[Kern O]

I had one of those "I wonder" questions answered today. I flew from Los Angeles to Maui today on a 757-300 along with about 230 other people. That flight was about 2500 miles and the fuel used for the trip was 4790 gallons. That's just a bit more than .5 MPG to keep 220,000 pounds of aircraft in the sky. The plane uses almost 750 gallons for takeoff and climb to altitude, so at cruise it probably gets closer to .7 mpg. I find it stupid that we are looking at numbers for boats that are not that much higher, yet those boats weigh less than 5 percent of what that aircraft weighs.

Worse yet, they are pushing that plane at something over 500 mph. When I passed the first gas station here, where premium is over $4.00, I really am left to wonder how we can make a huge improvement in boat fuel consumption. I understand that boats are forever going uphill, but they ought to do better than just getting twice what 110 tons of aluminum does. The plane is not just going uphill. It is suspended off the ground. Yeah, I know that the lift helps a lot. But maybe Ocke Mannerfelt was onto something with the "Bat Boat".