Originally Posted by mike734
A similar question often asked (in the old days) was: Say you need to dump 12000 pounds of fuel. Your aircraft can dump 100 gals a min. How long would it take? Now you could go to your E6-b and figure the density of the fuel for the tank temperature and figure the weight of a gallon. Then you could divide the 12000 pounds by your weight calculation and come up with an answer. I would rather just figure about 6 pounds per gal times 100 gals per hour divided in to 12000 = about 20 mins. Who would you rather hire?
BTW a really experienced 727 Capt. would just say, "I'd get the flight engr. to figure that out!"
Here's a good formula for that one (although I agree with the flight engineer answer!):
convert pounds to gallons:
12000 pounds;
drop last digit (divide by 10) = 1200
add half (1200+600) = 1800 gallons (roughly)
(12000 / 6.7 = 1791.04 gallons)