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Interesting engine's comparisions

The following graphs come from database of 750 jet engines - turbojet, turbofan, both civil and military. On the second part of this page the particular engines will be discussed.

Specific fuel consumpton's dependance on bypass ratio of turbofan engines

Some things are good to notice:

• Specific fuel consumption of low-bypass engines is pretty high on maximal thrust but relatively low on afterburner mode.
• Specific fuel consumption on maximal thrust significantly dropps with higher bypass ratio and is on very good value of 0.5 kg/kgf/h on engines with bypass ratio of 2. As you can see the afterburner is unusable on that high bypassity. Afterburner fuel burn rises over 2.5 kg/kgf/h but above all these engines are not suitable for combat planes. The reason is that outlet gas speed is lower and engine performance on higher speeds (around speed of sound and higher) is not so good.
  
• Fuel consumption still drops with rising bypass ratio and the lowest value is about 0.35 kg/kgf/h. Compare it with 0.8 kg/kgf/h on engines with low bypass ratio and you'll see a great difference.
• Cruise speed consumption (M=0.85, H=10 km) is a bit higher than maximal thrust consumption when staying on the ground (M=0, H=0) but still drops with higher bypass ratio.

Dependance of expected outlet gas speed on bypass ratio on turbofan engines.

The value is not the exact speed because thrust is also generated byl inlet-outlet pressure difference. The speed is calculated as a thrust divided by air flow.

Overall fuel consumption

Almost every engine profile on this web has specific fuel consumption (SFC) somewhere inside itself as one of the most important parameter of each engine. SFC's units are usually given as kg.N^-1.h^-1 nebo kg.kp^-1.h^-1 which is not goodly imaginable. What follows is a table with overall fuel consumptions of all installed engines on various airplanes and in various operational model. Unless otherwise indicated, the flight altitude is zero meters and speed is also zero Machs. Please take following informations only as a "interesting things" which does not indicate whether just that plane is less efficient than other one. The cause of the high fuel burn is offter higher overall thrust, not higher SFC.

airplane	engines	mode	overall consumption (kg/h)
L-13TJ	1x TJ100A	maximal	120
L-29	1x M-701	maximal	1013
MiG-17	1x VK-1F	maximal	4210
MiG-17	1x VK-1F	full afterburner	8810
MiG-19	2x RD-9B	maximal	4850
MiG-19	2x RD-9B	full afterburner	10400
MiG-21MF	1x R-13F-300	maximal	3933
MiG-21MF	1x R-13F-300	full afterburner	14826
MiG-25	2x R-15B-300	maximal	18750
MiG-25	2x R-15B-300	full afterburner	60480
MiG-29	2x RD-33	maximal	7515
MiG-29	2x RD-33	full afterburner	33382
MiG-29	2x RD-33	maximal, H=11km, M=0.9	2950
MiG-29	2x RD-33	full afterburner, H=11km, M=2	31500
MiG-29	2x RD-33	idle	670
MiG-31	2x D-30F6	maximal	13680
MiG-31	2x D-30F6	full afterburner	58900
Su-27	2x AL-31F	maximal	10200
Su-27	2x AL-31F	full afterburner	48000
F-15E	2x F100-PW-229	maximal	11712
F-15E	2x F100-PW-229	full afterburner	54370
JAS-39	1x RM12	maximal	4540
JAS-39	1x RM12	full afterburner	14700
Il-62	4x NK-8-4	maximal	24710
Il-62	4x NK-8-4	cruise	10870
An-225	6x D-18T	maximal	47800
An-225	6x D-18T	cruise, H=11km, M=0.75	15900
Boeing 747-400	4x CF6-80C2-A5	maximal	36000
Boeing 747-400	4x CF6-80C2-A5	cruise, H=11km, M=0.8	14000
Concorde	4x Olympus 593	full afterburner	96000
Concorde	4x Olympus 593	cruise, H=19km, M=2	22000 (guess)
Tu-144	4x NK-144A	vzletový, plná forsáž	132000
Tu-144	4x NK-144A	cestovní, M>2	36200
Tu-144	4x NK-144A	cestovní, M<1	11040
Tu-144	4x RD-36-51	cestovní, M>2	25700
Tu-160	4x NK-321	full afterburner	170000
Tu-160	4x NK-321	maximal (?)	40600
Su-7	1x AL-7F-1	maximal	6200
Su-7	1x AL-7F-1	full afterburner	19200

Overall aircraft consumption on cruise, maximal and full afterburner mode
L-29
MiG-17
MiG-19
JAS-39
MiG-21MF
Su-7
MiG-29
Su-27
F-15E
MiG-25
Concorde
Tu-144 (NK-144A)
Tu-144 (RD-36-51)
Tu-160
Il-62
747-400
An-225
* green - cruise * blue - maximal thrust * red - full afterburner

The taking-off MiG-25 burns more than 21 litres of fuel each second. Full afterburner on all four NK-321 engines of Tu-160 causes fuel flow of 60 liters per second. That makes the Tu-160 bomber most probably the thirstiest plane of the history, at least when full afterburner is on when staying on the ground.

Thrust to weight ratio (initial acceleration)

If you flew on a holiday with an airliner the initial acceleration probably suprised you a bit. The following table and graph lists various aircraft and car types. Calculated acceleration is in m.s^-2. For better imagination the acceleration of 5 m.s^-2 means, that the speed rises by 5 m/s each second. With no air drag the speed of 50 m/s is archived in 10 seconds.

The acceleration of cars in the table and graph is an average acceleration between 0 and 100 km/h. Initial acceleration is probably significantly higher. Following calculations do not take account of rolling-resistance force which lowers acceleration by a few percent.

In aviation the initial acceleration is proportional to thrust-to-weight ratio. When the ratio is over 1, the thrust is higher than the weight of the plane and teoretically the engines have enough power to lift the standing plane. Again it should be mentionet that these numbers are valid for uninstalled thrust. Installed thrust is a bit lower thus so is the thrust-to-weight ratio.

vehicle	engines	ratio with empty plane	ratio with maximal takeoff weight
A321-300	2x CFM56-5	0.583	0.301
A380-800	4x Trent 970	0.458	0.226
B737-500	2x CFM56-3B-1	0.579	0.3
B757-300	2x PW2043	0.681	0.322
L-39C	1x AI-25TL	0.498	0.366
MiG-21MF	1x R-13F-300	1.159	0.727
MiG-23MLD	1x R-35-300	1.355	0.721
MiG-29	2x RD-33	1.494	0.782
Su-25	2x R-95Sh	0.893	0.468
Su-27	2x AL-31F	1.529	0.759
Eur. Typhoon	2x EJ200	1.646	0.781
JAS-39	1x RM12	1.448	0.631
A-10	2x TF34	0.724	0.356
F-22	2x F119-PW-100	2.213	0.877
McLaren F1	461 kW	-	0.887
F1 (2003)	-	-	0.928
rocket dragster	-	-	9.116

Thrust to weight ratio
A321-300	2x CFM56-5	0.583	0.301
A380-800	4x Trent 970	0.458	0.226
B737-500	2x CFM56-3B-1	0.579	0.3
B757-300	2x PW2043	0.681	0.322
L-39C	1x AI-25TL	0.498	0.366
MiG-21MF	1x R-13F-300	1.159	0.727
MiG-23MLD	1x R-35-300	1.355	0.721
MiG-29	2x RD-33	1.494	0.782
Su-25	2x R-95Š	0.893	0.468
Su-27	2x AL-31F	1.529	0.759
Eur. Typhoon	2x EJ200	1.646	0.781
JAS-39	1x RM12	1.448	0.631
A-10	2x TF34	0.724	0.356
F-22	2x F119-PW-100	2.213	0.877
McLaren F1	461 kW	-	0.887
F1 (2003)	-	-	0.928
raketový Dragster	-	-	9.116

Poměr tahu ke hmotnosti
A380-800
B737-500
A321-300
B757-300
A-10
L-39C
Su-25
JAS-39
MiG-23MLD
MiG-21MF
Su-27
Typhoon
MiG-29
F-22
McLaren F1
F1 (2003)
* blue - acceleration with maximal takeoff weight * red - teoretical acceleration of empty plane * green - average acceleration of cars between 0 and 100 km/h

Engine thrust

engine	maximal thrust [kN]	thrust with afterburner [kN]
TJ100C (L-13TJ)	1	-
AI-25TL (L-39)	16.87	-
VK-1F (MiG-17)	26.47	33.12
R-13F-300 (MiG-21MF)	40.221	64.746
R-35-300 (MiG-23MLD)	84	127.5
R-15B-300 (MiG-25)	73.5	110
RD-33 (MiG-29)	49.44	81.42
AL-31F (Su-27)	74.5	122.5
TF30-PW-414A (F-14)	53.9	92.9
NK-321 (Tu-160)	137 (?)	245
CFM56-5B2 (A321)	137.9	-
Olympus 593 Mk.610 (Concorde)	139	170
D-18T (An-225)	229.85	-
Trent 977 (A380-400F)	350	-
GE90-115B (777-200LR)	513	-
GE90-115B (test)	547	-

Engine thrust
AI-25TL
VK-1F
R-13F-300
RD-33
TF30-PW-414A
R-15B-300
AL-31F
R-35-300
CFM56-5B2
Olympus 593 Mk.610
D-18T
NK-321
Trent 977
GE90-115B
GE90-115B (test)
* green - high-bypass engines * red - afterburner * blue - maximal thrust

Weight

The weight of aerial (jet) engines vary in wide range. The smallest ones weight few grams, are still in developement and ought to serve as power generators for troops. The weight of commonly used small jet engines for radio-controlled planes starts at 1 kg. Engines of modern fighter planes has the weight somewhere in range 300 to 2000 kg. The heaviest engines are used on airliners where weight of a single engine easily goes over 5 tons, the heaviest one is more than 8 tun GE90-115B.

engine	weight (kg)
Mercury (RC)	1.4
TJ100C (L-13TJ)	19
AI-25TL (L-39)	400
VK-1(MiG-15)	814
VK-1F (MiG-17)	1024
RD-33 (MiG-29)	1050
R-13F-300 (MiG-21MF)	1210
AL-31F (Su-27)	1570
TF30-PW-414A (F-14)	1905
CFM56 (A321)	2381
R-15B-300 (MiG-25)	2706
Olympus (Concorde)	3175
Trent 900 (A380)	5436
GE90-115B (777-200LR)	8283

Engines weight
TJ100C
AI-25TL
VK-1
VK-1F
RD-33
R-13F-300
AL-31F
TF30-PW-414A
CFM56
R-15B-300
Olympus
Trent 900
GE90-115B
* green - engines for airliners with high bypass ratio * red - engines with afterburner * blue - other engines

Size

Engine's price

engine	year	millions of USD
RD-33	1993	1.8
F100-PW-220	1990	3.33
M88-2	1990	3.4
M53-P2	1990	3.0
F101-GE-102	1985	3.73
F110-GE-100	1985	2.9 - 3.2
RM12	1990	2.9
RB199 Mk. 105	1990	3.35 - 3.65
EJ200	1990	4.2
AL-31FN	1998	3.75
AL-31FN (mass production for China)	2005	approx. 3.25-3.5
F119-PW-100	2004	9.5 mil. $
F135 (malosérie 16 motorů)	2007	3.75 mil. $
F414-GE-400	1998	4.0 mil. $
AL-55I (odhad)	2005 ?	0.5-0.7 mil. $
RD-1700 (odhad)	2005 ?	0.5-0.7 mil. $
PW4000-94 (?, B747)	2010 ?	8 mil. $
PW4090 (B777)	2010 ?	10 - 12 mil. $
F414 (99 ks pro Indii)	2012	5.5 mil. $
J44 (jednorázový pro řízené střely)	1956	4800 liber
J44 (booster)	1956	7200 liber

Please note, that all thrusts in all comparisions are for uninstalled engines. Installed thrust on fighter planes is about 75% of uninstalled thrust, big subsonic planes have it about 90%. The higher the airspeed, the higher the percents, at least for fighters.

Last update: 24.10.2007 & 7.4.2008