Fuel Tanks & Fuel: Fact File!

Aircraft need fuel to fly – but it isn’t quite the same sort that you put in a car. Aviation fuel isn’t petrol or diesel It’s a type of kerosene, which is a thicker and more oily fuel, and which is sometimes use to heat homes!

A passenger plane uses about 19 litres of fuel for every mile it travels.  This means that on a trip to somewhere like Spain which is a thousand mile journey, the plane will use 19,000 litres of fuel.

By comparison, your school water bottle probably holds just half of one litre of water! And where is all this fuel kept?  It might not be in the place you expect – on passenger planes the fuel tanks are normally in the wings of the aircraft!

The tanks have to be extremely secure because fuel is flammable – which means it can explode if it catches on fire. Renewable energy
Six percent of all the energy we use on the planet is used for air travel and that’s why scientists are keen to find new fuels for aeroplanes which are renewable… they are experimenting making some with algae!

Engineers are always working on ways to help planes use less fuel – by designing them to be lighter and building even more efficient engines.

Click here to find out more about planes!

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Amy Aviation with support from the Royal Aeronautical Society. Click here to find out more.