The Boeing 747-8 is the latest series of the large, long-range wide-body airliners. The data for the Boeing
747-8 are as follows:
• Wing Span: 224.4 ft
• Wing platform area: 5963 ft²
• Maximum weight at takeoff: 987,000 lbs
• Fuel Capacity: 64,225 US gal of jet fuel (jet fuel density 6.67 lbs/ US gal)
• Power plant: 4 Turbofan Engines (General Electric GEnx-2B67B), each engine with maximum thrust
at sea level of 66,500 lbf and a specific fuel consumption of 0.55 lb/(hr-lbf).
Note that: a specific fuel consumption of 0.55 lb/(hr-lbf) means that for each pound of thrust the engine
produces, it consumes about 0.55 pounds of fuel per hour. For instance, if an engine produces 66,500
pounds of thrust (the maximum thrust level for the GEnx-2B67B), and has an SFC of approximately
0.55 lb/(hr-lbf), the total fuel consumption for that engine would be around 36,575 pounds of fuel per
hour (66,500 lbf thrust \times 0.55 lb/(hr\cdot lbf)).
We will approximate the drag polar for this airplane by
$C_D = C_{D0} + KC_L^2$
where $C_{D0}$ and $K$ are obtained from Figure 1.
0.09
0.08
0.07
0.06
0.05
0.04
0.03
0.02
0.01
$C_{D0} = 0.0184$
$K = 0.0484$
-0.2
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
$C_L$
Figure 1: Drag polar for Boeing 747-8
Using the above information, solve the following problems:
