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Hi. I am not a pilot, but I am writing a book. A DC10 makes a re-fuelling stop late at night in Goose Bay. The pilot announces that we won't be on the ground too long, just long enough to pick up ??????? gallons of fuel to get us to Toronto. Not major importance, and doesn't have to be spot on .... but a close guess would be appreciated.

6k gallons. It's about 3k gallons an hour. I didn't flight plan for YYZ but 6k gives you a nice reserve.

Great, thanks for that. One last thing ..... reverse thrust - do they actually reverse the engines, or redirect the thrust forwards ??? Sorry to be so uneducated.

Reverse the thrust by redirection, reversing the engines is impossible.

There you go. I'm now educated ! Thanks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust_reversal

Dessert.

Similar to reverse in your car, you don't actually turn the engine the other way.

We did on my first tugboat John! As well as many of the ships I sailed in when I went offshore.

oh yeah? You mean there was no transmission?

Correct. My first diesel tug was a direct drive unit where we had to stop the engine (using compressed air) and restart it in reverse (again using compressed air) to back down. Not the best boat to use for docking by far. I used to run car ferries in NY harbor between Brooklyn and Jersey City with such a boat back when the earth was young:



All of the steam driven tugs were direct drive by design, as are almost all steam driven vessels, regardless of whether they're reciprocating or turbine driven. The exceptions of course would be steam vessels that are driven by electric propulsion units driven by steam powered generators (think nuclear powered Naval vessels, ice-breakers, etc.).

Even the largest vessels afloat nowadays, such as the Emma Maersk and her sisters, which are powered by the largest diesel engines presently manufactured (the Wärtsilä-Sulzer 14RTFLEX96-C) are direct drive, although augmented by multiple electrically or diesel driven bow and stern thruster units.

Interesting, thanks for that.

My pleasure John.