DUBAI – Airbus will offer fuel-saving winglets on its A320 family aircraft beginning in 2012.
The specially designed ‘sharklets’ will provide a 3.5% fuel burn savings on routes longer than 1500 nm. Air New Zealand will launch the new sharklets at the end of 2012 as part of its recent order for A320 aircraft. Airbus says the A321 and A319 will follow in 2013. Airbus has not yet decided if it will offer the winglet on the A318.
Airbus claims the winglets will offer a boost of 110 nm in range or a payload increase of 500 kg or about 2 passengers.
The winglets will not be offered as a retrofit, but Airbus says it is working with Aviation Partners to provide a simpler design on existing A320 aircraft.
The volume of space taken up by 500 kgs of cargo quite often is less than that taken up by us lighter weigh humans.
The average male passenger is considered to be approximately 90kg (with luggage). Two of them would be 180 kgs. Then you got to consider that most passengers would really like a seat to set in so you need to consider the amount of room the seat takes up and the amount of space it occupies.
Whatever happened to the good ol’ days when you could tell a DC-8 from a 707 by looking at the vertical stab, a DC-9 from a 727 by the number of engines, or an L-1011 from a DC-10 from looking at the tail section!?! Now you gotta look at how close the main gear are!?!
Eh - I think I can tell a 737 from a 320 from a distance by looking at shape of the fuselage. But these designers today… they’re gonna have to STOP lookin’ over each other’s shoulders and start doin’ their own homework!
To be honest, the harder ones for me to identify are between the B737 models.
The -200, -800, and -900 are the easiest. The -500 is a bit harder. But it’s more of a pain differentiating between the -400 and -700, and -300 and -700. All of this mind you, not taking the eyebrows into account. throw in the winglets, and it’s tough.
One thing I’ve noticed with the sharklets here, is that they aren’t as blended as the APB blended winglets. They are a bit more raked as you extend up onto the sharklet from the wing.
You got me to do something I’ve been putting off, namely to look at pictures of the 737 series and determine good points to look for in determining the model number
-100 (are any still flying) and -200 have round engines without any pylons. The -200 is a few feet longer
-300 has flat bottom engine nacelles. 1 overwing exit window on each side. (Southwest’s fairings (or whatever they are called - the things on the bottom of the wings) are not painted)
-400 has flat bottom engine nacelles. 2 overwing exit windows on each side
-500 has flat bottom engine nacelles. 1 overwing exit window on each side. About 7 or 8 windows in front of wing (Southwest’s fairings (or whatever they are called - the things on the bottom of the wings) are not painted)
-600 looks like the -500. Hard to determine the differences
-700 Wings look too long (Southwest’s fairings (or whatever they are called - the things on the bottom of the wings) are painted orange)
-800 lots more fuselage forward of the wing than behind it. 2 overwing exit windows on both sides
-900 same as -800 - hard to determine difference
The eyebrow windows are on many of the 737s but the currently produced ones do not have them. Many 737s are having he eyebrow windows removed
One way to differentiate between Airbus A320 family (A318 through A321) and B737 is the nose: the A320 family has a more rounded nose.
David, that was a really good post. It would have be a GREAT post had you linked to pictures of each model. Nonetheless, very informative post…Thank you.
Between the -800 and -900: The -900 has a stretched fuselage; almost to the length of the B757. one of the overwing exit doors appears to be over the engine, and if you look closer, some models (namely the -900ER) have an exit door between the wing doors and the tail, in the aft section.
When quoting posts with pictures, too many people think it’s okay to quote the entire post, including pictures. This results in several copies of the same picture.
I looked at several pictures of each model. It would have been difficult to determine which one to post.
My pleasure in doing this research.
I should have posted where I found the pictures: Jetphotos.net. More pictures are available at airliners.net but I like the search engine at Jetphototos better.
It’s amazing that the 737, a small, short ranged aircraft, has come so far in the 40 years or so it’s been produced. The -900ER can actually carry more pax than the 707 and go just as far.
Isn’t the full size door between the aft doors and the wing put there so that it can carry more than 189 pax?
