanks.

The 777-200LR with 3 aux tanks (max certified) flew from HKG to LHR (not exactly direct - HKG to 35N180W to LAX to JFK to LHR) 12,173nm in 22hrs 42 min. It had enough fuel on landing to have continued flight to TLS (with legal reserves) for about 12,700 nm with a time airborne of over 24 hours. There were 35 people on board. As it was a flight test airplane not all the seats were installed but galleys, lavatories and some flight test equipment was.

I don’t see the point to these ULH routings—get out the plane, stretch, enjoy the lounge, get on a fresh plane/crew and fly to your destination. About the 12th hour, it’s way too stale, the cabin’s a mess. Especially on a bizjet—anything past 10 or 11 hours is seriously ridiculous—trash builds up, not enough room for crew rest, storing all that food and drink becomes a problem. Stop enjoy the fresh, check out a new restaurant, relax, take a shower, get some Marriott points.

Yes, I’ve flown the EWR-SIN flight along with EWR-EDDF-SIN SQ flight on the A380 plus a number of NYC-DXB flights and dozens of 12+ bizjets legs and a few 8+ hour fighter deployments, so I have a taste of it all.

GF

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

I don’t see the point to these ULH routings—get out the plane, stretch, enjoy the lounge, get on a fresh plane/crew and fly to your destination. About the 12th hour, it’s way too stale, the cabin’s a mess. Especially on a bizjet—anything past 10 or 11 hours is seriously ridiculous—trash builds up, not enough room for crew rest, storing all that food and drink becomes a problem. Stop enjoy the fresh, check out a new restaurant, relax, take a shower, get some Marriott points.

Yes, I’ve flown the EWR-SIN flight along with EWR-EDDF-SIN SQ flight on the A380 plus a number of NYC-DXB flights and dozens of 12+ bizjets legs and a few 8+ hour fighter deployments, so I have a taste of it all.

GF

Prestige and time saving. Also a private A345 or B77L isn't going to have a trash or food storage problem. A lightly loaded widebody isn't going to either.

Agent wrote:

AFAIK only one ACT available for the -600 (fwd cargo hold, can keep the aft crew rest), one for the-300 (aft cargo hold, requires revoming of the MCR Crew Rest). None for the-500.

Airbus once throwed a big ACT on a -200 (World Ranger) to make a Flight Le Bourget - Auckland and back nonstop, but never sold this solution officially.

No technical reason why you could not add an 3xACT to the A340-500, only reason you dont is it already goes way further than anyone really needs.

Pellegrine wrote:

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

I don’t see the point to these ULH routings—get out the plane, stretch, enjoy the lounge, get on a fresh plane/crew and fly to your destination. About the 12th hour, it’s way too stale, the cabin’s a mess. Especially on a bizjet—anything past 10 or 11 hours is seriously ridiculous—trash builds up, not enough room for crew rest, storing all that food and drink becomes a problem. Stop enjoy the fresh, check out a new restaurant, relax, take a shower, get some Marriott points.

Yes, I’ve flown the EWR-SIN flight along with EWR-EDDF-SIN SQ flight on the A380 plus a number of NYC-DXB flights and dozens of 12+ bizjets legs and a few 8+ hour fighter deployments, so I have a taste of it all.

GF

Prestige and time saving. Also a private A345 or B77L isn't going to have a trash or food storage problem. A lightly loaded widebody isn't going to either.

Well, yes, a private A340 doesn’t have a storage problem until the entourage these folks bring with them fill things up. The time saving, at least in a bizjet, is small, even in places like India, a tech stop is an hour.

GF

The A340-500 was intended to do a flight like LHR-PER (a flight that now exists on a premium-heavy B789 nonstop both ways) nonstop eastbound, but the return trip would have required a fuel stop. Now, the higher-MTOW A345 was ordered by Kingfisher with 5 examples to do BLR-SFO, but Kingfisher went kaput. One today is a VIP frame for the Turkish government, and the others were never used to their full capability.

acjbbj wrote:

Could an A340-500 do routes such as DTW-PER, EZE-PVG, PKU-UIO, and SYX-ARI? (Not for commercial purposes)

The BBJ 777-8 and BBJ-777-9 both have the official stated range to go between antipodes (~20,000km/10800 nmi/12500 miles). The A340-500, 777-200LR, A350-XWB-ULR in private hands could likely be rigged up for the job with no payload and or with extra tanks. B-52 can likely pull off some extreme range/endurance feats with some tweaking - supposedly it did at one point a 20,000km flight from DNA-TOJ with the route DNA-NRT-SEA-DFW-DCA-TOJ.

zeke wrote:

Agent wrote:

AFAIK only one ACT available for the -600 (fwd cargo hold, can keep the aft crew rest), one for the-300 (aft cargo hold, requires revoming of the MCR Crew Rest). None for the-500.

Airbus once throwed a big ACT on a -200 (World Ranger) to make a Flight Le Bourget - Auckland and back nonstop, but never sold this solution officially.

No technical reason why you could not add an 3xACT to the A340-500, only reason you dont is it already goes way further than anyone really needs.

Technically spoken, anything is possible

But the TC holder didnt offer it, no STCs available. Boeing offered the ACT Option for the 77L from the shelf, so they are there. Coversion/certification would simply be not viable. You could do the same to A321 CEO (where an STC Option for more ACTs in the front cargo hold exists), with lots of compromises

Agent wrote:

Technically spoken, anything is possible

But the TC holder didnt offer it, no STCs available. Boeing offered the ACT Option for the 77L from the shelf, so they are there. Coversion/certification would simply be not viable. You could do the same to A321 CEO (where an STC Option for more ACTs in the front cargo hold exists), with lots of compromises

The additional tank in the rear cargo hold was offered by Airbus I do not know which if any operators elected to install. Provides an additional 16 tonnes of fuel.

Hi Zeke,

Thanks for that drawing! This seems to be the 7 frame RCT Option. The 5 frame RCT was standard, with the option of 7 frame. This is no ACT, but a bigger RCT which is fix installed. TCDS shows this option with additional 7900ltr, wich is pretty much the same amount as on your drawing. It makes a total of 222,010ltr against 214,422ltr on the 5 frame version. Pretty amazing. Dont know if anyone opted for it, maybe some first hand VIP customers. According TCDS it was only availbale for the-541 which is a bit odd to me.

Agent wrote:

Hi Zeke,

Thanks for that drawing! This seems to be the 7 frame RCT Option. The 5 frame RCT was standard, with the option of 7 frame. This is no ACT, but a bigger RCT which is fix installed. TCDS shows this option with additional 7900ltr, wich is pretty much the same amount as on your drawing. It makes a total of 222,010ltr against 214,422ltr on the 5 frame version. Pretty amazing. Dont know if anyone opted for it, maybe some first hand VIP customers. According TCDS it was only availbale for the-541 which is a bit odd to me.

I would think the 7-frame RCT would have been offered on that -542X as well.

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

I don’t see the point to these ULH routings—get out the plane, stretch, enjoy the lounge, get on a fresh plane/crew and fly to your destination.

You basically listed the answer(s) without even realizing:
the point of ULH routings, is that there are both business and leisure people who have no desire to do any of the above, AND who will pay a premium to avoid them and get where they're going as swiftly/directly as possible.

That may not be your preference, but it's clearly many others'. What's not to understand?

h1fl1er wrote:

in commercial service, the 359U will outrange anything presently flying by far

No it won't.

By Boeing's numbers, a 772LR with all optional tankage will do 9300nm with 301 pax + bags. Knock that down to the same 161pax that SQ configures for its A359ULRs, and you'll easily get similar range performance.

Fuel economy not so much, but it certainly wouldn't be "outranged by far"

LAX772LR wrote:

GalaxyFlyer wrote:

I don’t see the point to these ULH routings—get out the plane, stretch, enjoy the lounge, get on a fresh plane/crew and fly to your destination.

You basically listed the answer(s) without even realizing:
the point of ULH routings, is that there are both business and leisure people who have no desire to do any of the above, AND who will pay a premium to avoid them and get where they're going as swiftly/directly as possible.

That may not be your preference, but it's clearly many others'. What's not to understand?

You got it!

I'm about to do my second trip to Tasmania from the UK this year and will likely do another 1 or 2 before the end of the year. Is it nice to stretch your legs? Sure but that isn't really my experience on transfers or layovers, it's normally a mad rush to make sure that you are back to the gate in time or a drab bit of waiting in a shopping mall where you can no longer see the planes and somehow your bag has got 6x heavier.

If I'm flying with work and its a long way its in business class (leg stretching not an issue) if I am flying on my own pennies (so family are coming) then I would rather not having the stress of herding cats through a large transit hub! Direct all the way!

Fred