Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 (Tek) 9/26/83; site vice.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!tekcad!vice!keithl
From: keithl@vice.UUCP (Keith Lofstrom)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Airplanes gain weight (calculations)
Message-ID: <1305@vice.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 20-Feb-84 14:40:42 EST
Article-I.D.: vice.1305
Posted: Mon Feb 20 14:40:42 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 22-Feb-84 02:32:49 EST
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 45

It's odd that with all these computers around nobody even tries to base
their estimates on calculation ...

Here is the lung dose of the smokers on a 747.

     50 smoking passengers ( A 747 seats 360-490 )
  x   2 cigarettes/hr      ( two-pack-a-day smokers )
                           ( check:  that's 100 per hour - at 5 minutes / smoke
                             that's 8 smokers lit up, average.  I've seen more
                             than that on a 737, with 1/4 the passengers )
  x  15 mg tar/cigarette   ( typical filtered cigarette - lung dose only )
  x  12 hrs per day
  x 300 days per year      ( an airline that doesn't use it's planes much )
_______  ( the envelope, please )

   13.5 kg/yr = 30 lbs/yr

Now, that's what makes it through a filter into the lungs.  The other end isn't
filtered, and generates the bulk of the emissions.  200 pounds per year isn't
THAT unlikely.  ( a similar calculation for the butts at 1 gm each yields
800 pounds per year;  I doubt ihuxp!esac could even lift his own 10 year
accumulation of cigarette butts )   

   Where does it go?  Airliners are made with a pressurized aluminum hull,
INSULATION,  and thin plastic panelling.  If the main cabin is 50 meters long
and 6 meters across, just the inaccessable flat surfaces alone are 2000 square
meters.  If tar has a specific density of 3, a 900 kg (one ton) deposit would
leave a surface coating 150 microns thick on the flat surfaces.  Now, how
about the surface area of all that insulation?  And the ducts?  And the
cabling?  A coating too thin to see could do that.  If cigarette tar is
hygrosopic, even a smaller amount of tar could absorb water and account for
that weight change.

   Ah, well, I should be thankful that all those drug abusers (and nicotine
IS a drug) aren't using heroin instead.  The weight of all the broken 
hypodermic needles in the cracks in the floor would surely be much worse :-)

From the fiendish (and calculating) skies of:

-- 
Keith Lofstrom
uucp:	{ucbvax,decvax,chico,pur-ee,cbosg,ihnss}!teklabs!vice!keithl
CSnet:	keithl@tek
ARPAnet:keithl.tek@rand-relay