Flying Kabobs.

VQ-BSK formerly of the Qatar Amiri Flight has been sold recently to the Turkish Government it's expected to become the Turkish President's Flying Palace, a fitting purchase for a large country sitting in the middle of the World.

Here is some info on the Aircraft in question. 

VQ-BSK LN 1468 MSN 42096 RC008 

New Reg has been reported but No pics so far. 

Now onto something a little bit more serious as all kabobs have skewers and the skewers in question come in the form of numbers and number analysis. We've all read comparison charts about performance and fuel consumption many many times and everybody agrees that at the current 747-8 is a Lemon. Yes it is sour and sadly deserves its place in the dustbin of failed products produced and sold at a whim.

But wait. 

There were sources out there that were saying that the fuel burn per seat of the 747-8 was better than the A380, 777-300ER or even the 777x models. In fact there was a graphic showing how the 747-8 had the 'BEST' fuel economy of any VLA and it even beat out the 777x models to boot. 

Really?

It all stems from a numbering exercise that BCA performed several  years ago adopting newer seating standards across their range of products. Some people distinctly remember back when the seating capacity of the 747-8i was 467 seats not the 405 seat figure we see today. Well as it turns out I got a little shock when I saw he number for myself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft To quote:

747-8,  467 seats, 6,000 nm mission,  10.54 kg/km  or 2.82 L/100 km per seat.

747-8,  405 seats, 7,200 nm mission,  10.9 kg/km  or 3.35 L/100 km per seat.

A380,   544 seats,  6,000 nm mission,  13.78 kg/km  or 3.16 L/100 km per seat

77W,   365 seats, 6,000 nm mission,  8.49 kg/km or 2.91 L/100 km per seat

779x     385 seats, 7,200 nmi  mission,  9.04 kg/km or 2.85 L/100 km per seat   (not shure abt dis one)

Are these numbers lying? Go check out the various as quoted sources from the original page in the footnotes. 

Basically it says that flying around a 747-8i with only 400 seats is not eco-friendly but check out the numbers of the other types one of them a twin seating about 100 less passengers. 

So in short, Airlines bought other aircraft because they didn't like 18 wheelers but bent over and bought 22 wheelers and 14 wheelers because the wheels were just rounder than the ones on the 18 wheeler. 

Seriously what are all the people doing looking at fixed numbers analysis based on numbers and stats rigged to prove that lemons are sour if they are yellow and not sour when their orange. Given that none of the Airlines that bought the other quad operates that aircraft close to the capacity as stated above one wonders what the real figures are, because I suppose you cant take ANY numbers for granted these days.

Can you say skew-ered? 

I can. Have a great weekend.