On Mon, 30 Jun 2003 11:47:54 -0000, (Trevor
Fenn) wrote:

(The Enlightenment) wrote in


A330s will be in the Qantas inventory. The A330 has larger cargo
capaciy and is big enough not to require additional tankage.


Kinda hard to build a tanker without extra tankage.

Not hard at all actually.
On a 777-200ER, if you fill the tanks,
171,000 liters is about 301,000 pounds of fuel. EW is 320,000
pounds, and most operators have MGTOW's in the 620-630,000 pound
range. Add in the refueling gear, and well, you are probably going to
be constrained on the fuel load.

In otherwords, the standard tankage covers the entire spread between
EW and MGTOW in most configurations. The A330-200 and -300 are not
much different in that regard.

A330 has 130,000 liters fuel capacity, which is about 229,000 pounds.
EW on the A330 is 265-275,000 pounds, MGTOW is 513,000,
so with full tanks, it is 494,000-504,000 pounds. In other words
there is very little point in putting more tankgage in. The weight of
the tank will consume much of the available remaining lift capacity,
and even if the tank weigh nothing, 5000 liters is about the most
additional fuel you can hope to carry. That's not much of a tank.

My gut feel is the air to air refueling gear will eat up most of the
available weight left anyway. So additional tanks give only a very
small increase in capacity..