Range and Endurance

Both the range and endurance of an aircraft depends on rate of fuel consumption of the engine, and therefore, on the type of engine that is involved - output measured in terms of thrust or output measured in terms of power. We generally consider the range to be the distance the aircraft can fly from a given speed and altitude until it runs out of fuel and the endurance as the time it takes to run out of fuel. As one might expect, there is a flight condition that will give us the best range for a given aircraft, and a different flight condition that will give us maximum endurance. In this section we are interested in determining: 1. Flight conditions for maximum endurance 2. Flight conditions for maximum range 3. Computing range and endurance for any given flight condition
Of interest to us are two measures of fuel consumption. For maximum endurance, we are interested in determining the fuel consumed per unit time:

EQUATION

As indicated previously, the fuel consumption is related to the type of power plant with which an aircraft is equipped. The results being different depending on if the aircraft is equipped with an engine whose output is measured in terms of thrust or in terms of power.