Perhaps I stated it poorly.
What if you bought the airplane to fly a particular long range route that was just barely capable per the promised literature, and then due to political/overflight fees/authorizations, winds, airways, terrain, takeoff performance, etc. you were unable to fly the route without an intermediate fuel stop or leaving passengers behind?
Why would an airline do this? Surely they wouldn’t look at Boeing’s or Airbus’ website and say “ah, the 7×7/A3xx will fly x nm”. Great, we need them to fly to x airports. Let me see, x airport is x miles away. Ok, it should do it”
Alot of planning goes on behind the scenes before contracts are signed. Routes are worked out, route distances are worked out, cost basings are worked out, performance is worked out (already known by the manufacturer) etc etc etc. Only then if the plane fits the airlines will purchase. Unfortunately Ship it isn’t as black and white as you put it.
The effective range of the aircraft in actual service is reduced due to these considerations, and the airline might have a claim against a manufacturer.
The effective range is never reduced. Do you really think the airlines would purchase an a/c that would “only just fit the bill” as far as range goes? Don’t you think this is asking for trouble? No airline in their right mind would go into this with their eyes shut.
And the airline might have a claim against a manufacturer.
And you really think this would stand up in court?
/Mr Airline – “ah, but Mr Airbus said this plane would fly x miles, but we didn’t do our planning right and realised that the aircraft didn’t make x airport by 100nm, we had to tech stop.”
/Mr Judge – “hmm, so how many miles did it actually fly?”
/Mr Airline – “Well it did actually fly x miles, but because of routings the great circle distance path was shorter than what was flown”
/Mr Judge – “so it did actually fly what was stated?”
/Mr Airline – “er yes, technically, it flew x miles as stated but because of routings it fell short”
/Mr Judge – “Get out of my court, how dare you waste my time”.
Sorry Ship, it absurd to a) think airlines wouldn’t do their homework & b) to assume they’d have a case against the manufacturer because over certain parts of the globe a re-route means more miles to fly.
I know what Ship741 is saying and he has a good point.
There is no point to Ship’s point, if the manufacturer states that their a/c will fly x miles and it actually can, then that is the end of discussion. Like the ol’ advert that used to be on here – Ronseal (Boeing?), it does exactly what it says on the tin
So an aircraft that can supposedly fly 1000nm might only be able to reach places approx 800nm away on the Great Circle route.
How is this the manufacturer’s problem?
Come on Gents, surely your not that naive as to think a manufacturer will publish what routes it can achieve, this is why it states the range it will achieve.
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